Craig Laundy (Reid, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Unexplained Wealth and Other Measures) Bill 2014 and to applaud the minister for it. The member for Moreton wanted a champion for this cause. I will take some time this afternoon to speak in support of the bill, to explain that I understand what organised crime looks like on the front lines. I note with interest that I am listed to be followed by the member for Fowler, Chris Hayes, who is a former policeman, as are the member for Macarthur, Russell Matheson, and the member for La Trobe, Jason Wood, on my side of the chamber. If there are any other former police officers in this place I apologise for not knowing. Mr Hayes is entering the chamber as we speak.

I have said a number of times that my background is different. At 21 years of age I became a western suburbs publican, the third generation of my family to do that. I think my father, who is as hard as nails—Chris Hayes knows him well—wanted to check out whether I had the DNA to do the work. So at 21 I started work at the Granville Hotel. On one side of me was a brothel and over the road was a methadone clinic. It was an early opener; it would open at 5 am. The number of times that I would have to call the local police to come and help me, because of the methadone clinic; at 21 years of age I kicked in my first toilet door. I pulled out a young man who had a needle hanging out of his arm and who had no pulse. I attempted to revive him but failed. That was the first of 29 times that that has happened in my life. I have seen on the front line the harm that drugs do. I have been held up at gunpoint and at knifepoint. I have attended more armed hold-ups than I care to remember, like my colleagues in the police. The only drama is that I do not have a gun at my side. The police would always respond in a timely fashion and help us out. We have had people shot and killed in the beer gardens of our hotels. My family hotel, the Twin Willows at Bass Hill, is only five minutes from where the Milperra massacre occurred. I do not have to tell anyone here about that.

It is all well and good to attack the problem we are dealing with on the front lines, which we must. It is a dual approach. The reason I am such a strong supporter of this bill is—and it is sad to say it—the people engaged in organised crime are some of the best business minds we have in this country. Every other business in this country that operates on a cash flow basis has the option of putting the money in the bank, and that is what they do. I know, because I have done it. The people engaged in organised crime do not have that option. They have to launder the money, and that is complicated. It requires skill. I have watched media and politicians dance around the outside and come up with pieces of the puzzle my entire life. But standing on the front lines, standing toe to toe with a bikie, as I know the member for Fowler has done, and telling him to leave your place of business because he has his colours on, knowing that he is there to sell drugs but not whether he has a gun on his hip, is a daunting thing to do. It is why I am so passionate and determined to be a champion, as the member for Moreton asked.

They have to launder the money and they do it in certain ways. There are some great stories doing the rounds. It reaches far and wide. Take the union royal commission. There has been a lot of press about organised crime getting involved on union sites. They launder the money on those union sites. The part that everyone has missed so far is that they launder it in two ways. They use cash to pay bribes, which gets them access and is a way for them to get rid of the cash without having to put it in the bank. They then run the business, be it scaffolding or labour hire, which are the two you most commonly see. They operate the businesses at a loss, which allows them to hide the cash they funnelled through a legitimate business. They are very, very good at it. We need to attack them in the back end with accountants, which is what this bill does.

The drama in Western Sydney and the reason this is such a strong issue is that organised crime deals in drugs and guns. In the last six years we have seen through Western Sydney—it is something else that has been missed—an unintended consequence of the global financial crisis. Our economy has stayed strong. Our currency has appreciated in value. At the same time, our country has become a mecca for drug lords from around the world to replace markets they had elsewhere pre-GFC and that have crumbled. This is an effect that no one has picked up on. You do not have to read too far. In the Daily Telegraph two days ago there was a headline 'Violent Mexican cartels reached Australia'. The Australian Crime Commission has worked out that they are here and are setting up. Why? Because the market has collapsed where they were selling their drugs. The profits that come from the drugs here are far, far superior because of the strength of our economy and the strength of our currency. It is happening day by day.

