Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the three bills that are being moved cognately: the  Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner Bill 2006, the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2006 and the Law Enforcement (AFP Professional Standards and Related Measures) Bill 2006. Labor agrees with and certainly supports the intent of these bills. In fact, it is a shame that we could not have been here debating them much earlier. The genesis of the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity appears to have derived from a reference by the then Labor Attorney-General, Michael Lavarch, sent to the Australian Law Reform Commission more than 10 years ago. The Australian Law Reform Commission recommended that such a body be set up in its report of November 1996. It then took the Liberal Party from 1996 to June 2004 to adopt this proposal as party policy.

Needless to say, it is clearly a hallmark of Senator Ellison’s handiwork that this sort of delay seems to be commonplace. Not only did it take those eight long years for the Liberal Party to adopt this as party policy; it then took Senator Ellison a full two years to get his act together and bring the bill before the parliament. Yet in the same period we have seen numerous rushed changes to the terrorism acts and other laws affecting the powers of the AFP and many other agencies, but still no action was taken on this issue. The government seems simply not to see that, when you give agencies wide new powers, making sure there is robust oversight in place at the same time is critical. Although funding for the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner was then announced in the 2005 budget, the bill itself has been sitting on the forward list of urgent bills for well over a year.

At this point let me state unequivocally for the public record that there is no evidence—and we accept that there is no evidence—of systematic corruption in Australian Commonwealth law enforcement agencies, and I think it is important that we have been served so well by these agencies. Yet there are some isolated instances of concern. In the time that it has taken between the announcement of this bill and the present day that we are here debating the bill, we have seen the leaked secret internal Customs report that blew the lid on corrupt and criminal activity at Sydney airport, sparking the Wheeler review. We have seen a couple of Australian Crime Commission seconded officers charged in relation to corruption offences. We have seen extraordinary allegations made in relation to corruption of Commonwealth officials from a range of agencies in the Torres Strait.

The public can and should have confidence in the integrity of the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Crime Commission and the Australian Customs Service officers who do an exceptional and excellent job in protecting the community from some pretty awful threats of terrorism, drug trafficking, sex slavery, child pornography and many other crimes. But we need to acknowledge that crime is big business. There are huge amounts of money involved, and history shows us that criminals are willing and able to corrupt serving officers to stay a step ahead of the law. It is absolutely vital, therefore, having seen some instances and seeing the potential is so great, that the long overdue integrity commission will finally be established. Likewise, the AFP’s new professional standards regime is clearly a marked improvement on the current arrangements. This is even more the case because, since September 11, our nation’s law enforcement agencies have had a dramatic increase in the range and availability of powers that they can use.

Some five long years after September 11, the Howard government is still fiddling with many of these powers on a semiregular basis which, I have to say, does not give us a lot of confidence in their ability to rapidly assess an emerging threat and coordinate and deliver a proportionate response. At the same time as these powers are being expanded, even if piece by piece, the oversight regime has until now largely remained frozen—partially, of course, due to the minister’s inability to progress this legislation and partly because the government persistently fails to take a long-term strategic view of what government infrastructure is needed for our security services. The government’s arrogance and incompetence seem to be becoming a security risk for the nation.

This legislation goes some way to striking the right balance of strong powers with strong oversight. To paraphrase Dr AJ Brown, who appeared before the Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee when examining this legislation, these bills represent the most significant change in Commonwealth integrity institutions in 20 years. Accordingly, as I have already said, let me foreshadow Labor’s broad support for this legislation before I go on to the specifics of how this legislation is not as good as it could be. Perhaps this is an appropriate moment to move the second reading amendment which has been circulated in my name. I move:

That all words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: “whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:

(1)

notes that it took the Howard Government almost seven years to commit to a policy of establishing a Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner since the November 1996 Report 82 of the Australian Law Reform Commission entitled “Integrity: but not by trust alone. AFP & NCA complaints and disciplinary systems” first recommended a Federal independent anti-corruption commissioner;

(2)

notes that it has taken the Howard Government since June 2004 to bring actual legislation before the Parliament, creating a delay of almost ten long years in total;

(3)

notes that, despite the fact that the Australian Customs Service officers have:

(a)

use of weapons including pistols and maritime deck mounted guns;

(b)

powers of arrest and detention;

(c)

powers of search and seizure;

(d)

ability to conduct controlled operations;

(e)

responsibility for collection of large amounts of border-related revenue;

(f)

responsibility for storage of large amounts of contraband and dutiable goods like drugs, alcohol, tobacco, knives, guns and ammunition;

(4)

notes that there are a range of other Commonwealth agencies with law enforcement style powers that should also receive oversight, such as the Department of Immigration, which under the Howard Government’s maladministration wrongly held 26 Australians in Immigration detention; and

(5)

is opposed to the Government’s proposed system of adding and subtracting agencies other than the AFP and ACC by regulation, noting such a system would effectively allow the Minister a veto over corruption investigations”.

You can see, Mr Deputy Speaker, that, whilst we support this bill and think it is an important step towards making sure that an appropriate oversight mechanism is in place, we are extremely disappointed by the fact that the integrity commission has been given such a narrow jurisdiction to start off with, extending only to two agencies—the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Crime Commission. Given the number of agencies at a federal level which wield law enforcement powers, including the Australian Taxation Office, Customs, the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs and others, this is a massive error.

Let me remind the House of just what, for example, the immigration department has been up to under the life of this government. This chamber of horrors masquerades as a department of state while it has committed the following outrages: wilful ignorance of the law in relation to the duration of detention, specifically the test under section 196 of the act and in direct contravention of numerous Federal Court precedents; supervision of an institution that, according to newspaper reports, allegedly allowed repeated rape and sexual abuse of detainees, including one reported instance of rape of a mother in front of her toddler; supervision of an institution that has certainly treated detainees with mental illness extremely poorly, including very young children; wrongful detention of no fewer than 26 Australian citizens, and it is still not clear whether this includes the tragic case of Cornelia Rau; deportation of one citizen, who was apparently not fit to travel, to the Philippines to survive off a charitable home for the poor and crippled; transport of five detainees locked up in the back of a van for five hours without food, water, toilet or rest breaks; export of women and children to the island quarry of Nauru; placing even mothers in the act of labor under guard and refusing the right of the family to take photographs of the newborn; and abrogation of its duties to properly supervise contractor GSL or, alternatively, deliberate connivance with that organisation to conceal or cover up, using what the ANAO has called ‘considerable discretion’ as to what is reported as an incident.

The purpose of going through that whole list of these terrible actions that the department of immigration has been responsible for is to ask: would all or some of this conduct constitute behaviour that fell within the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner’s ambit? The definition of ‘engages in corrupt conduct’ under section 6 turns not on monetary gain but on abuse of office. Consider for a moment whether you could capture wilful ignorance, dereliction of duty and abuse of power in those terms. Yet, even if these actions were covered by those definitions, when we turn to the definition of a law enforcement agency, we find something missing: the department of immigration, the inflictor of so much human misery on so many people, all the while glibly and often wrongfully maintaining its authority to enforce the law, has in fact been left off the list of law enforcement agencies that are going to be covered by the remit of this new body which is being set up.

Other agencies are missing too—Customs, for example. They have uniforms, guns, powers of arrest and detention, powers to question, search and seize et cetera. To a member of the public, when undertaking these duties, Customs would be a law enforcement agency. Yet, while they hold almost identical powers to the police when undertaking certain aspects of their job, we find them missing from the list of law enforcement agencies that these bills and the new institution will cover. There are other agencies, such as the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and the Australian Taxation Office, that have investigatory and law enforcement powers and, when using those powers, the public might rightly expect that they would still have an oversight body to see whether they were using those powers appropriately or whether there was the potential for corruption, whether there was an abuse of office or whether some officers had been engaged in corrupt conduct as defined within this bill. They have, after all, access to stored communications and they can issue notices to produce. Obviously, bodies that have and use these sorts of powers would benefit from oversight—and not just actual oversight but also an awareness that oversight exists.

Instead of putting agencies such as these in the legislation, the minister proposes to add them at his whim and convenience by regulation. There is no guarantee that any of these agencies will be able to be investigated, and that is completely unacceptable. Why should the minister have a roving discretion to decide when an agency should or should not be investigated for corruption? Perhaps the minister and the government members can explain the public benefit in a minister maintaining the power to add and remove agencies at whim. Not only that but also I think it is an abrogation of our duty, in both this House and in the other place, to debate whether or not these agencies should or should not be covered. Instead, it will just be instigated by regulation, presumably some sort of disallowable instrument, which can come in or out of this parliament relatively quickly.

