Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I was just saying, the opposition folded like Superman on washing day when it came to making a promise before the election and then flipping straight after. That hypocrisy was highlighted by the justice minister, Michael Keenan, who is now responsible for a budget that has diminished Australia's top law enforcement agency. To make matters worse, the Abbott government has cancelled $42.5 million of funding allocated by the former Labor government for additional sworn officers and $22 million across four years from the AFP's aviation operations in Hobart airport. Perhaps that has placed Tasmanians in danger. We will see.

With the May budget's exposures, I hope that Minister Keenan is able to realise that his overblown political rhetoric from opposition rings particularly hollow now that he sits on the Treasury benches. Perhaps in his summing up of this legislation he could be a bit apologetic. I remember his crocodile tears after he spoke at this very dispatch box in this spot about our proposed Malaysian solution. I am still waiting for an apology on some of the hypocrisy in that vote.

In terms of working towards a national unexplained wealth scheme, this bill will implement several of the PJC early report recommendations. It will not address a more fundamental problem with the Commonwealth unexplained wealth laws on which the PJC made recommendations for significant reform. As noted above, unexplained wealth laws are particularly valuable in the context of organised crime, where those who derive the greatest profits are not directly involved in the commission of the offences. They are the gutless ones who are a few rungs back from those out front committing the crime. So the unexplained wealth laws are a good thing. They provide an alternative avenue where senior figures cannot be pursued effectively through prosecution or traditional confiscation actions, and they are having some success. Unlike existing confiscation orders, unexplained wealth orders will not require proof of a link to a commission of a specific offence and, in that sense, they represent a quantum leap forward in law enforcement strategy.

However, due to the need for a connection with a constitutional head of power, the application of the Commonwealth unexplained wealth regime is limited to instances where a court is satisfied that there are reasonable grounds to suspect the person has committed an offence against a law of the Commonwealth, a foreign indictable offence or a state offence that has a federal aspect or that part of the person's wealth was derived from an offence against a law of the Commonwealth, a foreign indictable offence or a state offence that has a federal aspect. This undermines the key advantage of unexplained wealth laws over prosecution or traditional confiscation as, in practice, a connection must be made to a specific offence or a fairly specific type of offence in order to satisfy the jurisdictional requirement.

Whilst the founding fathers saw good sense in having those protections, in this instance the constitutional drafting would prevent us from going after these criminals. In order to remedy this, the PJCLE recommended that the Commonwealth lead the development of a nationally consistent unexplained wealth regime. Further, it accepted the view of the Attorney-General's Department on the best way to achieve that aim, recommending:

That the Australian Government seek a referral of powers from the states and territories for the purpose of legislating for a national unexplained wealth scheme, where unexplained wealth provisions are not limited by having to prove a predicate offence.

Despite assurances they would still retain proceeds seized under their own laws, the states and territories rejected such a proposal on several occasions. In June 2013, former police commissioners Mick Palmer and Ken Moroney were appointed to negotiate with jurisdictions and break this deadlock. I would suggest that some of that deadlock was due to political posturing, but perhaps that is unfair commentary.

The Australian Federal Police Commissioner told the PJCLE on 26 February 2014 that there were some 'very encouraging signs' from the states and territories and that a report from Mr Palmer and Mr Moroney was 'either with the Minister for Justice or very close to being with him'. The Minister for Justice stated on 5 March 2014 that the government was 'continuing to pursue a national scheme with our state and territory colleagues to crackdown on criminals flaunting illegitimate wealth'.

The Abbott government has not made any progress in negotiating with the states and territories, sadly. Prime Minister Abbott and Minister Keenan lack the will to persuade their state counterparts into joining a stronger national approach to unexplained wealth laws. In opposition, Minister Keenan defended the stance taken by the states and territories, asserting on Tuesday, 5 February last year, that:

If the Minister for Home Affairs and the Labor Party were serious about stopping organised crime, the first thing they would do is not lecture the states about what the states should be doing.

This vacuous contribution reveals how the crucial need for a national unexplained wealth scheme is not understood by the Abbott government and, despite the urgent need for one, is not a priority for Minister Keenan—although, I guess he has been a little bit busy of late.

Unexplained wealth laws need a champion. The former Labor government understood this and the effort of Labor's former home affairs minister, Jason Clare, to produce a nationally harmonised unexplained wealth regime is testament to this. Labor will continue to urge the Abbott government and the states and territories to build a stronger national set of laws that attack criminal kingpins and take the profit out of crime. A national stance is the only combatant against organised crime. Targeting the assets and money of criminals will undermine the power and influence of criminals in our communities. Giving law enforcement agencies more power to seize the assets of criminals will be a heavy blow to what seems to be the ever-increasing power and reach of organised crime.

Similar to the Abbott government's minimalist understanding of nationally harmonised unexplained wealth laws is this government's approach to crime prevention. The Abbott government, sadly, has axed Labor's National Crime Prevention Fund in favour of its own Safer Streets Program. However, Minister Keenan is yet to explain the selection and eligibility process for organisations to apply for funding under the government's Safer Streets Program. The National Crime Prevention Fund was a $40 million component of the former Labor government's package of measures to address gang violence and street crime in the community. I can personally attest to the efficacy of this program, having seen it rolled out in Sunnybank. Working with the police, the community, the neighbourhood watch and some of the storekeepers in the Sunnybank area, we have seen changes that make the area safer.

The NCPF was to support initiatives in high crime areas that address societal disconnection of at-risk young people and provide diversionary and educational activities to reintegrate them into society. The NCPF also supported the installation of CCTV systems in established trouble spots and other security infrastructure measures to improve community safety.

The Abbott government have replaced the National Crime Prevention Fund with an election commitment known as the Safer Streets Program. The Safer Streets Program is a $50 million crime prevention initiative. To date, no money has been allocated to youth mentoring and outreach programs. I will repeat that: no money has been allocated to youth mentoring and outreach programs at a time when they are surely crucial. Funding is only to be provided under the Safer Streets Program for security related infrastructure, including CCTV, mobile CCTV and better lighting. They have their place, but this is all sizzle and no sausage. The best way to spend money to prevent crime is on people who have not moved into crime. It costs so much more money to deal with the after-effects of crime, keeping people in prisons and the like, when perhaps a dollar could be spent early on to divert those people and help them become taxpayers and good citizens.

The target group for funding under the first funding round under the Safer Streets Program are organisations that were identified before—guess which date?—October 2013. The Auditor-General has announced a lengthy investigation into the program, particularly the eligibility criteria and the selection process used to award millions of dollars worth of public, hard-earned taxpayers' dollars. In the first round of funding, $19.3 million of taxpayer money—your money, people of Australia—was allocated to organisations that were hand-picked by the Liberal Party in the lead-up to the 2013 election. The guidelines for funding round 1 of the Safer Streets Program states that:

The target group for funding under the first funding round under the Safer Streets Programme is organisations that were identified before October 2013 …

This parliament should make decisions only in the national interest, not just in the interests of the Nationals—and the Liberals, I should clarify, as they are a coalition government.

