Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner Bill 2006, the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2006 and the Law Enforcement (AFP Professional Standards and Related Measures) Bill 2006. The bills before us today, when considered as a package, seek to implement a number of changes to the operations of the AFP Professional Standards Unit and to set up a new Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity. I will also take this opportunity to speak in support of Labor’s second reading amendment to the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner Bill 2006. As members would be aware, and as the member for Fisher has just indicated, I have a background in working with various police agencies throughout the country. In previous contributions in this place I have said that I have represented the professional and industrial interests of police, and I am happy to be here again today, lending support in terms of the professional interests of our police.

Before turning to the details of the provisions of these bills, I would like to say that I do not support corrupt conduct by police, or by any other law enforcement agency or public official for that matter. However, I do wish to ensure that any agency established to investigate corrupt conduct has as an underpinning philosophy a process of procedural fairness and natural justice. Any agency or officials of such bodies that do not have such an underpinning philosophy should not be supported in this place.

The Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner Bill 2006 seeks to establish the position of Integrity Commissioner and a new agency under the Attorney-General’s portfolio, which will be the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity, and it specifies powers for the investigation and reporting of corruption issues. It creates new offences for not cooperating with the Integrity Commissioner and it is limited in operational scope to the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Crime Commission and former employees of the National Crime Authority.

The Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2006 will allow the Integrity Commissioner to have access to certain powers under the Telecommunications (Interception) Act, the Crimes Act 1914 and various other acts. It will extend the scope of the Telecommunications (Interception) Act and consequential amendments to allow the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity to cooperate with those organisations. It should also be noted that the commissioner will have access to various coercive powers in order to direct compliance in respect of investigations.

The Law Enforcement (AFP Professional Standards and Related Measures) Bill 2006 seeks to repeal the Complaints (Australian Federal Police) Act 1981, to abolish the Australian Federal Police Disciplinary Tribunal and to establish in the Australian Federal Police Act 1979 a new four-category system for complaints of its own investigation into both conduct and practice issues. The bill amends a range of acts as a consequence, incorporates the drug and alcohol screening tests into the Australian Federal Police Act 1979 and amends the Australian Federal Police Act 1979 to make new provisions for suspension, termination and resignation from AFP employment. The establishment of the position of Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner is a welcome development and the opposition also welcomes the measures designed to address inadequacies in the existing AFP complaints and disciplinary systems.

It is worth noting that it has taken the coalition almost two full years to come good on their commitment to set up an independent national anticorruption body. In fact it has taken this government almost 10 years to act on concerns raised by the Australian Law Reform Commission. Three additional reports, including the secret Harrison report, have all urged that reform be undertaken in this area. Over the last decade the Australian Police Disciplinary Tribunal has effectively been moribund; I think it is seven years since it last heard a matter. You would have thought that, after taking this long to introduce the legislation, the government would have taken the time to get it right, as opposed to simply expediting it in the parliament.

There are still a number of other what I consider to be minor flaws in these bills, which add to the growing trend of sloppy legislation introduced by this government. I strongly support providing our police and other law enforcement personnel with the best tools to assist in their duties. As a consequence, I support these bills. I make no apology for doing that. They are a step in the right direction but, quite frankly, the legislation is not at this stage quite right and still needs to be amended; hence the second reading amendment put forward by the opposition.

In my opinion, these bills go a considerable way towards providing police and law enforcement personnel with the tools they need. Despite that, I do have a number of concerns and I would like to detail them. I support the bills but feel they should be subject to greater scrutiny and certainly a detailed review. As I noted earlier, the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner Bill 2006 seeks to establish the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity. It specifies the powers for the investigation and reporting of corrupt activities and creates new offences for not cooperating with the Integrity Commissioner. Operationally it limits the scope to the AFP, the Australian Crime Commission and former NCA employees.

Despite these welcome changes, the definition of ‘law enforcement agency’ in its current form is limited to the conduct and investigations within the Australian Crime Commission and the Australian Federal Police—only within those two organisations. The Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity should be expanded to include all other Commonwealth law enforcement agencies and employees of those law enforcement agencies, particularly where those employees are engaged in intelligence gathering and investigation work within those agencies.

Many of these agencies increasingly wield powers that would have previously been regarded as being police powers. For example, I note that Australian Customs Service officers have the power to use weapons, including pistols and the weapons mounted on the decks of their maritime vessels, and powers of arrest and detention, a power to search and seize, the ability to conduct controlled operations and the responsibility for the storage of large amounts of contraband such as drugs, alcohol, tobacco, knives, guns and ammunition. This government may have effectively exempted Customs officers from the oversight of the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner by not specifically including them in this legislation. To be able to include them, as the member for Fisher was indicating, it would simply be a matter of moving that by regulation. But I have to say that is simply not good enough. Doing that just by regulation—adding and subtracting organisations or agencies involved in law enforcement other than the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Crime Commission—could possibly lead to a system that effectively allows the minister responsible to have a veto over corruption allegations or indeed a corruption investigation. That is why we, in Labor’s second reading amendment, want to take a more definitive approach and actually specify those agencies which use law enforcement powers and subject those to the oversight of the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner.