It is not only a dumb policy but also dumb politically and it detracts from what is otherwise an important change to our institution of government which is providing the public with more confidence in the officials who are undertaking these sorts of powers and responsibilities for the government. It shows that this government has simply got tired and lazy and is so obsessed with other issues, such as its extreme ideology, that it has forgotten what is of concern to Middle Australia—protecting the institutions of government that maintain their security day in and day out. It seems to me that it is all too ready to be kicked out of office and that some of these things can be planned and advocated for in a more serious long-term way for the protection of our institutions of government.

There are not that many federal agencies that the government could not have already contemplated all of them. How hard is it to sit down, work out what powers each agency has and make a final and definitive determination as to whether they are in fact law enforcement agencies or are exercising law enforcement powers so akin to a law enforcement agency to warrant their being treated as such for the purposes of this oversight? I really do not believe that it is beyond the wit of the officers of the various departments involved to do this. I do not believe it is beyond the wit of those who are sitting in this chamber to listen to it. I do believe it is beyond the wit of the government to make a decision on what they do or do not want covered and that makes this bill much less effective than it could be. That is what a sensible government would do—thoroughly approach its task on national security and make good policy. Sadly, we have a government that is not interested in any of those things.

Let me now address a number of issues specifically for each of the bills that are before us in this debate. The Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner Bill essentially establishes the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity, which is an anticorruption body responsible for investigating allegations of corruption concerning the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Crime Commission as well as state police officers seconded to those bodies. The number of overseen agencies, as I have already flagged, can be expanded by regulation. Labor totally rejects the ministerial power of veto on corruption investigations, a point I have already made, which this mechanism effectively gives the minister. The commission will have powers similar to that of a standing royal commission. Essentially, the Commonwealth is following the lead of the states, many of which have set up similar bodies with similar powers to this commission.

I mentioned previously that, thankfully, there is no evidence of systematic or serious corruption within the Australian Crime Commission or the AFP. The situation we have here is completely different, for example, to the endemic corruption of the National Party regime led by Joh Bjelke-Petersen in Queensland, whose conduct was so bereft of anything approaching moral or ethical behaviour that it demanded the establishment of the Criminal Justice Commission, the forerunner of the Crime and Misconduct Commission. At least the community can rest safe knowing that there is not going to be another National Party government again not just here but anywhere ever—but that is probably another story that we do not need to go into today. The establishment of this anticorruption commission is intended instead to provide a deterrent to such behaviour in the future as well as to enhance public confidence in our federal crime-fighting bodies. I think that, as I have mentioned before, this is particularly important when we have been giving a range of these organisations so many new powers, for which there is significant concern in the community. Balancing those strong powers with strong oversight has been a key message of Labor’s approach to these issues and we are pleased that the government is implementing this part of a policy that we have been committed to for a long time.

To return to this bill, the commission may deal with corruption issues either by notification or on referral from the minister and it has the power to refer the investigation to another agency in certain circumstances. The commission also has the power to hold and conduct public inquiries on a range of corruption related issues at the request of the minister.

Finally, a new parliamentary joint committee will be created to oversee the commission. This is of some concern to Labor as it looks like a little bit of a waste. Both the Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee and the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Australian Crime Commission itself have recommended that the existing joint committee could take on this role. We are still a little bit unsure as to why the government thinks a new body is required. It certainly seems strange, on a day when the government is closing down all the other committees in the Senate, that it would be setting up another one rather than using one with existing expertise. We look forward to the government’s explanation as to why it is yet again ignoring its backbench, those who are on these committees and have made the recommendation that the existing joint committee could be used. It seems that again this is something that the government has just decided it is going to do.

I want to briefly flag something which might be of particular importance to the officers who are here in the parliament. There are a number of technical issues particularly on the consequential amendments bill that we think could have been dealt with. These are minor matters but, as I understand, it is the intention of the government to move this legislation very quickly through the House and the Senate tomorrow, so perhaps advance notice of our concerns can be fixed in this House, while the debate is on, rather than needing to go through the process of moving it elsewhere and perhaps having it return.

The Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2006 purports to make a number of changes to the Telecommunications (Interception) Act 1979. This act was amended recently by the Telecommunications (Interception) Amendment Bill 2006. There are a number of small matters and, frankly, silly mistakes in this bill after we have taken such a long time to get it before the House. It seems that item 27 of schedule 1 amended the title of the principal act, but then repeated references are made through these other bills to the principal act under its previous name. I understand that Senator Ludwig has sought informally to bring this to the government’s attention but, as yet, we have not had any response as to whether that will be corrected. It is the kind of sloppy inattention to detail that we have come, in this House certainly, to expect from the Attorney-General. It is the type of blase administration that would lead one to enact redundant laws that may have to be revisited soon after to amend or repeal them. It is also a sign of the high-handed arrogance of the Attorney-General, in whose portfolio the TI legislation resides, that he did not prepare a suitably amended bill before dumping it on the table of the parliament. I think it is also the sign of an administrator who is less than firm in his grip on the job.

What else can we expect from an Attorney who ignores even the friendly and sage advice of his own backbench on sedition, for example? We have now seen the Law Reform Commission agree with the views of not just Labor and not just his own backbench. Now the Law Reform Commission says that those offences should not have gone ahead. Instead of taking that advice at the time, the Attorney-General was determined to rush that legislation through the parliament inappropriately and now has to revisit it. We do not want to be in the position that we have to do that with this bill. The Attorney is either so busy trying to find some other political wedge on which he can focus his attention or so fixated on his diminishing power that he cannot see the errors that lie plainly before him. So Labor foreshadows amendments to get rid of and to fix up that shoddy drafting. The government should present these consequential amendments to the parliament when they are comprehensively ready rather than rushing the legislation through in this inappropriate form.

Similarly, we have found a basic problem in item 1 of schedule 1 in the consequential amendments section where we seem to be inserting a new paragraph (ea) into a subsection that already includes a paragraph (ea). Of course, we understand that errors like this can occur, but when we spot them and bring them to the government’s attention they should be fixed quickly rather than be left to have to be raised in this debate time.

I raise these issues with the government because I hope that it can address these technical errors in the House during the course of this debate, perhaps in the consideration in detail stage, rather than leaving it for the Senate to fix. If that happens, the bill will have to make a needless trip back to this place to approve the inevitable amendments made over there. We all want this bill to pass quickly—having taken 10 years to get to this point we do not want any unnecessary delay—so I hope we can tidy this up the first time it needs to pass through this House.

The third bill that is covered in this cognate debate is the Law Enforcement (AFP Professional Standards and Related Measures) Bill 2006. This updates the complaints procedure for the AFP, to bring in as people can see in the explanatory memorandum a ‘contemporary managerial’ style of complaints handling. The amendments in this bill are the outcome of the 2003 Fisher review into professional standards in the AFP, which recommended the repeal of the act which previously covered this area, the Complaints (Australian Federal Police) Act 1981, and contain the establishment of a new complaints regime with clear definitions of the types of conduct which are covered. The professional standards bill categorises misconduct into four levels of seriousness—category 1, inappropriate conduct; category 2, minor misconduct or inappropriate conduct that reveals unsatisfactory behaviour; category 3, serious misconduct; and category 4, corrupt conduct—and allows the Australian Federal Police Commissioner and the Ombudsman to assign certain behaviours to a category of conduct.

Misconduct will be dealt with according to the category to which it relates. The lower levels will be dealt with by managers whereas higher complaints and complaints of corrupt conduct will be investigated by a specific internal unit or by the new commission established by the other bill respectively. Importantly, the commission must be notified of any instance of corrupt conduct. Again, the minister has the power to arrange an inquiry concerning the conduct of the AFP or anything else to do with the AFP. Investigators under this legislation have wide-ranging powers, such as the power to enter AFP property and the power to direct an AFP appointee to provide information. The federal Ombudsman is also given powers under the new regime. As I have already mentioned, he or she can determine, in conjunction with the commissioner, what kinds of issues belong to different categories. The Ombudsman will also conduct annual reviews of the operation of the professional standards section of the AFP.