The Auditor-General has advised that there are serious questions to answer about the Safer Streets Program, including about the eligibility criteria and selection process used to award funding, whether the funds spent under the program have been properly targeted at projects to prevent, detect and deter crime, whether this represents value for money for the taxpayer and whether the distribution of funding has been included in electorate terms rather than in the national interest and community interest.

Minister Keenan is yet to explain who identified successful and unsuitable organisations and what selection criteria were used. Minister Keenan needs to explain how he ensured an unbiased selection process and how political neutrality—always crucial in a democracy like Australia—was ensured when identifying successful organisations on the eve of the election one long year ago.

It is not unrealistic to presume that applicants were pre-selected by a Liberal Party process without any consideration made for worthy organisations that had been approved for funding under the former Labor government's National Crime Prevention Fund. The Abbott government talks big on crime and crime prevention, but funnelling funds into Liberal-friendly councils on the eve of an election borders on deception and deceit. I look forward to seeing how the Auditor-General responds.

There are heightened circumstances in Australia at the moment. Obviously, how we respond to security, make our streets safer and make our community feel safer is important. The legislation before the House goes some way but falls way short of the Labor Party's expectations.

Craig Laundy (Reid, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to 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.

Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to 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.

Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Unexplained Wealth and Other Measures) Bill 2014. And I too, as a former police officer, am very pleased to be speaking on this bill. I know how welcome these reforms are. May I echo the words of the previous speaker, the member for Cowan, who is also a former police officer: I understand some of the sentiments that he expressed about how welcome these improvements are.

Can I also take this opportunity to commend our police forces, not only our federal but also our state and territory police forces right across the country. I acknowledge the remarkable work that they do in often very difficult and challenging situations. I remind the House that next Monday is National Police Remembrance Day, and an opportunity to remember those police officers who have lost their lives in serving our community. I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge them and to commend our forces for the remarkable work that they do.

Investigating unexplained wealth is a very powerful tool against organised crime. We have heard many speakers in this debate detail reasons for that. For far too long, we have all seen the devastating effects that organised crime and criminals can have upon our communities right throughout this country. I know there is frustration felt by police officers if they do not have the powers or resources to effectively investigate, particularly in the case of those who have profited from criminal activities. That is why legislation like this is incredibly important in disrupting or stopping organised crime. It is a very vital asset to have this legislation in place. That is why it was that, in 2013, the Labor government initially moved to tackle criminals where it really hurts: the proceeds of their crimes. It really goes to the heart of their criminal activities because, of course, it is money that keeps their business model operational. It is very appropriate that the coalition has wisely adopted this proposed legislation that we are debating before the House today.

This bill, the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Unexplained Wealth and Other Measures) Bill 2014, is to specifically to amend the Proceeds Of Crime Act to strengthen the Commonwealth regulation of unexplained wealth, and to improve the investigation and litigation of unexplained wealth matters. Indeed, it reflects the recommendations made by the parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement. Schedule 1 of this bill contains amendments that will amend the Proceeds Of Crime Act, and implement eight of the 18 recommendations set down by the parliamentary Joint Committee On Law Enforcement. These relate, firstly, to including a statement in the objects clause about undermining the profitability of criminal enterprises, and ensuring that evidence that is relevant to unexplained wealth proceedings can in fact be seized under a search warrant—a very important part of this. It will also streamline affidavit requirements for preliminary unexplained wealth orders. And this will also act to allow the time limit for serving notices of application for certain unexplained wealth orders to be extended by a court, in appropriate circumstances. It will also harmonise legal expenses and legal aid for unexplained wealth cases for other Proceeds Of Crime Act proceedings, so as to prevent restrained assets being used to meet legal expenses, which I think is a particularly good move—that those assets cannot be used to pay for legal fees on those occasions. The changes that are put forward in this bill will also allow charges to be created over restrained property to secure payment of unexplained wealth orders, as can occur with other types of proceeds of crime orders. It will also remove a court's discretion to make unexplained wealth restraining orders, preliminary unexplained wealth orders, and unexplained wealth orders, once relevant criteria are satisfied.

Finally, the bill will require the AFP Commissioner to provide a report annually to the parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement on unexplained wealth matters and litigation, and will also empower the committee to seek further information from federal agencies in relation to such a report. In addition, schedule 1 of the bill will amend the Proceeds of Crime Act, for which information obtained under the act can be shared with a state, territory or foreign authority to include proceeds of crime purpose. I believe this is a very important element of this bill. The purpose of these amendments is to enhance information sharing with appropriate state, territory and indeed foreign authorities. Proceeds of crime investigations and litigations increasingly involve transnational elements, due to the very international nature of serious and organised crime. In order to effectively pursue the proceeds of crime offshore and to assist our foreign counterparts in doing so, it is essential that the AFP has the ability to share information for such purposes. This is especially so due to the increasingly complex and growing nature of serious and organised crime across borders and across countries, so it is very important to have that element of being able to share that information.

As a former police officer I definitely know how welcome these reforms are. Investigating unexplained wealth is a really powerful tool that can be used against organised crime. Laws regulating what is known as unexplained wealth allow the courts to issue an order to compel individuals to attend court and to demonstrate that, on the balance of probability, their wealth was lawfully obtained—so the onus is upon them. They are designed to zero in on the wealth of usually senior organised crime figures who tend to profit from crime without actually being directly involved—they are beneficiaries of illegal activities. This bill will make it harder for criminals to profit from their illegal activities—make no mistake about it, it will definitely do that. It will be effective in that sense. The bill will also assist in ensuring the safety of so many people and so many communities right across the country. I know that in my electorate of Richmond on the north coast of New South Wales, like in other areas, people are genuinely concerned about organised crime elements. They are very keen to see any effective measures that would act to stop any growth in organised crime and would help with any policing resources and investigative tools that are in place.

With these welcome reforms it is important to note that it was the previous Labor government that led the way on prosecuting unexplained wealth and on tackling the scourge of organised crime. In fact, it was the Labor government in 2010 who first recognised that our law enforcement agencies required additional tools to really disrupt and unsettle the organised crime syndicates and their illegal and widespread operations. This action was achieved through the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Serious and Organised Crime) Act 2010, which introduced provisions for the making of unexplained wealth orders into the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. However, due to the need for a connection with a constitutional head of power, the wealth order's applicability was limited to circumstances where a connection could be established to a Commonwealth or a foreign offence, or a state offence with a Commonwealth aspect.

This constitutional limitation hampered the effectiveness of the proceeds of crime provisions, and in March 2012 it was recommended that the Commonwealth seek a referral of powers from state governments in order to legislate for a broader-based, national unexplained wealth scheme. Back in June 2013, former police commissioners Mick Palmer and Ken Moroney were appointed by the previous justice minister when Labor was in government, the member for Blaxland, to negotiate with the states, territories and other authorities to have them involved. Although it was reported by the ABC in October 2013 that Mr Palmer and Mr Moroney were due to report to the government within weeks, we are not quite certain what recommendations they have made and what the exact status of that report is. We certainly strongly encourage some good outcomes there, and encourage them to work closely with the Commonwealth as well, because it is only by working together on these particular aspects that we can be successful in pursuing these investigations.

