Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is good to be able to make a contribution this evening on the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Unexplained Wealth and Other Measures) Bill 2014. The member for Fowler always makes a good contribution on these matters, as does the member for Reid, Mr Laundy. I too have a police background. I spent a couple of years in the Australian Federal Police, predominantly in Sydney. I certainly enjoyed those couple of years. I would say that there was plenty of action—plenty of surveillance, following people, searches, raids—but it was never exactly on the big scale. I remember going through front doors and occasionally through windows and searching people's bins out in streets in the middle of the night. I was not exactly the big fish, but I do recall people often saying, 'Well, up there in that big house in Elizabeth Bay is where the big people are.' At least at my level—and the AFP was trying to pursue people on all levels—but at my level it was just up there, but we were dealing with people down on the ground.

Whilst people on the ground need to be dealt with, the reality is that, as the member for Fowler said, you have to go in pursuit of the money. Self-interest always reigns supreme, and so if you attack what people are really after and take it away, then you are doing good work and attacking at all levels. I utterly support this, but it is interesting to note that, when we talk about unexplained wealth, our first foray into the area was via proceeds of crime, which legislatively began in 2002.

One of my favourite movies is The Untouchables, which is a Hollywood dramatisation of the US Treasury's fight against Al Capone and organised crime in Chicago in the 1930s. Ultimately, as I think many of us would recall, Al Capone eventually went to jail not for murders, kidnappings or bootlegging but for tax evasion. So the history of the pursuit of money or of attacking criminals through money goes back further than we in this place might think.

The Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, enacted in 2003, and the attempts by successive governments to pursue unexplained wealth, as through this bill, are exactly the right way to go. As the member for Fowler said, we should continue to look for the newest opportunities to make sure that we are tackling these problems and tackling these criminals at the right level and as hard and as harshly as possible. There is always room to go a little bit harder. As a more conservative member of this place, and a former police officer and Army officer, I say let's keep going in looking at what else we can achieve here. I certainly support this bill.

We should remember that the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 allows for the tracing, restraining and confiscation of the proceeds of crime against Commonwealth law and, in some cases, the proceeds of crime against state and even overseas laws as well. Once confiscated, the act allows for the funds to be given back to the community for combating crime in Australia. This act exists to effectively deal with cases where money and assets have been acquired by a person that does not have the legitimate means or circumstances to acquire those funds and assets. Indeed, these laws look at those that appear to have no or limited financial means yet still have big houses, boats, flash cars or significant money. There is, of course, more to it than that, but that is the point of the existing laws and these amendments, which are designed to target organised crime networks and the people who create assets and money through crime and then conceal where that money came from. Just because the origins of these assets and money have been concealed by these criminals, that does not mean that it is untouchable.

It is through the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and with the aid of these amendments we are debating today that these trappings of wealth can be addressed. By 'addressed', I mean that these laws will facilitate the means by which to deprive persons of the proceeds of offences and to also deprive persons of literary proceeds derived from the commercial exploitation of their notoriety.

Taking away the proceeds of crime really undermines the reasons for crime—that is, to exact a profit and derive benefits. That is why this bill gives effect to our policy to tackle crime, a policy to ensure that we have every opportunity and means to target the profits of crime. Of course, our policy in general, and this bill in particular, especially addresses the recommendations of the joint committee. These were recommendations that came from wide consultation with police, the Australian Taxation Office and other agencies in order to ensure that the committee understood the issues.

I will not speak to every recommendation; rather, I will confine my comments to specific parts of the bill. Before I begin, I will clarify a few key terms. Firstly, under the current law, there are unexplained wealth restraining orders available, which effectively preserve the subject's property and ensure that property and assets cannot be disposed of before a matter is concluded in the courts. Next, there are preliminary unexplained wealth orders. They require a person to attend court to explain how their property and assets were lawfully obtained. This occurs under the evidentiary burden of the balance of probability, thereby requiring the person to prove that the property and assets were not obtained from an offence or criminal activity. I make the point that currently the court has a discretion whether to make the order if there are not reasonable grounds to suspect that the amount of the unexplained wealth is more than $100,000 or where it is not in the public interest to do so. Unexplained wealth orders are the final orders, where the court orders that the difference between a person's actual wealth and the amount determined to have been legitimately obtained be surrendered to the Commonwealth. This bill will change the existing law, where the court currently has the discretion to refuse to make unexplained wealth orders for suspected wealth of $100,000 or more. That is good because it gives certainty to the parties involved.

I reiterate the point that was previously made about one of the loopholes that will be closed in the Proceeds of Crime Act, where the proceeds of crime can currently be used by the person involved to pay legal fees. When that loophole is closed, the person in question can access legal aid but cannot use the subject money that we are talking about to pay a lawyer. In some ways, that seems a bit like money laundering through a lawyer. I do not wish to suggest that that could or would ever happen, but, in any case, it is good to close these sorts of loopholes.

From my time in the Federal Police, and even now as the member for Cowan, so often we look around in the suburbs of our cities and see houses that are almost unusual in their location, with walls unlike others, strong solid gates at the front of the house and innumerable CCTV cameras down the side of the building. When we examine the electoral roll, so often we find that there is no-one listed at that address. It is almost as though the premises have a suspicious look about them, a look that suggests there are things to be protected or views to be obscured by the infrastructure of sturdy walls and CCTV. This may be akin to the bikie fortresses that we had problems with in all the cities right the way around the country; people that just do not look like they have got a reason to have such assets—such a grand house, such security—it seems all so out of touch. In those cases, yes: we should be little bit suspicious. We should examine, and think to examine, how this has come to pass. Too often, it has been the case that those who have not worked an honest day to obtain what they have do still have those assets. We should be looking at that.

The way to do this is through this sort of legislation—the Proceeds of Crime Act, as amended by the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Unexplained Wealth and Other Measures) Bill 2014, if passed. Again, I go back to where I started, along with the member for Fowler and, before him, other members that have spoken in this debate: this is the way to really engage and disrupt this criminal activity: to be prepared to go in hard; to be prepared to use these sorts of laws to target where these people are most vulnerable; to be able to look at what they have got and the differences between what they could legitimately expect to achieve, with whatever work or lack of work they have, and the assets or the funds that they actually have. This is exactly the way that we should be going.

Whilst I endorse this bill completely, I will certainly also keep my eyes open, and keep thinking about ways that this can be further enhanced in the future, and further strengthened—because this is the right way to go. We need to tackle crime. We need to tackle those people that have derived their assets not out of thin air but at the cost of people on the ground in this country, people that have been taken advantage of by the drug importers, and by these high-level criminals; they have been taken advantage of, and they have had their lives wrecked and their families' lives wrecked. They are the victims. We must hold to account those that are responsible at every level. And if it cannot be through jail and actual prosecution for their terrible offences, such as drug trafficking et cetera, then it should be through this means. It should be to take away as much of what they have—and basically leave them with nothing—to ensure that the proceeds from the crimes that they have committed will amount to no benefit for them. Obviously, in the end, you always hope that such people will go to jail, and truly atone for their crimes. But in any case, to take away the high-end assets, the money, and the other trappings of their criminality is exactly the right way to go. I commend this bill to the House.

See this speech in context