As the parliament might be aware, a Senate committee has already assessed these bills. All three bills are largely welcomed by Labor and were referred to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee, which made a large number of sensible recommendations to improve the bill. I will take the House through a number of those. The key issue related to the jurisdictional matter, which has already been flagged throughout my speech in the second reading debate. The committee examined the issue of the jurisdiction. As I have already discussed, the commission—as the bill stands—only has the power to investigate allegations of corruption made against members of the AFP and the ACC, although this is expandable by regulation. This is plainly ridiculous. To quote the Federal Police Commissioner, Mick Keelty, in referring to the oversight of the commission over law enforcement bodies:

There is a gap here—and I do not want to name agencies—if you look at the powers, such as access to search warrants, access to the use of firearms and access to detention.

Even the commissioner for police, in giving evidence to the Senate inquiry, acknowledges these gaps we have been referring to—without wanting to list all of those agencies which we have touched upon. There is the old saying ‘What is good for the goose is good for the gander’. This seems to be particularly true when you are talking about law enforcement powers which are used by a range of different authorities. You would think that it was just as important that those other agencies also be susceptible to the oversight which is being proposed for the AFP and the ACC. As witnesses to the committee argued, there are gaps in the AFP’s effective jurisdiction over corrupt conduct in other agencies—being restricted to the investigation of criminal matters in cases in which there was conduct that was corrupt but not clearly criminal. We could be in a position where we would not have oversight, where our existing agencies responsible for the enforcement of our laws would not have power, but where there is conduct falling between those gaps that the public would rightly want scrutinised.

Finally, the committee investigated the allowance in the legislation for its jurisdictional expansion by regulations. The final report stated:

No rationale has been advanced for this potential expansion of jurisdiction by stages via regulation.

But we are concerned not just with expansion. We are also concerned that any agency actually listed in regulations could also be removed from the jurisdiction of the Integrity Commissioner by the stroke of a minister’s pen. This is obviously of great concern to us. As I said, it should not be beyond the wit of the government to be able to determine which agencies this body should have oversight for and which powers exercised by certain agencies should be overseen. That would provide the best and strongest confidence in those who are exercising these powers. Also, the confidence that we rightly have in our systems for law enforcement in this country will be enhanced by having proper coverage for this bill.

The committee recommended that other agencies be brought under the commission’s authority by legislative change rather than by regulation and that the government give a time frame for adding additional agencies to its jurisdiction. I think, in that case, the committee might have been rather kinder than the Labor Party would have been, in that we are critical of the government having taken this long to even introduce these bills. We do not understand why they could not have already made an assessment for these other agencies and these bills could have dealt with all those issues. In the absence of that, we strongly believe—as the committee does—that legislative change, not regulation, is the process by which you should add or in fact subtract agencies. I foreshadow, therefore, that my Labor colleagues in the Senate will be moving a range of amendments in that other place to improve the bill in line with the committee’s process and as I have flagged through my speech. With those reservations, Labor supports the bills and commends them to the House.

Harry Jenkins (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the amendment seconded?

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I listened carefully to the contribution to the debate on the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner Bill 2006 and cognate bills made by the honourable member for Gellibrand. I have to say that I was somewhat disappointed to hear it dripping with negativity. While she said the opposition does not oppose these bills, she delivered a particularly negative speech.

Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Far be it from us to actually want to improve something!

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You did—which suggested that in some way, shape or form the government, instead of being given credit for what is a really positive initiative, an initiative that has never happened before in the life of the parliament, regardless of what party has been in office, should be criticised. She mentioned that it has taken a number of years for these bills to come before the House. The Labor Party were in office for many years and they did absolutely nothing.

This government has brought forward this legislation which will establish the independent statutory office of the Integrity Commissioner and he or she will be supported by the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity. As the member for Gellibrand indicated, we are fortunate that in the Commonwealth sphere in Australia there is not a system of entrenched or endemic corruption. I do not think anyone has suggested that any of the departments run by the Australian government is in any way, shape or form corrupt. However, an ounce of prevention is better than a tonne of cure and that is why this initiative of establishing the office of the Integrity Commissioner, supported by the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity, is an important step. It is vital in a democracy that we have accountable agencies of government. If the Integrity Commissioner and the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity are established, then there will be a powerful disincentive for any official inclined to conduct themselves corruptly to do so.

The member for Gellibrand spent a considerable period of her contribution criticising the fact that initially the Integrity Commissioner will have responsibilities with respect to only the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Crime Commission. The government obviously wants to see how the Integrity Commissioner will operate. The Integrity Commissioner’s qualifications will be particularly high and he or she will have powers similar to those of a royal commission, including the power to compel people to give evidence relevant to an inquiry even where the evidence is self-incriminating. We have a situation where we do not see we have a problem with respect to the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Crime Commission but where we want a body to investigate any possible corrupt conduct should that allegedly occur.

The government clearly has, by regulation in the bill, made provision for the addition of other Commonwealth agencies to come within the purview of the Integrity Commissioner and the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity. This is incremental change. It might have been possible essentially to include all government agencies in one hit but, of course, the whole structure of the Integrity Commissioner’s office and the ACLEI would have had to be different if all government agencies were included from the outset. I think that the way it has been suggested in the bill is the appropriate way to go. Two very important organisations, the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Crime Commission, are initially brought within the purview of the Integrity Commissioner and then, as any bugs in the legislation are ironed out—not that we are suggesting that there are any bugs—we will look at how this legislation is operating and will then consider the inclusion of other Australian government agencies with law enforcement functions, should that be considered to be necessary.

I think the two bodies that are included are highly respected. They play a key role in making sure that we have a great deal of integrity and observation of the law, and the suggestion by the opposition that including only the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Crime Commission somehow indicates that the government is less than serious about preventing corruption is simply not a credible statement made by the member for Gellibrand and does her no credit at all. I suppose it is a positive thing that we are setting up the Integrity Commissioner’s office and I suppose, in a sense, it is regrettable that, in 2006, it is seen as necessary to have in place this sort of authority, but I think the community has every right to expect that Australian government agencies will be open, accountable and transparent and will observe the law. That the Integrity Commissioner is being established gives to the Australian community a great sense of confidence that, were there any allegations of corruption in the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Crime Commission, they would be fully investigated.

I am a great admirer of the Australian Federal Police and I suspect the honourable member for Werriwa, who will be following me in this debate, is also a great admirer of the Australian Federal Police, given his prior life in law enforcement. The Australian Crime Commission also does a really important job. We all know that the Australian Federal Police have been heavily involved in security issues in the Australia-Pacific region and were involved in investigations after the Bali bombing some years ago. I suppose, in a sense, we now have so many Australian Federal Police officers stationed around the world that you could almost say, ‘Join the Australian Federal Police and see the world!’ But I tell you what: I have personally observed the way they operate in a number of parts of the globe and they have my unabashed admiration. They do help to make the world a much more secure place.

As has become the habit in this place, the member for Gellibrand has moved a second reading amendment. I want to reiterate that I think she has been excessively negative because, instead of praising this government for bringing in this legislation, after 100 years plus of federal government, and after many years of the Labor government, which did nothing, we do have this positive legislation before the chamber and the member for Gellibrand and honourable members of the opposition really ought to be saying to the government: ‘Well done. No other government has done this before. You have. We support you all the way.’ While they say they do not want to prevent this bill from having a second reading, when you look at the second reading amendment it is entirely negative and unsatisfactory. I think that the tactics undertaken by the opposition in this matter probably help to undermine the confidence of the Australian people in our parliamentary system because there is too much oppositionism for oppositionism’s sake. This is positive legislation. Even the opposition say that it is good as far as it goes, but then they want to go even further. The government, in this legislation, has made provision for the inclusion of additional bodies as the government may determine by regulation.

The opposition wants any bodies which are to be added or subtracted to be added or subtracted by legislation in this place. We all know what the parliamentary sitting program is like. We all know what the parliamentary business program is like. What you need is flexibility. The way to have flexibility would be to be able to add—and I suspect it would be always a question of adding rather than subtracting—additional Australian government bodies as required.

This is important legislation. I think that the government deserves every credit for helping to improve the confidence that the Australian people have in the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Crime Commission. As other bodies are added, as undoubtedly they will be, and as the legislation settles in, that will assist the Australian people to have confidence that any allegation of corruption will be fully and appropriately investigated.

I want to come back to something I said at the outset. Happily, in Australia there is no entrenched culture of corruption at the Australian government level. I do not think it has ever been seriously suggested that any government has been seriously corrupt. But it is important to have in place the necessary mechanisms to ensure that, were allegations of corruption to arise, they would be quickly and expeditiously investigated by people of appropriate seniority and integrity. I am particularly pleased to be able to support all of these bills currently before the chamber.

Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner Bill 2006, the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2006 and the Law Enforcement (AFP Professional Standards and Related Measures) Bill 2006. The bills before us today, when considered as a package, seek to implement a number of changes to the operations of the AFP Professional Standards Unit and to set up a new Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity. I will also take this opportunity to speak in support of Labor’s second reading amendment to the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner Bill 2006. As members would be aware, and as the member for Fisher has just indicated, I have a background in working with various police agencies throughout the country. In previous contributions in this place I have said that I have represented the professional and industrial interests of police, and I am happy to be here again today, lending support in terms of the professional interests of our police.

Before turning to the details of the provisions of these bills, I would like to say that I do not support corrupt conduct by police, or by any other law enforcement agency or public official for that matter. However, I do wish to ensure that any agency established to investigate corrupt conduct has as an underpinning philosophy a process of procedural fairness and natural justice. Any agency or officials of such bodies that do not have such an underpinning philosophy should not be supported in this place.

The Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner Bill 2006 seeks to establish the position of Integrity Commissioner and a new agency under the Attorney-General’s portfolio, which will be the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity, and it specifies powers for the investigation and reporting of corruption issues. It creates new offences for not cooperating with the Integrity Commissioner and it is limited in operational scope to the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Crime Commission and former employees of the National Crime Authority.

The Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2006 will allow the Integrity Commissioner to have access to certain powers under the Telecommunications (Interception) Act, the Crimes Act 1914 and various other acts. It will extend the scope of the Telecommunications (Interception) Act and consequential amendments to allow the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity to cooperate with those organisations. It should also be noted that the commissioner will have access to various coercive powers in order to direct compliance in respect of investigations.

The Law Enforcement (AFP Professional Standards and Related Measures) Bill 2006 seeks to repeal the Complaints (Australian Federal Police) Act 1981, to abolish the Australian Federal Police Disciplinary Tribunal and to establish in the Australian Federal Police Act 1979 a new four-category system for complaints of its own investigation into both conduct and practice issues. The bill amends a range of acts as a consequence, incorporates the drug and alcohol screening tests into the Australian Federal Police Act 1979 and amends the Australian Federal Police Act 1979 to make new provisions for suspension, termination and resignation from AFP employment. The establishment of the position of Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner is a welcome development and the opposition also welcomes the measures designed to address inadequacies in the existing AFP complaints and disciplinary systems.

It is worth noting that it has taken the coalition almost two full years to come good on their commitment to set up an independent national anticorruption body. In fact it has taken this government almost 10 years to act on concerns raised by the Australian Law Reform Commission. Three additional reports, including the secret Harrison report, have all urged that reform be undertaken in this area. Over the last decade the Australian Police Disciplinary Tribunal has effectively been moribund; I think it is seven years since it last heard a matter. You would have thought that, after taking this long to introduce the legislation, the government would have taken the time to get it right, as opposed to simply expediting it in the parliament.

There are still a number of other what I consider to be minor flaws in these bills, which add to the growing trend of sloppy legislation introduced by this government. I strongly support providing our police and other law enforcement personnel with the best tools to assist in their duties. As a consequence, I support these bills. I make no apology for doing that. They are a step in the right direction but, quite frankly, the legislation is not at this stage quite right and still needs to be amended; hence the second reading amendment put forward by the opposition.

In my opinion, these bills go a considerable way towards providing police and law enforcement personnel with the tools they need. Despite that, I do have a number of concerns and I would like to detail them. I support the bills but feel they should be subject to greater scrutiny and certainly a detailed review. As I noted earlier, the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner Bill 2006 seeks to establish the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity. It specifies the powers for the investigation and reporting of corrupt activities and creates new offences for not cooperating with the Integrity Commissioner. Operationally it limits the scope to the AFP, the Australian Crime Commission and former NCA employees.

Despite these welcome changes, the definition of ‘law enforcement agency’ in its current form is limited to the conduct and investigations within the Australian Crime Commission and the Australian Federal Police—only within those two organisations. The Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity should be expanded to include all other Commonwealth law enforcement agencies and employees of those law enforcement agencies, particularly where those employees are engaged in intelligence gathering and investigation work within those agencies.

Many of these agencies increasingly wield powers that would have previously been regarded as being police powers. For example, I note that Australian Customs Service officers have the power to use weapons, including pistols and the weapons mounted on the decks of their maritime vessels, and powers of arrest and detention, a power to search and seize, the ability to conduct controlled operations and the responsibility for the storage of large amounts of contraband such as drugs, alcohol, tobacco, knives, guns and ammunition. This government may have effectively exempted Customs officers from the oversight of the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner by not specifically including them in this legislation. To be able to include them, as the member for Fisher was indicating, it would simply be a matter of moving that by regulation. But I have to say that is simply not good enough. Doing that just by regulation—adding and subtracting organisations or agencies involved in law enforcement other than the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Crime Commission—could possibly lead to a system that effectively allows the minister responsible to have a veto over corruption allegations or indeed a corruption investigation. That is why we, in Labor’s second reading amendment, want to take a more definitive approach and actually specify those agencies which use law enforcement powers and subject those to the oversight of the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner.

It is my opinion that not taking this course of action will, apart from everything else, including giving the minister a right of veto, possibly send the wrong message to the community—and certainly send the wrong message to those people that I formerly represented—that any form of corruption may only be found in the AFP or the ACC. I hope that we are not going to find corruption in any of our agencies. But why would we leave out, by concerted action, all those other law enforcement agency officers using powers under federal acts and where we allow them to conduct themselves in a manner such as Australian Federal Police officers?

I strongly question how the government will enhance the Commonwealth’s anticorruption capacity if the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner’s oversight role is restricted in the way that is proposed here. Bear in mind that in many areas of operation within the sphere of this government, whether they be Customs, Taxation or Immigration, we have Australian Federal Police being seconded to each one of the organisations within those areas. It is of some curiosity to us on this side of the House as to whether those officers, when they undertake a secondment, will still be subject to the oversight of the Integrity Commissioner. But it is a simple fact at this stage that more and more, in terms of our deployment of personnel with investigative skills to investigations, we are seconding people from our respective police forces, particularly the AFP, to fulfil those operations. If we are going to say that this integrity regime would, and should for that matter, cover the AFP and the ACC, that regime should also apply to any other Commonwealth agency involved in law enforcement.

It is also concerning that the current definition of ‘serious corruption’ as an offence punishable, on conviction, by a term of 12 months or more of imprisonment will have an unintended consequence of picking up a range of offences that might not be considered to amount to serious corruption. The definition contained in the bill has the potential for minor matters to be dealt with by the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity. Quite frankly, I understand that was never intended to be the case. My fear is that, for instance, some driving offences in the ACT Crimes Act that attract a penalty of a 12-month term of imprisonment could be dealt with—I am not saying they will be, but certainly under the definitions of this bill they could be dealt with—by the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity. Whilst not denying that officers indicted on these offences should be dealt with in accordance with the relevant laws, I believe it is inappropriate and untenable that these types of offences be included within the scope and definition of offences to include serious corruption.

Perhaps, as previously suggested to the Minister for Justice and Customs by the Police Federation of Australia, the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity should confine itself to the investigation and exposure of corruption and serious criminal misconduct, and that the definition of matters to be investigated should be clearly defined in the bill itself, as opposed to simply allowing it to take its scope from the possible prison term that may eventuate from any offence involving a police officer or an officer subject to an investigation. It has also been suggested by the Police Federation of Australia that the definition of corruption used by the Independent Commission Against Corruption in New South Wales could also assist in at least containing the investigations to issues of serious corruption or serious professional misconduct.

All matters of performance and service delivery should continue to be managed by the relevant agencies and oversighted by the Commonwealth Ombudsman. The Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity should have a clear accountability mechanism to the parliament. This has been addressed in a number of locations, but the 2005 report by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Australian Crime Commission made specific recommendations to the minister about the oversight of the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity.

On completion of its report in 2005 on the Australian Crime Commission and supporting the government’s move for the establishment of the Australian law enforcement integrity regime, the committee unanimously found and recommended that the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity should be included in the provisions that allow for the scrutiny of the agency’s operation by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Australian Crime Commission.

It is also worth noting that the committee found and unanimously recommended that the legislation for the creation of the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity should include a provision for the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the ACC to be able to refer matters to the commission for investigation, with a requirement to report back to the committee such matters of investigation. Clearly, when the joint committee was charged with the responsibility of looking at and addressing issues involving the ACC and the Australian Federal Police, the committee not only acknowledged that there was a need for the position of the Australian Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner to be established and a person appointed to fulfil that role but also unanimously took the view that there should be parliamentary oversight of that provision.

