Natasha Griggs (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to associate myself with the comments the member for Lingiari made about Vince Kelly. As the wife of a currently serving member of the police force I know first-hand what a great job Vince has done in representing the members of the Northern Territory police force—people like my husband.

Today I rise to speak on the importance of combatting serious and organised crime in our communities. I wholly support Minister Keenan in taking tough steps to strike at the centre of organised crime. The changes in this bill, the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Unexplained Wealth and Other Measures) Bill 2014, are aimed at taking the profit motive out of organised crime and at targeting criminal kingpins who remove themselves from the day-to-day operations of their criminal organisations but reap the profits their organisation brings in through illegal activity.

The bill seeks to ensure the most effective framework for law enforcement to investigate and take action to target unexplained wealth; to streamline the process for obtaining unexplained wealth orders, while ensuring appropriate safeguards for individuals; to close loopholes in the Proceeds of Crime Act that potentially make it easier to escape unexplained wealth actions and frustrate court processes.

The coalition is committed to tackling organised crime around Australia. In our policy to tackle crime we promised to strengthen unexplained wealth laws to ensure we have the toughest framework possible to target criminal proceeds. We want to remove any financial incentives for criminal bosses and heighten the risks for profiting from criminal activity.

Constituents in my electorate of Solomon have no tolerance for criminal gangs reaping wealth from illegal activity. Darwin and Palmerston residents want a strong government that will halt criminal kingpins in their tracks and make them think twice before they effectively steal money from our community. Our policy to tackle crime was framed around the recommendations of the 2011 inquiry by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement into the Commonwealth's unexplained wealth laws and arrangements. The inquiry found that the unexplained wealth provisions were not working as well as they could be. The committee made recommendations in order to make the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 more effective. While a number of the committee's recommendations were implemented, the previous Labor government chose to cherry-pick from the recommendations, and as a result a number of the recommendations were not carried out.

The coalition's policy to tackle crime seeks to address these omissions. Reforming unexplained wealth laws was a key plank in the law and order platform the coalition took to the last election. This bill gives effect to that commitment We are delivering on our election promises and we are doing what we said we would do. However, there is still quite a lot to do.

Locally, Minister Keenan is taking crime in Darwin and Palmerston seriously. He visited during the election campaign and I worked with him to secure $300,000 in funding for my electorate for new CCTV cameras. When Minister Keenan visited my electorate last year and I took him to visit a few crime hotspots, I identified the Palmerston CBD area, the Nightcliff shopping area and the Karama shopping centre as areas that need extra attention in terms of combatting crime.

I have delivered on my election commitment to tackle crime in Darwin and Palmerston. Recently, the Commonwealth government signed-off on funding for two mobile CCTV units for Northern Territory police. The funding was provided as part of the coalition's Safer Streets program, which assists local communities to implement strategies that address crime and anti-social behaviour.

In the coming months, Darwin and Palmerston Police will acquire two mobile CCTV units, the first of their kind in the Northern Territory. Mobile CCTV units will allow for flexibility in tackling crime around my electorate. Not only will they be available to combat crime in identified crime hot spots but the units will be able to be deployed to any area should an issue arise as the needs of our local community change. We know that hotspots do change, and these mobile units are going to provide extra support for the current arrangements. It was the police who decided what technology they thought was going to help them in combatting crime. This will be an additional extra tool. It can also be used at special events to ensure the safety and security of everyone there. Mobile CCTV units are a great investment for the Northern Territory, enabling police to deploy the units on an as-needs basis. I am absolutely delighted that the police were involved in the decision making for these CCTVs. This shows the coalition's commitment to working at the grassroots level to ensure that when we invest it is for proper infrastructure and for things that are actually going to make a big difference.

Combatting crime is not only about macroinitiatives such as our unexplained wealth amendments. It is also about microinitiatives such as funding for community crime prevention measures such as the CCTVs that I have mentioned. Only safe communities can be strong and prosperous, and the best way to tackle crime and antisocial behaviour is to prevent it happening from the get go.

Tough antibikie measures fall into the macrocrime category that I touched on a few moments ago. The activities of bikie gangs, particularly in western Sydney and Queensland and also in the Northern Territory, is an area where a broad based approach is required to get on top of what is essentially a national scourge. A police officer in the Northern Territory recently commented in a world-weary tone that the bikers build up a store of goodwill among some in the community when they conduct their annual pre-Christmas toy run, but for the remaining 364 days the police are left to clean up the aftermath of their activities.

