Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the bill and in doing so commend it to the House. We hear repeatedly that the first duty of government is to ensure the safety of its citizens. It is a commitment I am sure that both sides of this place take seriously. This legislation is a further example of how our government takes that commitment seriously.

It takes a bit to shock a bloke who worked in the criminal law for 10 years, but I recently had occasion to speak to a senior police officer in Mount Gambier about an incident, the terms of which I will not go into. It involved an illicit drug user who was addicted to methamphetamine or ice, as it is termed. I sat listening to the story gobsmacked. This is someone, who on ice, committed an act of self-harm that, but for the intervention of emergency services personnel, would have resulted in the loss of his life—effectively in a fit of psychotic rage, I expect a direct product of the illicit substance he had consumed. I will come back to that a little further down the track.

This legislation seeks to strengthen and secure our country. It does, substantively, three things. It implements tougher penalties for gun related crime, it increases the operation and effectiveness of investigations and prosecutions in relation to serious drug and precursor offences, and it increases penalties for forced marriage offences. There are some other technical amendments which deal with the sharing of information under the Crimes Act. The legislation improves the process for dealing with applications and requests under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act. It ensures the efficient use of functions by the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity. It enhances the operation of the Proceeds of Crime Act, which we all know is such an effective way of dealing with serious and organised crime. It extends powers and offences under various Commonwealth laws, such as the newly established office of the Independent Commission Against Corruption in my home state of South Australia. It clarifies approval processes for controlled operations and makes minor drafting amendments to the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Act 1995.

I will turn to the substantive penalties for firearm trafficking offences. Every time I hear of a massacre emanating from the United States, I am just so grateful for our very rigorous gun laws here in Australia. It is a credit to former Prime Minister Howard and his government that they took such a principled stance in the face of strong opposition perhaps from their conservative base. But I think every Australian is safer on account of it. I reflect on this regularly whenever we hear the stories emanating from America—and there seems to be a weekly occurrence of massacres, principally as a result of easy accessibility to firearms. We have a very strict regime in Australia, and I think we have the balance right on our regulation governing the ownership and use of firearms.

This legislation is a really important approach to mandatory minimum penalties for those who traffic in firearms and those who would seek to engage in illegally importing firearms. We need to do all we can at every point in the process to ensure that those who would seek to do us harm cannot access firearms illegally. Mandatory minimum penalties send a strong deterrent message with respect to this offending. The entry of even a small number of illegal firearms into the Australian community can have a significant impact on the threat posed as a result of the illicit market. Mandatory sentences in this case will not apply to children. There is no minimum non-parole period. So the offences as drafted preserve a level of judicial discretion to allow courts to take into account mitigating circumstances when setting the period that offenders will need to serve in custody. That is how it should be. The concept of judicial discretion is one that should be respected.

Obviously in the lead-up to the 2013 election the coalition undertook to implement tougher penalties for gun related crime. In legislating in this way, we are carrying through on our promise. The introduction of this penalty is appropriate to ensure that higher probability offenders receive sentences proportional to the seriousness of their offending while providing courts with the discretion to set custodial sentences consistent with the idiosyncratic circumstances of their respective offending.

I will now turn to forced marriage. It is obviously something that in modern Australian society we abhor. We are introducing new laws to the parliament to clarify what constitutes forced marriage and increased penalties for the conduct that causes a person to enter into a forced marriage. As a consequence of these amendments, a child under the age of 16 is presumed incapable of consenting to marriage. In effect, it is a rebuttable presumption. That will make the prosecution of these offences easier. It is consistent with a number of sexual offences to do with crimes which deal with children of this age. I have not personally come across any of these examples, but I accept what we have heard—that there are very many occasions in our community when children as young as 14 are forced to enter into the institution of marriage in circumstances where they do not understand what they are being asked to commit to. I think a rebuttable presumption in this case is appropriate, bearing in mind that we as legislators need to be careful about rebuttable presumptions because a fundamental tenet of our criminal law that underpins our criminal justice system is the concept of innocence until proven guilty and that one's guilt needs to be established beyond reasonable doubt. It is for the prosecution to establish those objective elements. But, in this case, a rebuttable presumption, in my respectful view, is appropriate.

