Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Hansard source

The opposition will be supporting the Senate position that has been determined and will do so for good reason. Let us have a look at how this debate has progressed. The government put forward legislation which proposed to define the target group, if you like, as serious or organised crime. We felt that that was a broadening of the definition which would weaken security by widening the net. If you do not target security issues effectively in the transport area, you undermine it. So we put this amendment forward in good faith, and the amendment was carried in the Senate to change the definition in a range of areas back to what was actually recommended. I will come to the reasons for that in a short while.

What the government is now proposing with this quite extraordinary amendment is to remove 'organised crime'. It is beyond belief, frankly, that this government is seeking to move amendments that would delete 'organised crime' from the definition and just leave 'serious' there. I am somewhat flabbergasted. Yesterday, when the minister told me in good faith what was being considered by the brains trust who have come up with this, wherever they may be, I indicated to him—as I do; I have a good relationship with him—that my gut instinct was that I thought it would be a difficult thing to support. I am somewhat surprised, frankly, that this has been brought on today—to essentially knock over the legislation, which is what the failure to support the Senate amendments is doing.

Let us have a look at who talks about 'serious and organised crime' and why that is an appropriate definition. The government refers to the Ice Taskforce report and the Joint Committee on Law Enforcement report from 2011 as the basis for this bill. That is why this bill is coming about; they have recommendations from experts and, therefore, they are turning that into legislation, as is appropriate. It is appropriate in these areas to take proper advice from experts. Let us have a look at how the experts define the issue that needs legislative action. The Ice Taskforce report, uniformly, talks about targeting 'serious and organised crime'—not once, not twice, not 20 times, not 50 times but hundreds of times. The Joint Committee on Law Enforcement inquiry into the adequacy of aviation and maritime security measures, which this minister for justice and Customs opposite sat on—

Mr Keenan interjecting—

Or whatever the title of his position is; it is hard to keep up with things over there.

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