David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party) Share 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.

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