Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Home Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I want to thank all of the members for their contributions to the debate on the Transport Security Amendment (Serious Crime) Bill 2019. The bill, as we know, is evidence of the government's commitment to ensuring that Australia's aviation and maritime systems are safe and secure. A number of inquiries and reports have noted that individuals and organised crime groups are exploiting weaknesses in the aviation and maritime security identification card schemes—the ASIC and MSIC schemes—enabling them to conduct serious criminal activity at our airports and seaports, such as the importation of illegal weapons and drugs.

Serious and organised crime causes enormous human suffering in the Australian community. For example, in 2018 alone there were 438 drug induced deaths that involved heroin and a further 407 drug induced deaths that involved amphetamines. The suffering inflicted on the families of these 845 Australians and visitors to Australia from just two of the many illicit drugs imported into Australia by criminal cartels is immeasurable. Serious and organised crime also imposes significant costs on our economy. The Australian Institute of Criminology has estimated that organised crime costs the Australian economy more than $47 billion per annum.

The government introduced this bill in order to address serious criminal influence at airports and seaports. The airports and seaports are gateways for the entry of illicit goods into Australia and it is essential that persons granted access to sensitive and secure areas in Australia's international ports of entry are of sound character. The bill establishes a regulatory framework to achieve this outcome. The reforms in this bill will impact persons involved in serious and organised crime, by allowing applicants for an ASIC or MSIC to have their application refused if they have a serious and relevant criminal history. A less serious or irrelevant offending history will not preclude a person from obtaining an ASIC or MSIC.

I want to thank the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee for its work on this bill, through its inquiry and recommendations. The committee's report on the bill made two recommendations. Specifically, the committee recommended that the bill be amended to incorporate a criminal intelligence assessment in the application process of the ASIC and MSIC schemes. The committee recommended that, subject to this recommendation being implemented, the bill be passed. The committee was of the view that our:

… aviation and maritime environments remain vulnerable to infiltration and exploitation by persons with links to serious and organised crime.

The committee stated:

The introduction of a criminal intelligence assessment in the background check process for the ASIC and MSIC schemes would strengthen the schemes by enabling decisions to exclude persons who have links to serious crime, where that person might facilitate or commit crime, from accessing airports and seaports.

The government supports the committee's recommendation, and I'll be moving amendments to this bill in order to implement the committee's recommendation to include criminal intelligence assessments as part of the background check process for ASICs and MSICs. The amendments will establish the regulatory framework to ensure that people with known links to serious and organised crime groups will be ineligible to hold ASICs or MSICs. The amendments will provide the ACIC with the ability to conduct these assessments, as well as providing for merits review of adverse criminal intelligence assessments. The purpose of the bill and the amendments is to ensure that ASICs and MSICs are not issued to individuals who pose a security or serious criminal risk.

The bill gives effect to the government's election commitment to strengthen background-checking regimes in order to ensure that individuals with links to serious crime cannot gain access to our airports or seaports. It will reduce the ability of serious and organised crime groups to engage in illegal activities and, in turn, keep illegal drugs and guns off our streets and our communities safe. I thank members for their contributions and I commend the bill to the House.

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