Mal Brough (Fisher, Liberal Party, Special Minister of State) Share this | Hansard source

I will say at the outset I will attempt to address some of the questions raised by honourable members in their speeches and I thank them for their contributions. On behalf of Minister Keenan, I offer this summing up. The Australian Crime Commission Amendment (Criminology Research) Bill brings two of the nation's leading authorities on crime and justice—the Australian Institute of Criminology and the Australian Crime Commission—together under one banner.

Australia's law enforcement and justice agencies are increasingly dependent on accurate research, information and intelligence to ensure that our officers on the ground, at our borders and in our intelligence agencies can do their jobs. Accurate research, information and intelligence is also essential to deliver evidence based crime prevention strategies and effective justice policies that benefit the Australian community. A combined agency with strengthened research capabilities will be able to provide a better evidence base for our agencies to identify the patterns and associations that can help detect, disrupt and undermine those who seek to do our community harm.

In addressing some of the questions raised by the honourable members in the second reading debate, I am advised that, in respect of whether the proposed merger will impact on the independence of the AIC's research, the answer is emphatically no. Under the merger, the AIC would carry its research functions over to the ACC, forming a new research branch, the Australian Crime and Justice Research Centre, which will be headed by a senior criminologist and research specialist. Furthermore, the ACC and AIC agreed on this structure following consultation with the AIC's stakeholders, including state and territory justice agencies and external criminology researchers, who reiterated the importance of the AIC remaining an independent research unit within the ACC.

I was further asked: what are the benefits for both of these agencies? I am advised a merger presents significant opportunities for both the AIC and the ACC. By merging these two agencies, staff would have greater access to classified information. This would enable them to develop better informed and targeted research that will be of greater value to the law enforcement and justice agencies across Australia. A merger would also provide the ACC with a specialist research capability that will support the development of evidence based responses to serious organised criminal threats. A merger would also provide significant opportunities to the staff of both agencies by providing greater diversity in the type of work that they can undertake and, of course, the professional opportunities available to them.

The member for Fraser particularly queried whether the criminology researchers would still be able to access the AIC's datasets. I can confirm for the member for Fraser, who is of course listening to every word I am uttering here today—

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