Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in favour of the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Unexplained Wealth and Other Measures) Bill 2014. Mr Deputy Speaker, I certainly know that you would be well aware that serious and organised crime is a serious threat to the safety and security of our nation. I am going to mention a figure here. It has been mentioned before, but I do not think we can mention this figure too much. The Australian Crime Commission estimates the criminal economy in Australia is worth around $15 billion. That is a big figure for us to digestive. As the member for Brisbane mentioned, basically, this money is raised by peddling misery.

What does this $15 billion mean and where does it come from? This is money that is made by people who are peddling things like ice, opiates, ecstasy, marijuana and many other commodities in our economy. What are those things doing? They are destroying our youth and they are causing misery in our local communities. Fifteen billion dollars is bigger than a lot of markets for a lot of products in our economy. Ten or 15 years ago I read that just the drug trade—and this is about more than just drugs, but drugs are a big part of this—is up there in dollar value with oil and coffee. If you look at the total amount of oil and coffee that is traded around the world each year, they are big markets. A lot of people make a lot of money out of oil and coffee. The illicit drug trade is up there with that.

That is an amazing statistic. What does that mean? That means that there are a few things going on. Obviously, organised crime is making a lot of money, and a lot of these people are very invisible in our community. They are not the people that you read about in the Rich 200 list. They do not advertise that, but they are up there. Some of the richest people in our community, who are invisible, have made their money out of these types of activities. Globally, some of the richest people in the world are people who are peddling illegal and illicit activities. The other effect that it has, and why these laws are good, is that we have criminal activity both from the seller and the buyer of these products. Also, because these people are so wealthy, there is a lot of bribery that occurs with officials and so forth. So strengthening the legislation through this bill is very important.

As it has been previously mentioned, this was a commitment made by the coalition government. It was an election commitment. Unexplained wealth laws are aimed at taking the profit motive out of organised crime. They target criminal kingpins who insulate themselves from the day-to-day operations of their criminal organisation, but who profit from the misery they peddle.

The other aspect is that—and this has been mentioned before, too—obviously, that the money from this is going to go into crime prevention. I think it was mentioned by someone a little earlier that it is like yesterday's crimes are paying to prevent tomorrow's potential crimes. Just in my local community: I, too, have been lucky enough to work with the Richmond Valley Council. They have some crime issues that they feel made some parts of their streets unsafe to walk around on at night. We were able to obtain, with the good work of the people at the Richmond Valley Council—John Walker, the general manager, and Ernie Bennett, the Mayor, and their staff—over $400,000 for CCTV cameras that will be put in around the streets of Casino. This is going to be great for their community.

The unexplained wealth laws give the court the ability to order a person to demonstrate that their wealth was lawfully acquired. If they cannot, the person may be ordered to forfeit their illegitimate wealth. To be perfectly honest, this is not rocket science, is it? If you have had a successful business and you have done well it is pretty easy to show through your tax records. Even if you have inherited money or won the lottery there are some sorts of trails for those where you can say, 'Look, I have a good life and I've done the right thing.' And they deserve the wealth and the success that they have. If, however, you seem to be living a very wonderful life and cannot explain that, these laws are meant to make sure that if you have gained it illegitimately then you will be penalised for that.

It implements a number of recommendations by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement in their 2011 inquiry into unexplained wealth laws and arrangements. As I said, this was a key commitment in the coalition's policy to tackle crime. The bill seeks to do three fundamental things: to ensure the most effective framework for law enforcement to investigate and to take action to target unexplained wealth; to streamline the processes for obtaining unexplained wealth orders whilst ensuring appropriate safeguards; and to close loopholes in the Proceeds of Crime Act that potentially make it easier to escape under unexplained wealth actions and to frustrate court process. Again, Mr Deputy Speaker, guess what? These people who have obtained this wealth—often a lot of it—usually do not get the cheaper suburban lawyer to try to get them out of these spots. They employ the best legal brains that this country has. So closing these loopholes is very important for that.

It is important for the Commonwealth to have the strongest unexplained wealth regime possible. The bill also builds on work that the Minister for Justice has been undertaking in trying to establish a cohesive national approach to organised crime. The issue was discussed with the states and territories at the Law, Crime and Community Safety Council in July this year. Jurisdictions agreed to investigate and consider a cooperative scheme to support a national approach to the seizure of unexplained wealth and to establish a working group to progress the issue.

I commend the Minister for Justice. His whole focus and his whole modus operandi in this is that he wants this to be a national, cohesive approach to organised crime. This bill is a very important step in that. Obviously, with state governments and different levels of government we need the cooperation of everyone to make these things effective.

In summary, I just want to reiterate that the people who this bill is targeting are bad people. These people are peddling misery. They make a lot of money, in a lot of cases, by making people's lives unpleasant, when they have drug addictions. That is why the money that is going to be obtained from this is going to do wonderful things like provide money for crime prevention activities, like in my community with the CCTV cameras in Casino.

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