Julian Simmonds (Ryan, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

[by video link] Nobody who ever walks into the ACCCE leaves unchanged. The ACCCE is the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation, and to walk into that centre and see the work that the AFP officers do to protect our kids profoundly changes somebody, I have to say.

The commitment of these AFP officers to tracking down online predators is equal to the government's desire to protect our kids. These predators stalk the dark web like someone stalks a dark alley in real life. They use the dark web because it provides anonymity. It provides them an area where they can anonymously conduct their nefarious activities, whether that is targeting an ex-partner through a form of coercive control, whether it's preying on young kids or whether it's organising drug shipments as part of an organised criminal gang.

The powers that have now been passed by the parliament through the Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Bill change all of that. This government, the Morrison government, was not prepared to see these dedicated AFP officers, like the ones who operate in the ACCCE, operate with one hand tied behind their backs. Far from it, with these powers we are giving them an edge on the criminals, so that Australian families know that they are safer with this coalition government; they are safer because the AFP has these powers.

Up until these powers were granted, if these dedicated AFP officers in the ACCCE were portraying themselves undercover on the dark web to infiltrate paedophile networks, and if they were able to identify and arrest somebody within these networks, they would then have to beg, cajole, ask really nicely and say 'pretty please' to take over the accounts of these horrible, heinous criminals so they could arrest their criminal accomplices. No more. These powers, specifically the account takeover powers, allow AFP officers who arrest a high-value target, such as one operating within a paedophile network, to take over their account without having to ask them, and then to take on their identity online so they can identify the associates and criminal accomplices who are part of that paedophile ring. This government has put in the hands of hardworking and dedicated AFP officers an incredibly powerful tool to protect our kids.

These keyboard creeps are not just trying to take advantage of our kids. These keyboard creeps are also operating things like remote access Trojans against their ex-partners. These are programs that they install on an ex-partner's computer so they can see every keystroke. They can get banking passwords and take over their banking accounts. They can turn on their camera and monitor what their ex-partner is doing. They can look at diary entries. They can look at their entire life, basically.

Up until now, while the AFP could infiltrate somebody who was selling a subscription to these kinds of programs, there was little they could do to disable the program on the thousands of computers that it could possibly be installed on. Now, thanks to the data disruption warrant, another tool that was put in place and given to AFP officers by this government, they are able to go onto the servers hosting these criminal programs, delete them and stop them working on the thousands of computers that they might otherwise be infiltrating without those people even realising it. Again, it's about giving the AFP officers an edge on the criminal gangs so that Australians know they will be safer because of the powers that the government has put in place for AFP officers and because of the work of those AFP officers.

The other big challenge is the anonymising technology that the organised criminal gangs employ. You saw that during Operation Ironside, when they used the encrypted phones and the AFP officers were able to hack that network. The new network activity warrants will allow the AFP to far better track those networks through that anonymising technology so that they can further disrupt those organised criminal gangs who pedal drugs and misery and heartache to Australian families.

As the chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement, I know how important these powers are, and I know how much they are valued by AFP officers, who are doing great work to protect Australian families. I know they will make Australian families safer because of these powers that the Morrison government has put in place.

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