Given the statutory limitations, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement decided in 2012 to reassess the effectiveness of the bill, and initiated an inquiry to explore a number of changes that were needed to strengthen the legislation. As mentioned earlier, in 2013 18 recommendations were handed down by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement—eight of which were adopted. From these recommendations came Labor's Crime Legislation Amendment (Organised Crime and Other Measures) Bill 2012, which passed through this House in February 2013 but lapsed in the Senate at the end of the last parliament. The Crimes Legislation Amendment (Unexplained Wealth and Other Measures) Bill 2014 is essentially identical in nature to Labor's lapsed legislation and implements Labor's commitments of February 2013 in the government response to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement, which of course is why we are so supportive of this legislation.

You can see that it was the Labor government's initiative to really come down hard on criminals and their organisations and the profits that they make illegally. It is unfortunate, when we look at the history of this, that, when we put this first round of legislation there, there was some criticism from the coalition at the time. I know that the now Minister for Justice, Minister Keenan, who was on the opposition benches at the time, made remarks about Labor not embracing the recommendations of the committee which involved the Australian Crime Commission pursuing unexplained wealth orders. It was unfortunate there was some criticism then. However, in opposition Labor continues to uphold our commitments to a very bipartisan approach to this, and believe that we have to be working together to put pressure on organised crime and the unexplained proceeds of their activities. That is why we offer our full support for this bill—after all, we essentially wrote it, and it is identical to legislation put before the House in the previous parliament. I certainly look forward to this government working effectively with the states and territories to make sure we can implement concrete laws to combat organised crime and its illegal proceeds.

It is for all of those reasons that Labor supports this bill and supports moves to effectively tackle organised crime syndicates and to work effectively in terms of sharing that information. That is vitally important with the very complex, changing and involved nature of organised crime, and it is measures such as this that will effectively make major differences. I commend the bill to the House.

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It seems there is a breakout of bipartisanship in the House.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and you are right—it is good to hear that spirit of bipartisanship. The purpose of the Crime Legislation Amendment (Unexplained Wealth and Other Measures) Bill 2014 is to amend the act to revise the procedures and requirements relating to unexplained wealth, and to allow information obtained using coercive powers under the act to be shared with state and foreign authorities for the purposes of proceeds of crime investigation and litigation.

By way of background, a definition of unexplained wealth by the former Attorney-General is as follows:

'Unexplained wealth' laws enable a court to issue an order unless the subject of proceedings can establish, on the balance of probabilities, that his or her wealth was lawfully acquired. An assessment is made of the quantum of unexplained wealth (the difference between the person's total wealth and that shown to be derived lawfully), and the subject of the order must pay the amount to the relevant jurisdiction.

Unexplained wealth laws are designed to target the wealth of senior organised crime figures, …

The libertarian streak in me, at first blush, gives me some concern that private citizens might have to explain to a government bureaucrat how they obtained their assets. However, the first order of any government is to preserve the public order, and in this environment such laws are not only necessary; they are essential. For there is a clear link between terrorism and terrorist activities and their funding through illegal and illicit activities. That is why, if we are able to disrupt that business model—if we are able to use these laws such that people know that if they attempt to engage in an illegal activity they will have no financial benefit—then that will also help us defeat terrorism. These laws turn the tables on those who seek to live off the benefits of their illegal activities. In doing so, they are living off the benefits of other, hardworking Australians.

The connection, as I said, between terrorist activities and their funding through illicit activities has been well documented and well detailed. First, we have seen that many of the people who have been recruited to fight in Syria and in northern Iraq and recruited for ISIS are actually former criminals themselves. Many of them have been involved in drug trade and drug trafficking and have been taking drugs themselves—and that perhaps explains the damage to their brains. We have also seen a recent case of a business in Lakemba—an old stomping ground of mine—which this year has transferred $21.3 million to the Middle East but is able to account for only $12.3 million. So, there is a $9 million discrepancy—$9 million has come out of the Australian community, from hardworking Australians, and has been inexplicably transferred across to the Middle East, from a firm with links through their relatives to known terrorists. That is why this bill has bipartisan support, and I am glad to hear that from both sides and the many speakers who have spoken on this bill.

I will not take too much of the House's time, but I would like to quickly go through the three specific measures of the bill, which are to ensure the most effective framework for law enforcement to investigate and take action to target unexplained wealth; to streamline the processes for obtaining unexplained wealth orders while ensuring appropriate safeguards—and those safeguards are important; and, finally, to close loopholes in the Proceeds of Crime Act that potentially make it easier to escape unexplained-wealth actions and frustrate court processes. I am glad this bill has bipartisan support, and I commend it to the House.

Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to support the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Unexplained Wealth and Other Measures) Bill 2014, because organised crime casts a vast shadow over our economy and our society. It has proved quite difficult to tackle and stamp out. It is also a very big handbrake on our nation's economic development. Transnational organised crime is big business. In 2009 it was estimated to have generated US$870 billion, an amount equal to 1.5 per cent of global GDP at the time. Unsurprisingly, those who are involved in organised crime—energetically, aggressively and innovatively—compete for their share of illicit markets.

The sad thing about organised crime is that many of the people who are involved in it are quite intelligent, and they employ and undertake very sophisticated operations, basically to make profits. They are profit driven and employ increasingly complex networks and structures and ways of concealing their activities and their identities. Organised crime is now, unfortunately, a part of the lives of Australians in an unprecedented way. Once encounters with organised crime were largely restricted to those who sought out illicit commodities or sought out illegal activities. Today, any Australian can be affected by organised crime. Some of the more obvious examples in our society are Australians being defrauded in investment scams, theft of credit card and bank account data through online attacks or by means of skimming through ATMs and point-of-sale devices; the discovery of dangerous and volatile clandestine laboratories used to produce drugs in suburban areas; and violence between organised crime groups that, increasingly, in many of the big cities in Australia is on the rise.

The Australian Crime Commission conservatively estimates that organised crime costs the Australian economy about $15 billion annually. And with the country's largest airport and second-largest port in my community, it has unfortunately become a target for many organised crime syndicates and operations. Just yesterday the news broke that a 38-year-old maintenance worker based at Sydney airport was arrested and charged with attempting to import 99 kilograms of heroin worth $19 million into Australia.

As shadow parliamentary secretary for immigration, with responsibility for customs, I have often been shocked to hear the details of weapons and the interceptions of the border protection authority in the course of their regular duties. In the four months from February through to May, the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service seized 1,339 firearms, 14,460 non-firearm weapons, which included 7,729 bladed weapons, 2,522 martial arts weapons, 190 antipersonnel chemicals and 149 items of warfare, the Customs definition of which includes grenades, bombs, projectiles and associated parts and accessories. That is just a snapshot of a couple of months of some of evil activities and illicit and illegal weapons that are being brought into Australia. Our authority is doing a marvellous job in detecting and shutting down these operations, and they deserve our support.

Money is one of the main drivers of these criminals, which is why this bill aims to boost the capabilities of authorities so that they are better able to hit the lawbreakers where it hurts them the most. The purpose of this bill is to revise the procedures and requirements for making orders relating to unexplained wealth and to allow information obtained using coercive powers to be shared with state and foreign authorities for the purposes of proceeds of crime investigations and litigation. Hopefully, this will lead to an increase in the number of prosecutions and confiscations of proceeds of crime in Australia, which, unfortunately, has in some respects been low to date.