It is my opinion that not taking this course of action will, apart from everything else, including giving the minister a right of veto, possibly send the wrong message to the community—and certainly send the wrong message to those people that I formerly represented—that any form of corruption may only be found in the AFP or the ACC. I hope that we are not going to find corruption in any of our agencies. But why would we leave out, by concerted action, all those other law enforcement agency officers using powers under federal acts and where we allow them to conduct themselves in a manner such as Australian Federal Police officers?

I strongly question how the government will enhance the Commonwealth’s anticorruption capacity if the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner’s oversight role is restricted in the way that is proposed here. Bear in mind that in many areas of operation within the sphere of this government, whether they be Customs, Taxation or Immigration, we have Australian Federal Police being seconded to each one of the organisations within those areas. It is of some curiosity to us on this side of the House as to whether those officers, when they undertake a secondment, will still be subject to the oversight of the Integrity Commissioner. But it is a simple fact at this stage that more and more, in terms of our deployment of personnel with investigative skills to investigations, we are seconding people from our respective police forces, particularly the AFP, to fulfil those operations. If we are going to say that this integrity regime would, and should for that matter, cover the AFP and the ACC, that regime should also apply to any other Commonwealth agency involved in law enforcement.

It is also concerning that the current definition of ‘serious corruption’ as an offence punishable, on conviction, by a term of 12 months or more of imprisonment will have an unintended consequence of picking up a range of offences that might not be considered to amount to serious corruption. The definition contained in the bill has the potential for minor matters to be dealt with by the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity. Quite frankly, I understand that was never intended to be the case. My fear is that, for instance, some driving offences in the ACT Crimes Act that attract a penalty of a 12-month term of imprisonment could be dealt with—I am not saying they will be, but certainly under the definitions of this bill they could be dealt with—by the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity. Whilst not denying that officers indicted on these offences should be dealt with in accordance with the relevant laws, I believe it is inappropriate and untenable that these types of offences be included within the scope and definition of offences to include serious corruption.

Perhaps, as previously suggested to the Minister for Justice and Customs by the Police Federation of Australia, the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity should confine itself to the investigation and exposure of corruption and serious criminal misconduct, and that the definition of matters to be investigated should be clearly defined in the bill itself, as opposed to simply allowing it to take its scope from the possible prison term that may eventuate from any offence involving a police officer or an officer subject to an investigation. It has also been suggested by the Police Federation of Australia that the definition of corruption used by the Independent Commission Against Corruption in New South Wales could also assist in at least containing the investigations to issues of serious corruption or serious professional misconduct.

All matters of performance and service delivery should continue to be managed by the relevant agencies and oversighted by the Commonwealth Ombudsman. The Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity should have a clear accountability mechanism to the parliament. This has been addressed in a number of locations, but the 2005 report by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Australian Crime Commission made specific recommendations to the minister about the oversight of the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity.

On completion of its report in 2005 on the Australian Crime Commission and supporting the government’s move for the establishment of the Australian law enforcement integrity regime, the committee unanimously found and recommended that the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity should be included in the provisions that allow for the scrutiny of the agency’s operation by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Australian Crime Commission.

It is also worth noting that the committee found and unanimously recommended that the legislation for the creation of the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity should include a provision for the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the ACC to be able to refer matters to the commission for investigation, with a requirement to report back to the committee such matters of investigation. Clearly, when the joint committee was charged with the responsibility of looking at and addressing issues involving the ACC and the Australian Federal Police, the committee not only acknowledged that there was a need for the position of the Australian Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner to be established and a person appointed to fulfil that role but also unanimously took the view that there should be parliamentary oversight of that provision.

The Senate Legal and Constitutional Committee in May this year made the following recommendation:

The committee recommends that Part 14 of the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner Bill 2006 be amended to provide the existing Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Australian Crime Commission with jurisdiction to scrutinise the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity and those Commonwealth law enforcement agencies subject to its oversight.

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on the ACC and the Senate Legal and Constitutional Committee strongly recommend not just parliamentary oversight but oversight by the joint parliamentary committee itself.

The Law Enforcement (AFP Professional Standards and Related Measures) Bill 2006 inserts a new part in the Australian Federal Police Act 1979 to modernise the complaints and professional standards regime within the AFP. I share the concerns raised with me by the Australian Police Federation and by the Australian Federal Police Association that this bill does not pick up the recommendations made by His Honour Mr Justice Fisher following his review of the industrial environment in 2003—a review that led to the introduction of this bill. In fairness, Mr Justice Fisher called for an independent review of certain matters, particularly in relation to dismissal and financial penalty. (Time expired)

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