Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Hansard source

Hansard will record that the minister has failed to answer my question twice about whether or not the Solicitor-General advised on the final version of the Criminal Code Amendment (High Risk Terrorist Offenders) Bill 2016. He has not answered my questions about the legal services direction, nor as to whether he has ever sought the advice of the Solicitor-General without going to the Attorney-General first.

Going to the other topic that I wanted to deal with: the righteous indignation that we have heard from the government on the subject of guns today and strident assertions from, in particular, the Prime Minister, that mandatory minimum sentences are the solution to Australia's gun problems. There is no convincing evidence to prove that mandatory minimum sentencing acts as a deterrent. Despite that, the government is pursuing this measure. It is ignoring concerns expressed repeatedly by state and territory prosecutors. It is ignoring the concerns and opposition to mandatory sentencing expressed repeatedly by bar associations across Australia, by law societies across Australia and by the Law Council of Australia, the peak body. Extraordinarily, it is ignoring even the government's own Attorney-General's Department's formal guidelines, which oppose mandatory minimum sentences. Of course, this government refuses to listen to all of those experts.

Labor is tough on guns. The minister knows that, and the government knows that. We want to stand with the government to implement sensible crime and justice policy, but this is a government which does not want to listen to the experts. We are deeply concerned that actions this government is taking in that regard will do more harm than good.

The determination to persevere with poor policy and to ignore the experts is not new. At the same time as the government is thinking, at least, about watering down our gun laws and talking to people about watering down our gun laws—particularly senators, in exchange for votes in that House—and ignoring law enforcement experts, this government is also destroying our ability to collect independent expert research on crime. A quieter, but very concerning policy proposed by the government over the past year is the merger of the Australian Institute of Criminology with the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission. This merger would see our national research and knowledge centre on crime and justice moved into what is essentially a law enforcement body.

Labor believes that these functions are best undertaken by an independent agency that can guarantee the independence of the work undertaken. For over 40 years the Australian Institute of Criminology has produced expert research on gun control, including research on firearms and violent crime to firearms trafficking and armed robbery. The research has been critical to developing sensible and robust policies to tackle illegal weapons on our streets. Part of the reason why we in this parliament can trust this research—and why Australians generally can trust this research, and why we can rely so heavily on this research—is that it comes from what is seen to be an independent and highly respected source. Its independence allows it to talk to offenders, to talk to law enforcement, to talk to the courts and to talk to victims. It has a broad overview and a unique insight into crime and justice, and it helps policymakers and law enforcement to stop crimes before they occur.

Australia's criminologists must be afforded the independence that allows them to pursue the highest quality of research. Without independent, evidence-based data our gun control policy initiatives will be compromised, as will many of the other initiatives in the criminal justice area. Already the research on armed robbery has been cut. We have seen large reductions in staff and, for the first time in years, the Australian Institute of Criminology is failing to reach its research targets. Now is not the time to be making policy in the dark. This government's refusal to listen to experts or to commit to independent criminological research is very concerning. If this government wants to be tough on crime it first needs to understand crime. Labor will never water down our world-leading gun laws, and we will also stand by our internationally-renowned criminological research institutions. We call on the government to do the same.

The questions I put to the Minister for Justice are: how many staff were there at the Australian Institute of Criminology before the merger? How many staff are there now? How many criminologists and research staff have left the Australian Institute of Criminology since the merger was announced? How many have been replaced? How much has the merging of back-office operations saved? And, as to the breadth of research: under the proposed merger, who is going to clear AIC research obligations? And can you guarantee that all current AIC monitoring programs will continue?

Finally, as to a concern that has been expressed about reduced research output: has the Australian Institute of Criminology met all of its research key performance indicators in 2015-16 and, if not, why not? And if not, has the Australian Institute of Criminology ever failed to meet its key performance indicators before?

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