Unexplained wealth laws are a powerful tool against organised crime. They enable authorities to seize assets that exceed a person's legitimate wealth. This enables the targeting of criminal kingpins who profit from crime without being directly involved in the commission of an offence. The majority of amendments contained in the bill were introduced into the House in 2012 by the former Labor government before that bill lapsed at the end of the 43rd Parliament. This bill is fundamentally the same as the lapsed legislation. It implements Labor's commitments of February 2013 in the previous government's response to the inquiry of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement into commonwealth unexplained wealth legislation and arrangements. The bill implements eight of the 18 recommendations handed down in that inquiry, such as: to include a statement in the objects clause of the law about undermining the profitability of criminal enterprises; ensuring evidence relevant to unexplained wealth proceedings can be seized under a search warrant; streamlining affidavit requirements for preliminary unexplained wealth orders; allowing the time limit for serving notice of applications for certain unexplained wealth orders to be extended by a court in appropriate circumstances; harmonising legal expense and legal aid provisions for unexplained wealth cases to those for other act proceedings, so as to prevent restrained assets being used to meet legal expenses; allowing charges to be created over restrained property, to secure payment of unexplained wealth orders, as can occur with other types of proceeds of crime orders; removing a court's discretion to make unexplained wealth restraining orders, preliminary unexplained wealth orders and unexplained wealth orders, once relevant criteria are satisfied, and requiring the AFP commissioner to provide a report to the parliamentary joint committee annually on unexplained wealth matters and litigation, and to empower the committee to seek further information from federal agencies in relation to such a report.

There are other amendments in the bill, which Labor supports. They include: inserting an additional object of undermining the profitability of criminal enterprises into the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002; removal of the requirement for authorised officers to meet an evidence threshold test for a preliminary unexplained wealth order where the evidence threshold test for a restraining order has already been met; clarifying that a court may make an unexplained wealth order even if the person to whom the order relates failed to appear as required by a preliminary unexplained wealth order; and, allowing information obtained using coercive powers under the act to be shared with state and foreign authorities for the purposes of proceeds of crime investigations and litigation.

Unexplained wealth laws enable a court to issue an order unless the subject of proceedings can establish on the balance of probabilities that his or her wealth was lawfully acquired. An assessment is made of the quantum of unexplained wealth, being the difference between the person's total wealth and that shown to be derived lawfully, and the subject of the order must pay the amount to the relevant jurisdiction.

Labor led the way in implementing unexplained wealth laws. Commonwealth unexplained wealth laws have been in place since 2010. Minister Keenan, in opposition, unfortunately made remarks about Labor not embracing the recommendations of the committee that involved the Australian Crime Commission pursuing unexplained wealth orders. In government, however, Minister Keenan has failed to keep faith with his rhetoric in opposition. Once again, the coalition said one thing in opposition and have done the opposite in government.

Nevertheless this is a reform that I am pleased to support and that Labor supports. Hopefully, we will see an increase in the number of successful prosecutions in this country for unexplained wealth, successful prosecutions of people in Australia who are benefitting from crime.

Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Unexplained Wealth and Other Measures) Bill 2014. As a number of speakers in the House have already mentioned, unexplained wealth generally results from financial crimes and misappropriation of monies in a variety of manners. In its facts sheet, the Australian Crime Commission lists some of these. They include tax evasion; embezzlement; various ranges of fraud, including securities fraud, bank fraud and identity fraud; insider trading; illicit drug trafficking; organised theft and cybercrime.

The Australian Crime Commission conservatively estimates that serious and organised crime costs Australia $15 billion every year. This cost comprises loss of business and taxation revenues, expenditure on law enforcement and regulatory efforts, and the social and community impacts of crime. This bill is directly aimed at seeking to curtail the activities of those who are seeking to undertake criminal activity. At the end of the day, if you remove the financial incentives or you remove the access to finances, those criminal enterprises will dissipate.

This bill seeks to implement the recommendations made by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement in the final report of its inquiry into Commonwealth unexplained wealth legislation and associated arrangements. Criminals who live off the benefits of their illegal activities at the expense of hardworking Australians will be required to comply with additional strengthening mechanisms implemented by this bill. The effect will be to make it tougher for senior organised crime kingpins to conduct their illegal business in our country. More often than not, they are the ones who enjoy those proceeds but they are not the ones directly committing the crimes.

In 2011-12, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement conducted an inquiry into the Commonwealth's unexplained wealth legislation and associated arrangements. Its final report was handed down in March 2012. The inquiry examined the effectiveness of Commonwealth laws and took evidence from the Attorney-General's Department, the Australian Crime Commission, the Australian Federal Police, the ATO and a number of other government and non-government organisations. The inquiry found that unexplained wealth provisions had not been operating as intended. As a result, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement made 18 recommendations for improvement. These recommendations were aimed at improving the investigation and litigation of Commonwealth unexplained wealth matters. Recommendations 1, 5 and 8 through 13 were for specific amendments to the act; recommendations 2, 3 and 4 concerned the Australian Crime Commission's potential role in supporting unexplained wealth proceedings; and recommendations 6 and 7 related to improving information sharing between law enforcement agencies and the ATO. The remaining recommendations, 14 to 18, related to the development of a national unexplained wealth scheme and international agreements relating to unexplained wealth.

This bill will implement eight of those recommendations aimed at strengthening the Commonwealth's unexplained wealth legislation and arrangements. The bill amends the Proceeds of Crime Act to strengthen the unexplained wealth regime. Schedule 1 of the bill contains amendments to the Proceeds of Crime Act that will implement the committee's recommendations to include a statement in the objects clause about undermining the profitability of criminal enterprises. Turning off the financial tap, as I said earlier, is one of the most effective ways to shut down criminal organisations. Schedule 1 also contains amendments to the Proceeds of Crimes Act to ensure evidence relevant to unexplained wealth proceedings can be seized under a search warrant, which was recommendation 5 of the committee's report; streamline affidavit requirements for preliminary unexplained wealth orders, which was recommendation 8; allow the time limit for serving notice of applications for certain unexplained wealth orders to be extended by a court in appropriate circumstances; harmonise legal expense and legal aid provisions for unexplained wealth cases with those for other Proceeds of Crime Act proceedings so as to prevent restrained assets being used to meet legal expenses; allow charges to be created over restrained property to secure payment of an unexplained wealth order, as can occur with other types of proceeds of crime orders; remove a court's discretion to make unexplained wealth restraining orders, preliminary unexplained wealth orders and unexplained wealth orders once relevant criteria are satisfied; require the AFP Commissioner to provide a report to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement annually on unexplained wealth matters and litigation; and empower the committee to seek further information from federal agencies in relation to such a report. On that matter, as chair of that particular committee, I will say that our law enforcement agencies—in particular the AFP and the ACC—do a wonderful job in this area. They are also very forthcoming and ready to discuss any issues we put before them.

