Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Crimes and Other Legislation Amendment (Omnibus No. 1) Bill 2024. Sometimes we debate enormous transformational and historic pieces of legislation in this place. They top the news headlines for days, weeks and sometimes months. They define elections and determine the future of our nation. Other times, the changes we debate are small but necessary changes. They clean up ambiguities, clarify grey areas and address those, shall we say, small things that create legal nightmares when the rubber hits the road. This bill is one of those latter examples. Simply put, we are introducing minor changes to ensure our law enforcement agencies have the tools they need to keep pace with the fast-evolving world of digital crime. We need to ensure there is no room for confusion or misinterpretation in the law. It also allows us to better maintain the integrity of our telecommunications systems.

Criminals are constantly finding new ways to exploit loopholes in the law, and the rapid advance of technology means that the slow-moving beast of Australian legislation is lagging behind. Law enforcement agencies have identified an increase in criminals' use of digital assets, including cryptocurrency and block chain technologies, to facilitate their offending. We're talking about drug trafficking, firearm sales and, most heinously, child sexual exploitation. We are talking about money laundering, financing of terror organisations, ransomware and scams. These technologies are being used in organised crime and some of the most vile kinds of abuses targeting vulnerable Australians.

AUSTRAC, or the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre, is Australia's financial intelligence agency. They are responsible for monitoring financial transactions to identify money laundering, organised crime, tax evasion, welfare fraud and terrorism financing. In a recent report into money laundering in Australia, AUSTRAC said:

Scam methods are constantly evolving. Offenders are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their delivery and execution, and criminal activity can be more difficult to detect and disrupt. Offenders leverage emerging technologies …

And it is Australians, their families and their businesses who are paying the price.

I don't think a day or at least a week would go by when I don't get approached by someone in my electorate who shares with me their stories. When I was on my tour to Fisher last week, I met a lovely little old lady who was in her eighties. She had been scammed of her entire life savings. Your heart just breaks, particularly for the older generation. Many of them are very, very vulnerable online. These crooks make their way through the internet, in particular. It makes my blood boil that so many of these people see older and vulnerable Australians, in particular, as easy beats. We, collectively, as legislators in this place, need to make it as difficult and as costly as we possibly can for these crooks.

In 2023 alone, Australians made 600,000 reports of scams, with aggregate losses of more than $2.7 billion. Businesses, including small businesses and microbusinesses, reported losses of $29.5 million to Scamwatch. In fact, money laundering costs Australians over $60 billion a year, with a global cost of as much as $1 trillion a year. Dr Dennis Desmond is a lecturer in cybersecurity at UniSC, on the Sunshine Coast. He was a former FBI agent in the US and has undertaken some important research into the use of blockchain and cryptocurrency in organised crime and terror financing. He said:

Despite increased global regulation and enforcement, the use of cryptocurrencies in illicit trade and laundering activities grows each year. A corresponding growth in cybercrime, ransomware, identity fraud, and cryptocurrency theft from exchanges feeds the pool of illicit digital proceeds. Recent efforts to reduce cryptolaundering activities have been insufficient despite the global implications for terrorism funding and the cost to governments …

We are simply failing to equip our law enforcement agencies with the legislative tools they need to prevent, disrupt and prosecute this kind of unlawful behaviour and organised crime. As Australia's parliament, we have a responsibility to close these gaps, to protect Australians and to secure their future.

In relation to cryptocurrency, let me firstly touch on the amendments to the Crimes Act and the Proceeds of Crime Act. These changes will allow our police and anticorruption agencies to more effectively seize digital assets, like cryptocurrency, when investigating criminal activity. We've all heard stories of criminals using cryptocurrency to hide and distribute their ill-gotten gains. This is neither science fiction nor a spy novel; it is happening right now in this country. It's also not a niche issue. Crypto has become a frequently used tool in criminal transactions. The laws we're debating right now make it crystal clear that when law enforcement agencies execute a search warrant they have the authority to access and seize digital assets and cryptocurrencies they hold. And it's not just crypto. Criminals seek to exploit a whole host of legitimate financial channels, assets and services. As a result, it's important that these laws extend to a range of other digital assets that could hold value. The bill in question allows for that kind of flexibility, to ensure that the definition of 'digital asset'    keeps pace with the growth of emerging technologies.

I also want to touch on the amendments to the Telecommunications Act because I think that these changes need to be explained. The amendments are about ensuring the security of our telecommunications systems and improving oversight. The bill clarifies the roles of the Communications Access Coordinator and creates a new position, the Communications Security Coordinator, within the Department of Home Affairs. The bill doesn't grant any new functions to this new coordinator role. Rather, it transfers certain existing functions performed by the Communications Access Coordinator to align the roles with the new administrative arrangements in the government.

I'd be the first person to point out that creating a new government position or making the government bigger doesn't make Australians safer or our country more secure, but where the public is exposed to investigative and law enforcement powers I believe it's incumbent upon the parliament, as our chief source of civilian oversight, to legislate protections in the public interest. That's why these laws will streamline information-sharing processes while ensuring that our critical communications infrastructure remains secure and protected from malicious actors. They will allow oversight bodies for state-based integrity agencies to access intercepted information, thereby enabling them to scrutinise and audit the activities of the agencies that they oversee. This is about transparency and ensuring that agencies are using their powers lawfully and responsibly. It's a safeguard for the public, ensuring that those who are entrusted with significant powers are themselves subject to appropriate and proper oversight.

These minor changes are a responsible update to the laws that govern important aspects of our justice system. The bill also ensures that those tasked with keeping us safe are prepared for community safety in the modern age. We simply must get better at empowering law enforcement to protect Australians.

I think one of those areas in which we are seriously lagging behind is artificial intelligence and machine learning. I have often talked about the use of AI in defence, particularly in light of the AUKUS arrangement. But artificial intelligence poses—

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