The Senate Legal and Constitutional Committee in May this year made the following recommendation:

The committee recommends that Part 14 of the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner Bill 2006 be amended to provide the existing Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Australian Crime Commission with jurisdiction to scrutinise the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity and those Commonwealth law enforcement agencies subject to its oversight.

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on the ACC and the Senate Legal and Constitutional Committee strongly recommend not just parliamentary oversight but oversight by the joint parliamentary committee itself.

The Law Enforcement (AFP Professional Standards and Related Measures) Bill 2006 inserts a new part in the Australian Federal Police Act 1979 to modernise the complaints and professional standards regime within the AFP. I share the concerns raised with me by the Australian Police Federation and by the Australian Federal Police Association that this bill does not pick up the recommendations made by His Honour Mr Justice Fisher following his review of the industrial environment in 2003—a review that led to the introduction of this bill. In fairness, Mr Justice Fisher called for an independent review of certain matters, particularly in relation to dismissal and financial penalty. (Time expired)

Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner Bill 2006, the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2006, and the Law Enforcement (AFP Professional Standards and Related Measures) Bill 2006 and to support the amendment moved the member for Gellibrand and the comments made by the member for Werriwa.

The bills detail the establishment of the Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity and a new system for dealing with complaints and investigations into police conduct. The new agency—the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity—will investigate corruption allegations against law enforcement agencies and officers and will also have the capacity to conduct public inquires under the control of an integrity commissioner.

The bills are a welcome development, but I note that it has taken the coalition government almost two full years to come good on the commitment they made to set up this independent, national anticorruption body. Although we have had a delay in seeing the bills come before the parliament, it is good that they have finally got here and, as I said, I certainly do welcome that. Despite the delay in getting the bills here, there are, without a doubt, still a number of flaws in the bills, which I will touch later on.

As a former police officer, I have the highest regard for the police and the very difficult job that they do in obviously very trying circumstances. I also have a very high regard for the AFP and support their work. I believe that an independent  authority will help to maintain their already high standards. When it comes to issues such as these, the vast majority of the police and the public want a system that provides a lot of accountability. That is needed so that police are able to conduct their duties in a very professional manner. When it comes to disciplinary matters, it is important for police that a fair and just system exists so that complaints can be handled in a professional manner. As I said, a system whereby police services are made accountable is what the public and the police want; they want transparent systems.

We have heard many cases of police corruption over the years, particularly involving the Bjelke-Petersen National Party government. We do not have time here today to detail some of those instances. For the vast majority of police that are out there, day after day, doing the hard yards and doing their job, the fact that these systems will be put in place protects them as well. It is very important to have overriding and overreaching independent systems that protect them and that provide the public with a system whereby police are  accountable. In that sense I certainly welcome these bills. Again, particularly from a policing point of view and having been a police officer, I want to stress my highest regard for the police. Often we hear so many people condemning the police. The vast majority of them are doing a very difficult job under difficult circumstances, particularly many members of the AFP.

The Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner Bill 2006 establishes an Integrity Commissioner and a new agency, the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity. It specifies powers for the investigation and reporting of corruption issues. It also creates new offences for not cooperating with the Integrity Commissioner. It is limited in its operational scope to the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Crime Commission and, as many speakers have said before, it should include other government agencies. It seems quite remarkable that other federal government agencies that have investigative powers have not been included in this particular legislation. One of the deficiencies of these bills is that they are not included in it.

The Australian Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner will have a broad range of powers to investigate corruption but, as I said, may only investigate law enforcement agencies. There should have been more agencies listed in these bills. I will detail that a bit later on, but just to restrict it to the AFP and the ACC really has not gone far enough in that instance. As I said, I welcome the legislation, because we have waited a long time to get to this point—another example of this very arrogant and sloppy government.

The Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2006 allows the Integrity Commissioner access to certain powers under the Telecommunications (Interceptions) Act 1979. As I said, despite the delays in these bills, there are still many flaws. For example, the bill before us does not take into account the passage of the Telecommunications (Interceptions) Amendment Act 2006 and, as a consequence, the consequential bill is just rife with many redundant references. The member for Gellibrand outlined many of the technicalities that have to be rectified. That is purely an example of sloppy government to have this vast array of technicalities. It should have been improved at a much earlier stage. It is not correct at all. As I say, it is just another sign of this very arrogant government in not ensuring that we do not have bills like this that are very sloppy with constant references throughout.

The new system that is to be established under these bills is a marked improvement on the current system which relies upon the Australian Federal Police and the Commonwealth Ombudsman to investigate such matters. When any particular body is investigating itself, at the outset that does not seem appropriate. It seems quite outrageous that a body would be investigating itself and the actions of their people, because it often is not impartial and is also not perceived as being impartial. One of the reasons it has been frustrating and has taken so long for the government to get this bill to the House is that it has been necessary to rectify that. Obviously, if a body is investigating itself there is an apparent conflict of interest. It was not a decent system, whereby you could ensure a fair and just system, where there was a procedure to ensure that complaints were adequately heard and also a forum for police to have their issues heard. In addition to the previous situation, the Ombudsman did not have the range of powers that are proposed in this legislation and he would have been lacking sufficient resources to investigate many of the issues and the complaints that would have been put forward.

I support the amendment moved by the member for Gellibrand. I would like to comment on some of the points raised. Firstly, it took the Howard government almost seven years to commit to a policy of establishing a Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner since the November 1996 report by the Australian Law Reform Commission, when it first recommended a federal independent anticorruption commission. That is certainly a long time and a huge delay. Again, it is another failure by this government to take action that was desperately needed: the establishment of this commissioner. The amendment notes that it has taken the Howard government since June 2004 to bring this legislation before the parliament. Therefore, we have waited almost 10 long years to get this legislation here, and that is outrageous.

The amendment also notes that, despite the powers that the Australian Customs Service officers have regarding the use of weapons, including pistols and maritime deck-mounted guns; the powers of arrest and detention; the powers of search and seizure; the ability to conduct controlled operations; the responsibility for collection of large amounts of border related revenue; and the responsibility for storage of large amounts of contraband and goods such as drugs, alcohol, tobacco, knives, guns and ammunition, the Howard government has exempted Customs from the oversight of the Law Enforcement Integrity Commission by not specifically including them in the legislation. When considering the extent of the powers they have, they should be included in the legislation. The amendment notes that there are a range of Commonwealth agencies with such law enforcement style powers that should receive the oversight from this commission.

Another area of concern is the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs. The member for Gellibrand detailed many of the causes of concern. We have seen the department of immigration, under the Howard government’s maladministration, wrongly holding 26 Australians in immigration detention centres. That in itself should be sending the signal to bring bodies such as the department of immigration under the control of this new agency. It is very bad that the Howard government has not taken that action. Importantly, both Customs and DIMIA have had serious allegations of corruption levelled against them recently and that warrants investigation by a body of the type specified in this legislation.

Another measure in the bill is the government’s proposed system of adding and subtracting agencies other than the AFP and ACC by regulation. This would mean that the minister could effectively veto corruption investigations. I think it is outrageous that the minister would be able to disrupt these investigations on a whim. We need to know that there is a separation of powers, and here that is not able to happen. It seems outrageous and I am certainly opposed to the minister having a veto power, which could have undue influence over whether an investigation even occurs. How can the public be assured that there is going to be a proper and thorough investigation of issues within agencies if the minister can just decide to veto that investigation because it may not suit the government’s political objectives? I am certainly very much opposed to the government’s system of adding and subtracting these agencies

The other cognate bill, the Law Enforcement (AFP Professional Standards and Related Measures) Bill 2006, repeals the Complaints (Australian Federal Police) Act 1981, abolishes the Federal Police Disciplinary Tribunal and incorporates the new regime into the Australian Federal Police Act 1979. This is a new, four-category system for complaints and investigations into conduct and practice issues. The bill replaces the current Australian Federal Police disciplinary regime. It provides a four-tiered system of police conduct: category 1, inappropriate conduct; category 2, minor misconduct or inappropriate conduct that reveals unsatisfactory behaviour; category 3, serious misconduct; and category 4, corrupt conduct. The bill complements the new Australian Law Enforcement Integrity Commission. These changes are an improvement on current arrangements. The Federal Police Disciplinary Tribunal is now virtually defunct and many different agencies and groups have been calling for fairer and more transparent methods of dealing with professional standards issues.