Schedule 1 of the bill also contains amendments to the Proceeds of Crime Act that do not relate to specific recommendations of the parliamentary joint committee's report but have been identified as necessary to support the amendments outlined earlier and to address inefficiencies in the act. The first is to clarify that unexplained wealth orders may be made where a person who is subject to the order fails to appear at an unexplained wealth proceeding. The purpose of this amendment, which will give effect to the original intent of the unexplained wealth scheme in the Proceeds of Crime Act, is to ensure that persons cannot frustrate unexplained wealth proceedings by simply failing to appear when required to do so. Another amendment will ensure that provisions in the Proceeds of Crime Act that determine when restraining orders cease to have effect take account of, firstly, the new provisions allowing charges to be created and registered over restrained property to secure the payment of unexplained wealth amounts and, secondly, the fact that unexplained wealth restraining orders may sometimes be made after an unexplained wealth order—not only before.

Also, consequential amendments are proposed to ensure that provisions allowing a court to order costs in certain situations where a restraining order has ceased take these amendments into account. We are also seeking to further streamline the making of preliminary unexplained wealth orders where an unexplained wealth restraining order is in place or has been revoked under section 44 of the Proceeds of Crime Act. We are also seeking to remove redundant and unnecessary affidavit requirements in support of applications for preliminary unexplained wealth orders and, in light of changes to the affidavit requirements for preliminary unexplained wealth orders as outlined above, to ensure that a copy of the affidavit relied upon when a preliminary unexplained wealth order was made is provided to the person who is subject to the order.

In addition, schedule 1 of the bill will amend section 266A of the Proceeds of Crime Act to extend the purposes for which information can be obtained under the coercive powers of the Proceeds of Crime Act and can be shared with state, territory or foreign authorities to include a proceeds of crime purpose. I think this is particularly important, given the transnational nature of much criminal activity in today's world, particularly in relation to terrorist financing, which the member for Hughes touched on earlier. The purpose of these amendments is to enhance information sharing across appropriate state, territory and foreign authorities. Proceeds of crime investigation and litigation increasingly involves transnational elements, due to the international nature of serious and organised crime. To effectively pursue the proceeds of crime offshore and to assist our foreign counterparts in doing so, it is essential that the AFP has the ability to share information for such purposes.

Schedule 2 of the bill corrects some minor drafting errors in the Proceeds of Crime Act that were identified during the drafting of the bill. The amendments made by the bill will ensure that the government has strong laws to target the substantial profits made by serious and organised crime. These bills deliver on our commitments made during the election where we said we would strengthen unexplained wealth legislation to strike at the heart of organised crime by taking away the profits and assets of criminal syndicates and thereby undermine their business model. We said we would ensure the Australian Crime Commission and other relevant law enforcement agencies would have appropriate powers to investigate unexplained wealth.

We also pledged that the coalition would immediately move to implement the recommendations in the parliamentary joint committee's report. I thank those opposite for their comments indicating they are in full support, and I note the work that was done in relation to this in the last parliament. I also note that the Police Federation of Australia and the Australian Federal Police Association, in their joint submission to the Australian Crime Commission, and Australian Customs and Border Protection Service were supportive of the unexplained wealth amendments in the 2012 bill. As I have said, we are honouring another election commitment where we promised to strengthen these laws and deliver a safer, more secure Australia for everybody in our community.

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me pleasure to talk on this bill because it has been something that respective governments, Labor and Liberal, have attempted to tackle at the federal level. When we were in government, we attempted a number of times to get coordination through the attorneys-general at the state, territory and Commonwealth level to deal with the issue of unexplained wealth. There are people that, for whatever reason, have accrued vast amounts of wealth and it is very difficult to determine how that wealth has been accrued. There are clearly enough reasons for us to pursue or to inquire into the sources of that wealth which, in many instances, has been acquired in an illegal way, and we need to be able to home in on that and tackle it.

The problem has been that the states and territories have been reluctant to confer the powers on the Commonwealth. Even though former home affairs minister, Jason Clare, the member for Blaxland, had given assurances that the states would still be able to retain the revenue and that the proceeds that had been secured by the Commonwealth would be available for states, there has been a high degree of resistance. This remains a national priority, given the fact that a lot of the people that are suspected of having unexplained wealth or assets that we believe have been obtained or funded improperly cross borders. They cross territories and states, and they do need to have a national focus. So the ability to get those levels of government working together is very important.

Being able to make headway on this is critical, and we have indicated our support for this bill because, in large part, it reflects the bulk of the work that we had undertaken when in government. In fact, I understand it is almost word for word identical to the previous Crimes Legislation Amendment (Organised Crime and Other Measures) Bill 2012 which was introduced in this place in November 2012, and passed in February 2013. While the bill was introduced in the Senate on 6 February 2013, it lapsed with the end of the 43rd Parliament in September 2013. We certainly welcome the fact that this is being brought back into the House so that it may become law.

Just by way of clarification, the laws themselves enable a court to issue a declaration that unless the subject of proceedings can establish that his or her wealth was lawfully acquired, an assessment will be made on the quantum of unexplained wealth and the subject of the declaration will have to pay the relevant jurisdiction. They are a powerful tool. They are a very important tool in the fight against organised crime. They allow authorities to be able to gain and seize assets that exceed a person's legitimate wealth. From the opposition's perspective— particularly from our time in government—it enables the targeting of those criminal elements who are profiting from crime without being directly involved in the commission of an offence. As I said before, this was something that had been the focus for quite some time of Labor in government, and it is important that this work continue.

We had also, when in government, secured the support of former police commissioners Nick Palmer and Ken Moroney. They were appointed by then Minister Clare to negotiate with the jurisdictions to overcome those problems that I indicated earlier where the states and territories were reluctant to confer power to the federal level. It is understood that in October last year their report was handed up to the government. The government were supposed to report back in a matter of weeks. That has not occurred. It is of concern that this has not been the case. Again, if this work has been done, it is puzzling why it has been held back and why it has not been released in the public space or any kind of government response to it delivered.

It does not surprise me, though, because in many instances Minister Keenan said one thing in opposition and has said another thing now that he is on the government side of the House. He had previously, for example, been very eager to condemn the former Labor government on issues such as the level of resourcing enjoyed by agencies such as the ACC, Customs and Border Protection, and the AFP. In fact, while he may have spoken very strongly in opposition about resourcing for those agencies, it is clear from the first Hockey budget that the strength of his conviction was unable to prevent the cuts to them that have gone through. In actual fact, for instance, during a press conference last year now Minister Keenan was quoted as saying, in criticising cuts to the AFP budget, that Australia's national security had become weaker. What happened in this May's budget? $11.7 million was axed from the Federal Police. So his strength of conviction in opposition, as I said, failed to shield the AFP when in government. That will have a direct impact on the AFP's ability to protect the community. We believe around 300 AFP jobs are at risk because of these cuts. Again, those opposite are prepared to say one thing in opposition and do another thing in government.

I will mention another example that has been highlighted by the shadow minister. The Abbott government has cancelled $42.5 million in funding that had been allocated by the former government for additional sworn officers and $22 million across four years for the AFP's aviation operations at Hobart airport. Again, they said one thing in opposition, making the criticism, but they are not able to deliver in government. Certainly I think there is an appreciation that the rhetoric in opposition has not been able to sustain commitment or intention in government. That is an issue. Hopefully, the severity of that rhetoric will be wound back in years to come.