The Northern Territory government recently threw its support behind Queensland's antibikie laws in the High Court challenge that began earlier this month. In doing so, it joined the Commonwealth, New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia and South Australia in backing or supporting this legislation. The Northern Territory Attorney-General made a very good point in giving his support to Queensland's legislation when he said that the bikie laws:

… are an important crime-fighting tool to crackdown on the illegal activities of outlaw motorcycle gangs, and should be upheld.

He went on to say that organised criminal gangs are not only a Queensland issue. They also have the potential for their insidious tentacles to creep beyond state and territory borders. That is exactly what the coalition is doing through these crimes legislation amendments. We are taking a national approach to criminal activity by effectively removing the peculiarities and the quirks that exist between state and territory legislation. What is more, we are tackling crime by removing incentives and deterring would-be offenders through penalties and sentencing. As with any good legislation, there is an additional community benefit component. Funding for the mobile CCTV units I mentioned a few moments ago comes from the Confiscated Assets Account. This is money taken from criminals and reinvested into preventing them from committing more crimes. I think it makes good sense.

Often, through their illegal activities, these people are dealing in death through the sale and supply of drugs that can leave families devastated and can shatter whole communities. In the past week in the Northern Territory, two Top End youngsters are believed to have died as a result of taking drugs, the source being a new synthetic drug known as quacka that recently hit the streets in the territory. There is a chain that led to the deaths of these two young people that begins with the manufacture and ends with the sale. Every single person involved in that process should be held accountable, and it is only appropriate that any profits that are made throughout this process should be confiscated from them and that they serve any prison time. This bill strengthens the laws that turn the tables on bigwig criminals who live off the profits of illegal activities at the expense of hardworking, law-abiding Australians.

I turn now to the legislation in detail. To begin with, this bill amends existing search and seizure powers in the Proceeds of Crime Act to allow authorised officers to seize material they deem relevant to unexplained wealth. Currently, there is some uncertainty that exists under the provisions. This amendment will address the uncertainty by ensuring any material that is relevant to unexplained wealth investigations may be seized when an authorised officer searches a premises under a warrant.

Unexplained wealth can be a very tricky crime to prosecute, given Australia's numerous jurisdictions. It is important that we ensure that all agencies around Australia have the appropriate tools to communicate effectively so they are able to prosecute those who violate unexplained wealth legislation. The measures in this bill will allow for law enforcement agencies to share information between themselves and even with authorities overseas. This will aid not only in prosecuting unexplained wealth crimes but also in the recovery of the proceeds of crime. The coalition will not stand by while criminal kingpins shift their wealth interstate and overseas. No longer will organised crime participants be able to shift their wealth around the country in an attempt to evade law enforcement agencies.

We are making it harder for criminals to profit from crime by making it riskier to pocket large sums of money obtained illegally. Our law enforcement agencies will now be able to work more cooperatively than ever before. This is something that they have always wanted and always tried to do, but bureaucracy has often gotten in the way. The coalition is working hard to remove those obstacles and enable our agencies get on with their jobs.

What is also essential for a cooperative and coherent approach to prosecuting unexplained wealth crimes is to ensure there is a clear and straightforward process for obtaining court orders. To give both prosecuting and defending parties certainty and clarity throughout the court process, a court will no longer be able to refuse to make unexplained wealth orders for wealth of $100,000 or more. However, for sums under $100,000, the court can still refuse to make an order if it is satisfied that it would not be in the public's best interest. Removing discretion for amounts of wealth over $100,000 still allows for appropriate protections, as the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement considered in their report.

These amendments will also aid the courts in providing a clear and straightforward process for unexplained wealth prosecutions by allowing police to submit one lot of affidavit material, rather than submitting the same material for every application. Basically, if affidavit material is submitted in support of an initial court application, it will not need to be submitted again in order for it to be considered in proceedings. To streamline further court procedure, these amendments will also allow the courts to follow a simple process to allow property seized under unexplained wealth laws to be used to pay any debt owed to the Commonwealth as the result of an order. These will improve the capacity to enforce unexplained wealth orders and bring the scheme in line with other similar orders in the Proceeds of Crime Act.

These amendments are another tool being introduced by the federal government to help our counterparts in the states and territories deal with the criminal element who deal in death. I commend the bill to the House. I think this legislation is going to help our law enforcement officers around the country. (Time expired)

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