But what did we see? At the same time we had the GFC occurring, we saw some disturbing trends on the front-lines at our borders. From 2007 to 2012-13, our air cargo screenings decreased by 25 per cent, our sea cargo screenings decreased by 25 per cent and our mail inspections decreased by 30 per cent. The results are that the drugs seized in the last six years have decreased by 28 per cent and the guns seized in the last six years have decreased by 33 per cent. Where are they? They are in seats like Reid, they are in seats like Fowler and they are in seats like Chifley. They are in Western Sydney. Whilst I have read you an article from the Daily Telegraph about drug cartels, you do not have to pick up a paper. Every two or three days you see drive by shootings occurring, which is on the other side of the fence.

As the member for Moreton mentioned, we had the absurdity of the job that the former minister, the member for Blaxland, did. In October 2012, and it remains a record today, in Regents Park—about 500 metres from my electorate boundary—585 kilograms of ice was picked up at a street value of $430 million. Ice is a major issue. You once again just have to pick up a paper. But the result was in our own minister's backyard and in my backyard. We have this result. Scott Morrison, the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, whilst in opposition had 30 Glock pistols mailed to a mailbox at a post office in his electorate within 30 days of their manufacture. They are the weapons that are being used. They are the product that is being sold and the weapons that are being used to generate the profits that this bill aims to attack.

We need to be smart with how we attack it. It is bills like this that will enable us to do that. I say this all the time: if anyone in this chamber, whether you are staff or parliamentarians, if you ask the question of how you bought your home, how you bought your car or how you paid for the what you have on your wrist, you would have an answer. They are the questions we need to ask the crooks. That is reality of what this bill does. This bill gives us a framework to work with our state colleagues.

The member for Moreton claims that it does not go far enough. That is fine. As the champions of this, we need to keep pushing on that front. It is not policeman standing in the front-line who will be the silver bullet or the panacea for this. Forensic accountants are as important as front-line police officers to attack the networks sitting behind the cash-flow businesses, which are distributing this cash flow in ways that have—up to this point in time—been far smarter than we have been able to catch.

The people of Reid and Western Sydney have put up with this problem on an increasing scale. It has been frustrating in my path to this place to have stood for last 23 years on the front-lines; to have kicked in those doors and to pull to young people out, dead, and be unable to revive them; to have been a victim of crime; to have seen drugs distributed and to have worked with our local policeman and women, who do such an amazing job. But I knew at the same time, because I have been raised in business myself, that we are only attacking in earnest the front two-thirds of the problem: the border and the enforcement. It is the proceeds we need to attack; it is the missing piece of the puzzle. It has been for a long, long time.

It frustrated me when I was standing in Western Sydney behind a bar pulling beers, which is where I will go back to when I leave this place. I just hope that the minister, with the passage of this bill does, not stop here. As the member for Moreton said, I will champion this cause. That is because it is so important to not only the people of Reid and to the people of Western Sydney and Australia but it is also important to our kids, who ultimately pay the price. This ice epidemic is something to behold.

I do not know if the member for Fowler was still in the force when ice first hit our streets, but I can tell you that it turns 75 kilogram weaklings into blokes who can throw me around like a rag doll. It is an epidemic, it is highly addictive, it alters personality and it creates its own self-inflicted vicious crime circle. That is the unintended consequence. That is what this bill needs to attack. That is the reality and the human face of what this looks like on the front-lines. That is, to look at the damage that all of this causes.

I cannot commend this bill highly enough. I challenge the minister to not stop on this front. The member for Moreton, in his opening line, said that he supports the bill and that this should always be an avenue a bipartisan support. I concur with those words, because for the sake of our kids in our grandkids we must attack this problem. Historically, we have done it from the front end, but just as important—and I hope I have explained that today—is the back end. If we do not make this profitable and if we make it place where people cannot launder their money and it is not worth doing, perhaps the Mexican drug cartels that were reported in the last couple of days as arriving here will choose some place other than my electorate in Western Sydney and our country to be home. I commend the bill to the House.

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