I turn to the other issue that it is important to discuss today. That is the whole issue of the National Crime Prevention Fund. That is a fund that was important for communities across the country. It had about $40 million. It was a component of the former government's package of measures to address gang violence and street crime within the community. It is certainly something that I felt strongly about in my part of Western Sydney because we had groups and local area commands in Western Sydney able to work together on antisocial behaviour that was affecting the quality of life of the people I represent in this place. The National Crime Prevention Fund was designed to support initiatives in high crime areas and to address the disconnection of young people that might be a trigger for antisocial behaviour. It also provided for diversionary and educational activities to help reintegrate young people into society. It also supported, for instance, the installation of closed circuit TV in areas that were known to be prone to antisocial behaviour, such as the damage of property and businesses in areas where there are major thoroughfares but problems with lighting and people taking advantage of those spaces to impact on local residents.

In my part of the world out in Doonside in Rooty Hill they have some of the few shopping strip areas outside of major shopping centres. These places have started to disappear as most commercial activity get centralised within shopping centres. But when theses shops are out in the open, particularly late at night, they are more vulnerable to antisocial behaviour—in particular, for example, graffiti and vandalism. In our part of the world, for quite some time I have been trying to marshal effort between police, business and community groups to try to work out short-term, medium-term and longer term strategies to deal with the issue. The short-term ones involved the use of CCTV to be able to quickly target those people who are undertaking this type of behaviour. The medium-term ones were the diversionary types of activities that were funded under the National Crime Prevention Fund. That would have involved community groups like the Blacktown Youth Services Association and Eagle Raps in Doonside getting offenders to find another outlet for their energies and ensure they were not engaging in antisocial behaviour. The longer term strategy was an innovative pilot program undertaken by Blacktown council, working with primary and secondary schools to tackle those behaviours that might lead to antisocial behaviour down the track. Blacktown council is to be commended for thinking longer term on this and getting young people to minimise the risk of them engaging in this behaviour.

Another activity that was really important, too, under the former local area commander for Blacktown, Mark Wright, who I have spoken about here previously, and Marist Youth Care, was a really great initiative called Com4unity. This dealt with antisocial behaviour within Westpoint in Blacktown where young kids were engaging in brawls and fighting. They had a very good pilot program that had seen a massive drop in that antisocial behaviour. They then formed a proposal under the National Crime Prevention Fund to be able to work together to extend that program. I was exceptionally pleased that they secured funding for the things I have talked about for Doonside and Rooty Hill, also for the work with Marist Youth Care and the police, through the PCYC that was involved. They were ready to receive those funds. They had received the letters indicating that they had got those funds. And what happened? The incoming government ripped all of the funds away.

I was grateful for the motion moved by the member for Kingston this week in which we talked about $800,000 of funds being ripped away from Marist Youth Care's Youth Connections. On top of that, they lost access to the funds that were given to them under the National Crime Prevention Fund. That is probably close to $1 million that would have been dedicated to improving antisocial behaviour in our area or to find employment outlets for young people in our area that was gone. It was ripped completely away. This government, which makes a big deal in question time about the funding of the East West Link and the tearing up of contracts, and which manages to bring Victorian state politics into this place, did a whole stack of that with community groups in this portfolio area. Ripping out that funding has impacted our ability to tackle antisocial behaviour in local areas.

What did they do with the money instead? They introduced the Safer Streets Program, a $50 million crime prevention initiative. From what I understand, even though we had groups ready to start the work—it takes a lot of long-term commitment to be able to break down these issues in local communities—this money was torn away. Everything has pretty much screeched to a halt, and we have a new program in place. No money has been allocated to youth mentoring or outreach programs, based on what we have been able to see. The only funding that has been provided is for projects that relate to CCTV, mobile CCTV and better lighting. That is all that has been done. But for the stuff that needs a longer term commitment and investment nothing has been done.

The target group of funding under the first funding round of the Abbott government's Safer Streets Program is organisations that were identified before October 2013. The Auditor-General has announced a lengthy investigation into this program, particularly into the eligibility criteria and the selection process used to award millions of dollars' worth of grants. In the first round of funding $19.3 million of taxpayers' money has been allocated to organisations hand-picked by the Liberal Party in the lead up to the 2013 election. It is simply shameful that we went through a selection process with public criteria, selected the groups and had them ready only to have the funding stopped. It was an arms-length process that was undertaken by the Attorney-General's Department. That was stopped and in its place this sham program that basically targets hand-picked organisations in a way that lacks transparency and is unable to demonstrate whether value for money will be delivered or not. More importantly, nothing is happening in the areas we represent. We cannot afford for this work not to go ahead.

Again, I raise the point that the Abbott government has affected our ability to deal with antisocial behaviour in our area. It has stalled action in other areas. We should not be paying a price for the inability of this government to follow proper process and honour previous commitments to good community groups that were going to do great work.

David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is good to be able to speak on this very important piece of legislation addressing, as it does, the critical issue of tackling organised crime, because there is no influence in our society which is more destructive or pernicious than organised crime. In the context of the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Unexplained Wealth and Other Measures) Bill 2014, I will speak for a moment about the initiatives of the government in the crime area generally. In my community of Banks crime is an issue that concerns a great many people. This government is absolutely determined at the federal level in concert with state and local authorities to sensibly do everything we can to address crime. We have had a number of local initiatives that have been very important in this area.

We have announced that CCTV cameras will be deployed in my electorate, in the suburbs of Narwee, Penshurst, Mortdale and Riverwood. They have been federally funded. It was terrific to have the Minister for Justice make the time to come and visit me and some members of my community in Riverwood just a few weeks ago. We talked about the importance of the CCTV program. Working closely with Hurstville council, those cameras will be rolled out very shortly. That will mean that should an incident occur in any of those locations the local police will be able to call upon the council, who will have custody of the hard drive where the imagery is stored, and call up the tape, so to speak. If an incident occurs on a Saturday night we will be able to access the footage from that Saturday night, which is a very good thing. There are two key benefits. Firstly, CCTV cameras should reduce the incidence of crime because if criminals know that they are there, and we will ensure that they do, they should be less likely to commit a crime. Secondly, if unfortunately, nonetheless, they do persist we will potentially have the opportunity of identifying who did it. That is why it is important. I am very proud of this initiative of this government.

At the more-national level, we have made some other important initiatives in crime prevention. One of the worst examples of crime that has afflicted our nation in recent years is the evil trade of people smuggling. We have addressed that very, very firmly. I saw today that in the eight months since the implementation of Operation Sovereign Borders we have had one unlawful boat arrival. In the comparable period under the previous government there were over 250 boats. We know the human cost and we know the financial cost only too well, but it certainly demonstrates the very firm desire of this government to show strength on our borders.