I want to speak about amendments that seek to address illicit drugs and the importation of precursor chemicals. These new laws make two key changes to the Commonwealth drug and precursor offences so that it is easier to successfully prosecute individuals who are knowingly engaging in large-scale drug and precursor importations. First, the law will ensure that it is simpler to prosecute engaged individuals who evade punishment because they manage their involvement in a drug operation in such a way that the prosecution cannot prove they have the relevant intent. Second, these amendments will simplify the offences to do with importing chemicals used in the manufacturing of illicit substances.

I said earlier that I had a reasonably long career acting for people on criminal law. Given that I acted for people in regional communities, I know that invariably it was victims themselves who were forced to sell these drugs. Very rarely were prosecutions able to be successfully maintained in respect of those people that go about the large-scale importation of, particularly, precursors.

These changes will ensure that the same burden of proof applies to cases involving an attempted drug offence and in cases when an accused actually commits the offence. Of course, we all know that when for reasons of community safety a precursor is exchanged with an inert substance then the offender can only be charged with the offence of attempt. These amendments seek to deal with that.

Rarely have I seen an issue solidify rural communities like the concern surrounding illicit drug use, particularly with the methamphetamine known by many as ice. I have long been aware of the drug, but it seems to me that communities are now coming to understand the harm that it afflicts on individuals, the fact that it rips families apart and it smashes up communities. At one point in this debate it was suggested that my home town of Mount Gambier held the title of Australia's ice capital. I reject that on the basis that, in my view, illicit drug and methamphetamine use in Mount Gambier is no more prevalent than in any other regional community in Australia.

We had over 350 people attend the Sir Robert Helpmann Theatre for an information session. That would have been significant enough, but there were a further 350 people outside wishing to enter the venue. We then had a series of other forums throughout the Limestone Coast where 100 to 200 people attended. We saw over 700 people in the Riverland attend a forum. I am sure the member for Wannon, who is in the chamber, will speak of similar experiences. This issue has brought rural communities together, perhaps because of our close relationships, perhaps because our communities are small, perhaps because on average country constituents are more open about their circumstances or perhaps because they just cannot hide them because the communities are so open. We have seen a level of concern around illicit drug use that I have never seen before, and it is in that context that I am incredibly grateful that the Prime Minister has seen fit to establish the National Ice Taskforce.

The interim report, of course, speaks of six key criteria. That interim report was taken to COAG and I think the most powerful and persuasive point that needs to be made is that there was a clear understanding that there needs to be a national strategic and collaborative approach between the federal, state, territory and local governments. Clearly, we need to do something about educating everyone in our community about the harms of illicit drugs and in particular methamphetamines. We need to make sure people in the community understand that the serious and organised crime that trades in this drug is engineering the drug daily to be more addictive. We also need to do more to ensure harm minimisation. In my electorate of Barker it is unfortunate that, while this debate is raging, one of the few regional rehabilitation facilities in South Australia—the Karobran New Life Centre—has had to close on account of their financial position. I have raised this issue with the justice minister.

So having identified the need to embark on education and having spoken about harm minimisation for those people that are suffering from the effects of addiction to illicit substances, particularly ice, we are left with one other thing that needs to be done—that is, we need to focus our efforts on law enforcement. We will not prosecute our way out of this, but we can certainly work hard to strengthen the tools that are available to our Federal Police at our borders. It is our responsibility, in this place, to deal with precursors, and this legislation is seeking to do that. I am hopeful that our respective state counterparts who have responsibility for local law enforcement on a day-to-day basis will see fit to strengthen the tool kit available to police on the front line and prosecutors as they go about ensuring that those who seek to trade in this type of misery are given appropriate sentences and in very many cases immediate custodial terms.

I am so pleased that our community has identified this issue. I am so pleased that we are embarking upon a respectful and robust debate about what is required. I am grateful that I am part of a government supported by an opposition which wants to do everything it can to secure the safety of Australians, particularly when it deals with illicit substances like ice or methamphetamines.

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