The measures in this bill address some of the inadequacies in the Australian Federal Police complaints and disciplinary systems, but, again, it is a major concern that the government has taken almost 10 long years to act on these concerns that were first raised in the report by the Australian Law Reform Commission. The Federal Police Disciplinary Tribunal has been defunct for seven of those 10 long years, having heard no cases in that time.

As a former police officer, I am sure the majority of police do welcome thorough, fair and just analysis of their professional conduct. Police officers expect a system in which the public can make fair and just complaints and where police can defend themselves in a fair and just manner. Police accept the consequences of illegal or corrupt conduct. It comes down to accountability at all levels. That is vitally important. Often, mismanagement of the complaints handling process can cause grave damage to an officer’s professional ability and can cause widespread disillusionment in other police. On decisions such as dismissal or major redeployment, police must have a fair forum in which they can be heard.

Another issue I would like to touch on is how, in many instances, this government has taken to politicising the work of the AFP. As a former police officer, I find this particularly outrageous. I point to the very public humiliation by the Howard government of Commissioner Mick Keelty when he commented on the Madrid train bombing some years ago. At that time, Mr Keelty made a comment in a very professional manner as the AFP Commissioner on his views on the heightening of a country’s terrorist targets in light of such actions. What we saw then was the most disgraceful and unjustified attack by the Howard government on the police commissioner, who was making a very fair and just assessment of a situation—and a very correct assessment, in my opinion. I thought it was outrageous, particularly when the Minister for Foreign Affairs then accused the AFP Commissioner of ‘expressing a view which reflects a lot of the propaganda we have been getting from al-Qaeda’.

Of course these comments were politically motivated and they were offensive to the commissioner, the Federal Police, police generally and the Australian public. Here was someone making a fair and just professional assessment of a situation with all the knowledge that he had, and what did the Howard government do? They just smacked him down and told him to shut up. It was absolutely outrageous that they interfered in such a way and humiliated him when his comments were indeed very accurate and just. The foreign affairs minister’s behaviour in particular was quite disgusting, because Mick Keelty certainly does a very fine job as commissioner. When I was with the police, we had an expression that would apply to this: ‘The foreign minister’s never met an angry man.’ I dare say he probably has not, but I am sure Mick Keelty has and I am sure in his role as commissioner he was quite able to make a fair and just assessment of that situation.

I would like to touch yet again on the long history of these bills arriving in the parliament. There certainly has been a very lengthy delay, because the establishment of the new agency was recommended by the Australian Law Reform Commission in 1996 and by the 2003 Fisher review. In 1996 the Australian Law Reform Commission recommended the setting up of an independent national integrity and investigations commission which would have royal commission style powers. The report also recommended the four-step categorisation of corruption and misconduct, which has been outlined in the bill.

The review of professional standards in the Australian Federal Police—the Fisher review—was undertaken by Justice William Fisher and the report was tabled in the federal parliament in December 2003. For many years federal Labor has been committed to the establishment of an independent anti-corruption authority to oversee the investigative, prosecutorial and judicial processes. Labor believes that the Australian Crime Commission and the Federal Police should have appropriate independent complaints-handling procedures. It has certainly taken a long time to get to this day. The establishment of the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity is indeed a welcome, if not very late, action by the government. It has taken almost two full years for them to come good on their commitment to set up this independent national anti-corruption body.

I would also like to comment on the fact that the overwhelming weight of the law enforcement budget recently was directed towards overseas operations. But I also believe it is very important that the Howard government should be mindful of increasing the budget domestically as well, to make sure that we have adequate training and adequate resources for the AFP officers that are based here. However, I do welcome the establishment of this national authority, which is indeed very long overdue.

It is a good idea to protect public trust and confidence in Australia’s primary law enforcement agencies. That is why this should be extended to other Commonwealth law enforcement agencies as well, particularly ones such as Customs and DIMA, which I spoke of earlier. People have to have public trust and confidence in those agencies. We need to have the commissioner overseeing any other Commonwealth law enforcement agencies that may have those powers, so we can have that public trust and confidence. We do not want to see a situation where the minister is vetoing them left, right and centre because it may not happen to suit their political objectives at that time.

I conclude by saying that I certainly have the highest respect for the officers of the Australian Federal Police and I support their work. I believe that the establishment of this authority will help maintain their already high standards. It is welcome to have a body, and the majority of police would want a body, which will investigate those who are not doing the right thing. That is really important. It protects them as well. We live in a community where everyone seems to be attacking the police left, right and centre. As I mentioned earlier, the foreign minister seems quite willing and able to attack the Federal Police when it suits him. Personally, I am outraged by that. As I said, I think we should be supporting our police in the great work they do in the community. (Time expired)

Daryl Melham (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in relation to these three bills, which are being dealt with together. The first bill is the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner Bill 2006. The minister in his second reading speech points out that this bill:

... implements the decision, announced by the government in June 2004, to establish an independent body, with the powers of a royal commission, to detect and investigate corruption in the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Crime Commission, should it arise.

I further quote the minister:

The bill will facilitate the detection, prosecution and prevention of corruption in Australian government law enforcement agencies. The bill will establish the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity ... headed by a statutory officer, the Integrity Commissioner.

The jurisdiction of the Integrity Commissioner and ACLEI will initially cover the AFP and the ACC. Other Australian government agencies with law enforcement functions may later be brought within the jurisdiction by regulations.

The second bill being considered is the Law Enforcement (AFP Professional Standards and Related Measures) Bill 2006. This bill repeals the Complaints (Australian Federal Police) Act 1981 and inserts a new part into the Australian Federal Police Act 1979 to modernise the complaints and professional standards regime within the Australian Federal Police. The bill also amends the Ombudsman Act 1976 to align the Ombudsman’s administrative review role over the AFP more closely with the role it has in relation to other Australian government agencies.

The third bill is the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2006. This bill provides for ACLEI investigators to have access to the full range of police special investigative powers, including the capacity to use telecommunications interception, surveillance devices, controlled delivery and assumed identities.

Unlike other speakers, I want to introduce a note of caution into this debate. I suppose it comes from my history, before I came into parliament, as a legal aid solicitor and barrister. I am not as enthusiastic as some in this chamber about corruption watchdogs. Indeed, the minister in his second reading speech said:

The focus on the AFP and the ACC does not reflect a perception that these bodies currently have a significant problem with corruption. Indeed, there is no evidence of systemic corruption within either body. However, these agencies play a key role in Australian government law enforcement. Putting in place a regime of rigorous external examination now will ensure that the public can have continuing confidence in their integrity.

So on those words this is an exercise in trying to maintain confidence in the integrity of the particular bodies and that corruption is not systemic. And I do not think it is systemic in either the AFP or the Australian Crime Commission. I think the vast majority of people who work within those agencies are decent, law-abiding citizens who are doing a public good. You will get a rotten apple here or there, but one has to question whether one wants to go to the next step and devote a whole lot of resources and funding to an agency as a PR exercise. I do not have a problem—if there is a problem—in funding an agency. But I was never a great fan of Independent Commission Against Corruption in New South Wales when it was first set up. I think a number of the investigations that that body has undertaken have been questionable. Indeed, I think the former Premier of New South Wales Nick Greiner was done a very great wrong by that body and drummed out of public office. He was subsequently exonerated by the judicial system. And I am not a great fan of the Crime and Misconduct Commission, I have to say, at times—I am not saying all of the time. These bodies are now creeping into our systems and, frankly, they are growing like topsy. I think we need to be careful.

That is why there is some criticism as to how wide the application is. At the moment it is only the AFP and the ACC, and the government is saying that other government agencies with law enforcement functions will be brought in later. Probably that gradual approach, I might say, is the proper approach. You get a body up and running first, to concentrate on something at the first stage of its development and before going too far, because when you go across all agencies you are going to require a body with substantial resources.

I just pose that question. I am not here opposing these bills but I am speaking more as a devil’s advocate, to put on record a few concerns that I have and to say to a few people who are enthusiastic and trumpeting here, there and everywhere how great this is that the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. There might be an argument that we are using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut. That is not defending corruption; what I am saying to the parliament is that we need to be satisfied that this is the best way to achieve it. At the moment we have had a Law Reform Commission report and an inquiry by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee, and they were both supportive. So I do not seek to argue against those particular reports. I just state that I prefer cautionary approaches. I am very attracted to the report of the Senate committee that urges some caution. Indeed, recommendation No. 2 says:

3.71         The committee recommends that the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner Bill 2006 be amended to provide the Integrity Commissioner with discretion not to investigate or refer a complaint where he or she considers the complaint to be frivolous:

• the complaint is frivolous or vexatious or was not made in good faith; or
• the complainant does not have a sufficient interest in the subject matter of the complaint; or
• an investigation, or further investigation, of the action is not warranted having regard to all the circumstances.