The same applies in Customs, because we have got to make sure that illegal goods do not get into this country. We do not want illegal firearms getting into this country; we do not want drugs getting into this country. We need a very, very strong hand in the Customs area. We did allocate an additional $88 million earlier in the year to confront problems in the Customs area, including $30 million to increase inspections of international mail, which unfortunately can be the source of illegal goods. That is going to mean 50 million mail inspections per year. We have seen illegal guns arrive through the conventional mail and we have seen drugs arrive through the mail. It is very, very important that we take a firm hand in that area.

It is also important that we address organised crime and specifically this issue of unexplained wealth. The situation that confronts us under current legislation is that there are frankly people in the community who have acquired vast amounts of unexplained wealth. It is absolutely not apparent from any legitimate source how they could have done so, but under the way the current law works it is often very difficult to establish that they have in fact acquired that wealth illegally. That is what this bill focuses on and I will come to its specific provisions in a moment. The reach of organised crime in our society is unfortunately very broad. I would commend you a report by the Australian Crime Commission or entitled The organised crime in Australia. It looks at the issue of organised crime in significant detail and it makes for some very sobering reading. It really emphasises why we need to act in this unexplained wealth space.

We are seeing changing technology and improved modes of transport. Whilst those things are great in many respects, they also unfortunately create opportunities for organised crime. We are seeing that in different areas. Identity theft is a growing problem in our society. We also have a rising tide of extortion committed online. Effectively, you might be familiar with denial-of-service attacks. This is basically where organised criminals hack into the severs of Australian companies, create all sorts of havoc and make it impossible to do business. Then they basically turn around and say, 'If you want this to be sorted out, you are going to need to deposit X dollars into Y bank account.' That is a very concerning aspect of organised crime.

Piracy is another area. Piracy is an issue that I have some understanding of from my previous career in the television and internet industry. Again, the rise of technology is a great thing because it means that we can communicate better, we can do more things and we can have a more diverse experience as consumers. But piracy is a substantial problem and we see that illegal download sites are often located in nations with minimal legal infrastructure. Those operations are having a material impact on the capacity of tax-paying, law-abiding companies to provide the entertainment services that people want to consume. That is another concerning trend.

The other horrendous impact of organised crime, or one of its most odious aspects, is the drug trade. The member for Reid spoke very powerfully earlier today about the impact of drugs that he has seen firsthand in his previous career. We need to absolutely err on the side of doing everything we can to go after the very evil people who peddle this product to young Australians. In the drug area, as the Australian Crime Commission report points out, the drugs that perhaps were the traditional, so to speak, causes of substantial social problems—like heroin, cocaine and others—are still unfortunately present and have been added to in recent years. We have a huge epidemic in ice, or crystal meth as it is known overseas. There is this concerning trade in the manufacture of synthetic drugs, where organised crime basically goes to scientific manuals and works out what generally legal chemical substances are likely to have a drug-like impact and then they manufacture that. We, as a society, have got to keep up with that and make sure that we outlaw that wherever we see it.

We also see issues in credit card fraud. Again, technology is fantastic and enables us to do so much more, but it also has opened up some opportunities for organised crime. One of the issues that we have seen in recent times is the concept of credit card skimming at ATMs. These are crimes that your average single criminal could not commit. They require infrastructure, they require training and they require resources. Frankly, they require the ability to be able to operate successfully outside of the law. Because these crimes are often complex in nature and difficult to track, it is often very difficult to catch the perpetrator and to prove that their wealth is in fact the ill-gotten product of their activities.

So it is entirely appropriate that we move to reverse, in a sense, the onus in this space. We do not want people in our community bringing in illegal drugs or illegal tobacco. We do not want people benefiting from piracy, intellectual property theft, and so on. And also we do not want people to be able to set up complex structures. Of course, the sad reality is that there are people out there who are expert in creating very, very complex legal structures similar to what were known as bottom of the harbour schemes and other similar things in another era. They create quasi-legal structures with the impact of creating a legal framework in which organised crime can prosper. We must crack down on that wherever we can.

The key provision of the bill is that, if you have unexplained wealth and the prosecution is able to put before the court that you have acquired it in a way which is illegal, the onus is on you to demonstrate that you have acquired that wealth through legitimate means. As I said, because of the complexity of tracking down organised crime it is particularly important that we make this change. I am pleased to see that we have bipartisan support for this measure—perhaps not on CCTV cameras. The member for Chifley would appear not to support the rollout of CCTV cameras in my electorate, which is very important for our local community. But in terms of the specific provisions of this legislation it is good to see that there is a degree of bipartisanship support.

Extending search and seizure powers is another important aspect of this bill to allow more material to be seized in the context of the investigation of unexplained wealth. At the moment, the requirements for obtaining a warrant and proving that a crime has been committed are so high that, quite often, the search and seizure of those items does not happen at all. That is a big problem.

The Crime Commission, in its report, estimates that the cost of organised crime is $15 billion a year. And other reports estimate that the cost of crime generally is equivalent to about four per cent of GDP. We can never completely eliminate crime, we can never completely eliminate organised crime, but we must do everything we can to address it, and that is certainly what this bill does.

Civil liberties are very important. Whilst this bill does enable more successful prosecutions in unexplained wealth cases, it also requires the Australian Federal Police to report annually to the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Law Enforcement in regard to unexplained wealth prosecutions. That will allow the parliament to keep a watchful eye on this area and ensure that it is operating for its intended purpose.

This is a very important piece of legislation. This is a government that is very focused on community safety and reducing crime. I am very supportive of this bill.

David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This legislation is well overdue. This legislation I fully support. It is here because the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement made recommendations that are embodied in the legislation back in 2012 after considering the implications for over a year. Not only are we committed to building a safe, secure Australia and economy; we are committed to effective law enforcement. This bit of legislation improves the administration of investigating unexplained wealth. This legislation will dovetail with the Proceeds of Crime legislation to facilitating the proceeds of crime being put to good community use.

Mr Deputy Speaker, as you are no doubt aware, the Proceeds of Crime legislation has funded a lot of crime preventing and crime tackling programs such as our closed circuit TV initiative which has been rolled out across a lot of electorates around the country. In my electorate of Lyne the Taree Rotary group got together of their own volition, before our policy was announced, and identified closed circuit TV as a way of identifying local crime in the CBD as well as recording crime for subsequent use in prosecutions. CCTV has been very successful in reducing crime in a lot of areas around the country—in violent hotspots in the after-hours period around alcohol venues. This legislation will help the Commonwealth to capture more proceeds of crime.

Recently in Taree there was property damage in the car park area adjacent to the main road through the CBD. A lot of wheelie bins were put up against a property and set fire to. A lot of goods inside the property were damaged and the structure of the building was put at risk. In the same area, there was a run of cars that had all their tyres slashed by vandals. If there had been CCTV there already, the police could have gone to the digital recording to see who it was. So this will not only prevent crime in these areas; it will help the police prosecute and capture the villains of violent crime, property crime, vandalism and similar things. At the other end of my electorate, unfortunately and with great shock, we woke a few mornings ago to violent crime in the main street of Port Macquarie. There was a fatal stabbing at about 2am outside one of the newsagents just down from a late-night entertainment quarter. I reflected on how helpful CCTV would have been in a crime situation like that.

