Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Petrie for his question. As has been noted in the House already, we have been reminded overnight about the extreme brutality of the enemy we face, with the reported murder of American journalist Steven Sotloff. The shocking images we have seen only focus the resolve of the government to do whatever is necessary to protect Australians and Australia. In response to this threat, the Abbott government is spending $630 million on a range of measures but $24.4 million of that will go to the Australian Crime Commission for the creation of a foreign fighters task force.

The ACC is the nation's criminal intelligence agency and it has already conducted 40 coercive hearings on 24 individuals, which has expanded our understanding of foreign fighters and their support networks. This task force will allow the ACC to use its existing wealth of criminal intelligence to continue this work and also explore the links between terrorism and organised crime. We know that terrorist groups internationally use organised crime to source both weapons and resources and we know that they actively participate in organised crime to fund their activities. The Australian government is concerned about this occurring in Australia—and this week we have seen reports out of the royal commission into union corruption that some Australian foreign fighters already have strong links to organised crime groups. The relationship between terrorism and organised crime remains a persistent threat and the ACC, as Australia's national criminal intelligence agency, is the agency that is best placed to disrupt these links and to fill any intelligence gaps.

Since coming to office, the coalition have introduced a range of measures to tackle the scourge of organised crime and we are committed to ensuring that extremists cannot use organised crime to fund their violent plans. The Foreign Fighters Taskforce will be able to use the specialised criminal intelligence capability of the ACC, and its close relationships with its state and territory law enforcement partners, to detect and disrupt these links between extremist groups and organised criminals. The ACC's Foreign Fighters Taskforce will be able to tackle this issue from a new angle and this will provide us with new leads, new intelligence and possibly new suspects. The new resourcing, the $24.4 million, combined with the ACC's unique coercive powers will open a new front in the battle to stop violent extremism from harming Australian citizens both here at home and abroad. This $24.4 million investment will allow the ACC to continue to use its far-reaching powers and its expertise to help Australians so we can have the most robust response possible to this national threat.

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