So there is a threshold question there. I know there are some thresholds already within the proposed bills. The reason I say that is that I would not want to see the commission tied up in pursuing matters unnecessarily that could be dealt with in other ways. I note that, as I said, there are procedures within the other acts as to how people will be dealt with. Part of the problem is that substantial resources will be required to do this and I think it has to be properly targeted at the level and type of conduct that we are talking about. If it is not, it would also tie up the resources and create morale problems within the organisations themselves, and I would not want that. Some things might be pursued that will have some ramifications. I think there is an argument for sending a message that we are going to do everything in our power to make sure that these organisations are clean. There is nothing more corrosive for an organisation than if someone is found out to be corrupt and there are issues that compromise inquiries within those organisations. I think the objects of the bill are fine:

(a)

to facilitate:

(i)

the detection of corrupt conduct in law enforcement agencies; and

(ii)

the investigation of corruption issues that relate to law enforcement agencies; and

(b)

to enable criminal offences to be prosecuted, and civil penalty proceedings to be brought, following those investigations; and

(c)

to prevent corrupt conduct in law enforcement agencies; and

(d)

to maintain and improve the integrity of staff members of law enforcement agencies.

They are noble objects and I am hopeful that those objects will be pursued in an appropriate manner. As I said, my reservations are a result of what I felt were some inappropriate investigations. In relation to the development of some of these investigations, obviously there will be some tests established over time—as there have been with ICAC legislation in New South Wales—as to what corrupt conduct means. In relation to Mr Greiner, ICAC found one thing and he had his appropriate day in court and was cleared in relation to that interpretation.

In relation to these bills, there is some criticism that the government has taken its time, that there was a Law Reform Commission recommendation made back in 1996 on these matters. I have a view and I am not going to join in the chorus of criticism. There are enough people criticising the government over this. What I want to do is make sure that we have good legislation and a good body. If that took extra time, so be it. That is why I say the Senate committee is one that has good standing in this place. They have come up with a number of recommendations and I do not think they can be easily dismissed.

I know that my friend and colleague the member for Denison, Mr Kerr, who is following me in this debate, will have something to say. As a former justice minister and a former Attorney-General for a short time, he is well qualified to comment on these matters before the parliament. I think he will comment with goodwill towards the organisations concerned. I do not want people to think that there is not goodwill. Too often we see question time and the public are meant to think that there is a gladiatorial contest and division on both sides of the House. On many of these bills, there is not division; there is goodwill on both sides of the chamber. What we are about is trying to produce good outcomes—better outcomes, better public policy—in these matters. My reservation came about at the outset from the admission in the second reading speech that there is no evidence of systemic corruption—that putting in place this regime was really about ensuring the public had continuing confidence in the integrity of these organisations. From my starting point, that raises a question mark because I think you need evidence of a significant level of corruption before you go to the next level.

We are talking about some further intrusive measures that, through the third bill before the House, the Law Enforcement (AFP Professional Standards and Related Measures) Bill 2006, will be placed on people being investigated. We are going to have the full range of police special investigative powers, including the capacity to use telecommunications interception, surveillance devices, controlled delivery and assumed identities. I suppose that shows why a specialist body is being set up and why the Ombudsman is probably inappropriate in this regard. In some ways, I am arguing the other side of the coin here. If you are going to go down this path, that is why there is the argument that you need a specialist body. If you need it removed, who guards the guard while the guard guards you? You need to have someone independent. I can see the argument as to why an ombudsman is not the appropriate person in terms of the Law Enforcement Integrity Commission, because the use of telecommunications interception, surveillance devices, controlled delivery and assumed identities are not things that the Ombudsman should be doing.

With the qualifications that I have put, this agency has to operate in a way that is conservative, if I might call it that. I know that the opposition supports these bills, with the qualification that a second reading amendment has been moved by the shadow Attorney-General on these matters. That amendment is critical of the government’s delays in bringing these measures before the parliament and critical of the Australian Customs Service being exempted in the first instance. For what it is worth, I just say that this is a fledgling body. I am interested in what my colleague the member for Denison will say in terms of the agencies that should be subject to these powers, as to whether he thinks there is an argument that you need to develop the body first before expanding its use to other agencies.

I raise these things not to blackguard what is actually being done; they are legitimate questions that need to be asked and need to be thought through because there are resource implications. I have to be fair: I can see an argument as to why there has been a limitation on the number of agencies in the first instance because of resource and other implications. To get the body up and running, you do not give it too much too early which would set it up for failure in the first instance. You let it get its procedures and processes right before you expand the number of agencies. I am interested to hear what my learned friend says in relation to that and whether he has the view of ‘No, hang it: let all the agencies come under its umbrella in the first instance,’ or not.

On balance, I support what the government has done in this instance, and that is to be more cautious and allow the commission to get on its feet before it brings in other agencies on a gradual basis. I can see where my other colleagues are coming from, but I just have a different view. I think it is fair that, in a debate like this which has brought into question the number of agencies subject to this regime in the first instance, one just does not hide behind the veneer of not making a comment. I do support the legislation that is before the House, and I look forward to the contribution of my colleague the member for Denison who, I am sure, will enrich the debate. (Time expired)

Martin Ferguson (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Primary Industries, Resources, Forestry and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A legal tag team: senior counsel and junior counsel!

Duncan Kerr (Denison, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is the tag team, love-in of counsel on the Labor backbench on the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner Bill 2006, the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2006, and the Law Enforcement (AFP Professional Standards and Related Measures) Bill 2006. I firstly acknowledge the contribution of the member for Banks. It was, as always, an independently minded contribution and this parliament ought to value very much the goodwill those members who are not part of the executive of either party bring to bear on serious debates of this kind. The honourable member has, I think very correctly, pointed out that Australia is fortunate to have law enforcement agencies which broadly have been immune from structural corruption. I have been a minister and a shadow minister in this area and I am a very interested observer as a member of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Australian Crime Commission and the former Parliamentary Joint Committee on the National Crime Authority. During my period of time in this parliament, I have been a careful observer of the law enforcement agencies of the Commonwealth. I do not believe that there has been institutionalised or entrenched corruption in those agencies. That sets them aside from some of the law enforcement agencies of the states where corruption has been endemic from time to time and has presented a problem that has required the establishment of royal commissions with special methods to get to the problems and, of course, the lamentable and very unfortunate circumstances of seeing senior persons in positions of trust in the law enforcement profession—including, in Queensland’s case, the commissioner himself—disgraced as a result of those processes.

In the federal sphere, we have been very lucky. Certainly, those commissioners I have known in the nearly 20 years that I have been a member of this parliament—Commissioner McAuley, Commissioner Palmer and Commissioner Keelty—are three persons whose personal integrity I think is beyond question. We should not pretend that within the AFP there are not going to be instances where individuals succumb to the temptation of corruption. I remember very clearly a conversation I had with Commissioner Palmer about a year after his appointment in which he said to me that you could not make rules that would be secure enough to give you an assurance that corruption would not occur within the AFP; you had to try and build a system of moral authority so that when temptation presented itself it would generally be resisted. He also said, ‘At some time, at some place in Australia, there is going to be a young 25-year-old constable confronting a person who is involved in the criminal world who may have, for example, on the back seat of a car a bag with $100,000 in used banknotes and some large amount of drugs and, in exchange for allowing that car to drive off, the constable will get more than he would be paid in two years of salary.’ We can imagine such circumstances arising from time to time and it would be foolish for us to believe, in an environment where temptation and the possibility of large reward for giving into that temptation exists, that will not sometimes be a motivating factor for those who should be giving their professional responsibility to law enforcement but are tempted—if I might use a corny phrase—by the dark side.

Of course, once a person becomes a victim of their own greed, and becomes known to those in the criminal world, then they are repeatedly used to benefit that underworld. I know from my experience as a minister at a time when New South Wales had a law enforcement agency infected by corruption that it meant that there were instances where law enforcement cooperation was difficult with the state agencies because the AFP believed that information that was passed to certain persons within New South Wales would automatically be transmitted to corrupt law enforcement officials and then to those engaged in crime. So we do have a reason to put in place mechanisms to deal with the possibility of corruption.