Returning to this legislation, the amendments to the crimes legislation will facilitate the capture of the proceeds of crime, because much of it manifests as unexplained wealth out of the blue. And it is not a trivial amount of money. Organised crime in this country has billions of dollars running through it. Major crime, drug crime, money laundering—all these sorts of issues will be much more easily captured and effective litigation will ensue as a result of these amendments through, for example, streamlining the affidavit process or prolonging the orders of explanation so that the actual litigation can occur. Another example is allowing search warrants to seize the evidence to prove that the proceeds of crime are unexplained. It prevents people, who receive an order to come and make an explanation of their unexplained wealth, getting out of it by simply not turning up. They seem like simple, commonsense responses to a legal situation that has arisen. I support them, because it will make the work of our law courts and the AFP and the Australian Crime Commission much more effective. I cannot see why anyone would have a concern about the welfare of the victims of organised crime and money laundering from major enterprises through to local and regional crime syndicates.

Another benefit of some of these amendments is that the information can be shared so that the legal institutions and the enforcement bodies, such as the AFP and state police, can share information. It is another practical initiative that should facilitate effective prosecution. The fact that it has taken all this time to get this legislation is an indictment on the previous government. As I have mentioned, we do want to build a safe and secure society for Australia. You only have to look at what has been happening lately to know that our law enforcement bodies are doing a great job. Anything that this House can do to make their job more effective, I fully support. Closed circuit TV would be a great initiative and I am looking forward to it being rolled out in the city of Taree. I have been approached by businessmen in other commercial centres like Port Macquarie, even before this most shocking crime occurred, to have it. I think it is a great initiative and I would like to support it in other areas. If these amendments result in much more effective prosecution, I fully support the legislation. I commend this bill to the House.

Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

First of all, as a former Victorian police officer I would like to pass on my best wishes to the Australian Federal Police officer who was stabbed in Endeavour Hills overnight and to the Victorian police officer who was also stabbed. I know that there will be a lot of concern among police officers right across the country arising from the events that have taken place.

In talking on the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Unexplained Wealth and Other Measures) Bill 2014, I want to make it clear that I am speaking on the amendment. This all started back in 2009, when unexplained wealth was first introduced to the parliament. The incredible thing about organised crime is the amount of money taken away from the public and used by organised crime syndicates. It is estimated by the Australian Crime Commission at $15 billion per year. Most people are not aware of why we need unexplained wealth legislation. The simple reason is that the higher you go up the ladder of a criminal syndicate—and a good example is outlawed motor cycle gangs—you then get others to do what we call 'the dirty work'. They are the ones who do the drug deals and they bring the money back to the big guys. It is all about power and it is all about acquiring wealth. Once you have the money, you can use it to get other people to do your dirty work—for example, standing over the local real estate agent or car dealer to extort money from them. Organised crime syndicates also wash their money through legitimate businesses. They may, for example, buy a petrol station, while bikies like tattoo parlours. It is then very difficult for police to work out what are legitimate proceeds from the business and what is from organised crime.

In 2009, I participated in a bipartisan Australian parliamentary delegation to Canada, the United States, Italy, Austria, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. In conjunction with the Australian Crime Commission, the delegation examined serious and organised crime to see what we could learn to mitigate similar organised crime here in Australia. As I said, it was a bipartisan committee. The now President of the Senate, Senator Parry, former Senator Steve Hutchins and Chris Hayes, who is the opposition whip, were all on that committee. The committee learnt a lot. The big thing that we learnt from all these authorities around the world was: go after the money. If you go after the money, you can bring down organised crime. As I said before, crime is all about creating wealth and creating power. In the world of criminals, power will not come without great wealth. If you take the money away, you take the power away. It is as simple as that.

As I said, in every country we visited they said, 'Go after the money'. One of the best examples of this was in Italy, where the anti-mafia police made it clear to us how they would use restraining orders. The situation that I recall was one where they had a person who owned a number of supermarkets. They had a turnover in the vicinity of 800 million euro, so he was an exceptionally wealthy man. The police determined that he was meeting up with mafia contacts, so they were able to use provisions similar to our unexplained wealth provisions on him, and they were able to seize all of his assets. I give a lot of credit to the Northern Territory government and police because they were the trailblazers in regard to bringing in unexplained wealth laws here in Australia. The Northern Territory had great success, in particular, in going after the outlaw motorcycle gangs.

The existing Proceeds of Crime Act does not go far enough in terms of unexplained wealth. When I first spoke about this issue in the House, I was not happy. I was not happy, because the legislation did not go far enough. Sadly, it went before the senators, and, as much as I love the senators, they did everything they could in their committee to water down the intention of the legislation. It has taken a number of years to get back to where we were. I am talking about a bipartisan effort here. When it comes to the Australian Crime Commission, both sides of that committee were determined to get the best outcome for police. The sad reality is that in the time this has taken we could have raised hundreds of millions more dollars to go back into local community groups to assist with crime prevention. The beautiful thing about this unexplained wealth legislation is that all of proceeds go back into the local community to help fight crime, whether it be through closed-circuit television cameras, supporting youth clubs, suicide prevention et cetera.

The bill contains eight amendments to the Proceed of Crime Act. To me, the most significant amendment is that seized proceeds can no longer be used to fund a defendant's legal case. When I lost my seat back in 2010, I went back to Victoria Police and I worked with Taskforce Echo, who are the guys who look at the bikies. They really tried to use the existing Commonwealth legislation, but they just could not. There were two areas which greatly concerned them, and one is definitely addressed in this bill—that the proceeds of crime could initially be used by the defendant to mount a legal defence. So you had the situation where proceeds—be they cash, property or whatever—had been seized by the police, yet the defendant could use those proceeds to fund their legal campaign. There was no incentive for legal counsel to say to the client, 'Listen, my advice is we are not going to win this. Let us determine what should be confiscated or seized by police.' Instead, they would say, 'No, we need to fight,' because they could say to the client, 'Don't worry about this, we are going to lose these assets anyway, so we'll keep fighting and fighting.'

This bill makes a number of good amendments, and I note that members from both sides have spoken about streamlining the affidavit requirements, allowing time limits for serving notices et cetera. The other issue of concern, which I am not completely sure has been addressed, is the ability for the defendant to get hold of certain documentation which may have been used by police in their proceedings. There maybe a situation where police are relying on confidential sources and those details are made available in their application to the court and subsequently provided to the defendant. That is an issue that I am greatly concerned about when people are providing information against serious and organised crime figures. It comes under the disclosure rules. I would like to be satisfied by police that this area has been addressed because, again, if it has not, in some ways that makes the legislation very hard to use, especially where you have informers. From my police force days, I can say that in most of the circumstances where people give information to police they are very concerned and they always want their identity to be protected. We need to ensure that it is.

In closing, I congratulate the Minister for Justice, Michael Keenan. He has done a fantastic job, especially in recent days with what has happened around Melbourne and interstate. I congratulate both sides of this House, because everyone has been very focused. It has been a pleasure to be here when everyone is working together on a cause—that is, to protect Australians and make Australia a better place to live. It is great when we see that happen. Sometimes it can seem that it seldom happens—but it makes you want to be a member of parliament when everyone works together.