I well remember—and this is to counterbalance the point of caution made by the member for Banks—the circumstances that faced me when complaints were made by a Mr Skrijel that his investigation by members of the National Crime Authority had been corrupt and that he had been essentially framed. There was a series of complaints preceding my becoming Minister for Justice and, upon becoming minister, I was provided with briefs from my department to the effect that there were suspicious circumstances—I can put it no higher than that—that two seconded members of the NCA may have been responsible for conduct which was detrimental to Mr Skrijel and potentially corrupt. I was invited by Mr Skrijel to appoint a royal commission to investigate that particular complaint. On the advice of my department, I took the view that the establishment of a royal commission, with all the consequences and costs, would not be an appropriate use of resources but that the matter needed to be investigated. Again on the advice of my department, I sought out a prominent South Australian barrister, Mr Quick QC, to conduct a review of the Skrijel matter and to report to me. That report revealed matters that confirmed that there were issues that required further investigation and it was in due course referred to the Deputy Ombudsman of Victoria, from where the officers of the National Crime Authority involved were originally posted, as they had disciplinary responsibility over them. Ultimately, a review was held by the Deputy Ombudsman. Mr Skrijel remained a disappointed complainant and, in part, blamed me for what was ultimately an outcome which he was dissatisfied with.

Although I was, in a sense, put in a position where Mr Skrijel took the view that, in some manner, I had not pursued his complaint vigorously and he pursued me vigorously in consequence, making very serious allegations about my own propriety, what it did reveal was that we did not have an effective process for independent complaints resolution for the National Crime Authority at that time. It strengthened, in my mind, the case that there does need to be a process that is robust, that the public can have confidence in, that extends to Commonwealth law enforcement across the board and that is able not only to receive and investigate complaints and to deal fairly with those complaints, from the point of view of a person who believes that they have been dealt with improperly by law enforcement officials, but also to protect the interests of Commonwealth that law enforcement is operating properly and in accordance with our expectations that it be immune from institutional corruption.

Therefore, I am pleased to see these bills come forward. I think they are a long time in the making. It has been a longstanding request of the committees on which I have served that there be a strengthened complaints resolution process. I do not believe that it is in anybody’s interest in the Commonwealth to not put in place the belt and braces to make certain that our confidence in the integrity of the law enforcement agencies that we have benefited from is preserved as those agencies expand and become a much more central component of Australian law enforcement. It is trite to recall that, from a relatively modest base, the Australian Federal Police and the National Crime Authority, now the Australian Crime Commission, have come to be very significant in dealing with serious and organised crime. Not merely do they have a strengthened and enhanced reputation over the years due to their effectiveness but also they have increased numbers, increased responsibilities and a higher profile.

The management styles and structures that are appropriate for such organisations as they have grown have to change. The Australian Federal Police was originally almost a quasi-military organisation—the first commissioner, indeed, being a former military officer. That was not an appropriate framework to operate within but, as we have moved, we have become much more professional in the management styles that have been evolving. We have shifted away from command and control. The language used in law enforcement at a federal level has shifted towards federal agent away from various ranked positions. We have become a central component of law enforcement in Australia. That carries with it responsibilities of making certain that the agency does not ever become a victim of institutionalised corruption such that some of the states have from time to time had to deal with. Were it to do so, we would lose something very fundamental in our capacity as a national parliament and the community would legitimately look upon us with great scorn.

That said, the reservations of the member for Banks do need to be borne in mind. We need to be fair to law enforcement personnel. These procedures that we are putting in place give great powers to investigative agencies or the commissioner and those powers will be available to investigate the conduct of law enforcement personnel. They may, naturally, feel that this is an intrusive process. We have to be aware that there are interests of fairness and natural justice that also extend to those working in law enforcement, and we have to make certain that the interests of their industrial organisations and their professional associations are borne in mind as this is worked through and put into practice. It is important that the processes be fair to complainants, to the general public and to law enforcement personnel themselves. Of course, one of the jobs of the parliamentary oversight committee established in the legislation will be, I would hope, to make certain that in zeal these organisations do not overstep the bounds that are appropriate for the carriage of the large responsibility that we are entrusting with them.

One of the concerns that the honourable member for Banks did raise, namely the concern that the organisation might have a large impact—that is, he referred to the conduct of a former Premier of New South Wales—is not warranted. This is a very narrowly focused integrity commission, focused on law enforcement. It is not focused upon persons outside of that scope.

I think there is a bit of a lost opportunity in not establishing a single oversight body to deal with the various issues and responsibility under the law enforcement umbrella. There is currently a Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Australian Crime Commission. I am the deputy chair of that committee, which is vigorous in its pursuit of its responsibilities, and often it has drawn attention to the fact that its oversight capacity of the Australian Crime Commission is really examining the tail rather than the dog. We look through the wrong end of the telescope at the law enforcement community. The ACC is an important agency, but it is a small component of Commonwealth law enforcement when it is balanced against the larger resources that are committed to the Australian Federal Police.

There is still no parliamentary oversight agency created to look at the overall positioning of law enforcement in Australia. Any examination of that, from this parliament’s point of view, will still have to be done through the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Australian Crime Commission. There is no establishment in this bill or in any other measures that I see connected with it that will establish a comprehensive oversight of the actions of Commonwealth law enforcement agencies by this parliament, and I think that is a great mistake. It is a lost opportunity. We have comprehensive oversight of all intelligence agencies, for example. Every intelligence agency has been brought under the reporting obligations of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. It used to be called the Parliamentary Joint Committee on ASIO, ASIS and DSD. As it has picked up all the other intelligence agencies, it is now simply called the Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security.

Similarly, there should be a parliamentary joint committee on law enforcement and it should have within its remit the tasks that are given in this bill to the oversight of the integrity commission. Instead of consolidation, we create a further joint committee. We establish a joint committee on the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity, with powers to examine and to report on the various matters that the integrity commission will be dealing with. But, again, it will be a fragmented examination and not within an overarching oversight responsibility for law enforcement. That is what we really need in this area. We need this parliament to be confident that one of its standing agencies has an oversight responsibility for law enforcement in this community at a Commonwealth level. Without that, one key area of Commonwealth involvement which we all rely on to work well and effectively is not subject to the kind of scrutiny that I imagine most members of the community believe it is already subject to. We will have examination of the Australian Crime Commission, we will have examination of the integrity commission, but we will not have any overall examination of where law enforcement is going—what its objectives are, what its structures should be or how it should be positioned. We have no proper examination of the role of the Australian Federal Police, the largest of those agencies. There is a simple omission.

Might I conclude by addressing the last point the member for Banks raised, about Customs. I understand his concern that the organisation should learn to crawl before it walks, let alone runs, but I think that probably—even through its crawling and early walking stages—it would have done no harm to have included Customs. The same temptations to corruption exist for those who are on the front line in Customs. In fact, Customs often receives information in relation to matters which, if misused, could be of enormous financial benefit to organised crime. Any Customs officer in that position may be subject to the same temptations as members of the law enforcement fraternity, the AFP or the Australian Crime Commission potentially are, and I do not think it would have done any harm to put those of Customs—who have a direct, front-line law enforcement responsibility—under this oversight regime.

The last point I will make before I sit down is that I will be interested to see how this works out with the secondments from state agencies to the Australian Crime Commission. That has always been a difficult area. I am not certain whether the Commonwealth’s constitutional powers cover this sufficiently or whether the bills do. I still have some doubts in my mind as to whether or not, where a complaint is made against seconded officers who have gone back to their state agencies, this will enable that to be followed through properly. That is the sort of issue that confronted me when Mr Skrijel was making his complaints. I hope they can be dealt with effectively through this process, but it is a matter that I will keep my eye on because I am not certain that it will be properly dealt with. On balance, I think these bills deserve support and I support also the amendment that the shadow Attorney-General has put forward.

Michael Hatton (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am happy to follow the members for Denison and Banks and the shadow Attorney-General in putting Labor’s case with regard to this series of bills. This is a cognate debate. There is the initial bill, the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner Bill 2006; the associated bill, the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2006; and the Law Enforcement (AFP Professional Standards and Related Measures) Bill 2006. It is proper that there be a cognate debate on these bills, because the issues involved in all go to the questions of how the Australian Federal Police are organised, their professional conduct and changing that as a result of reports which have been previously been done. After waiting a considerable period of time—some might say seven and some might say 10 long years—for this government to act, we have finally got in the principal bill a series of recommendations to put before the parliament based on a number of reports over time.

Corruption within the Australian Federal Police and instances of that is not endemic. We are not dealing with what occurred in Queensland or in New South Wales, where reaction to systemic corruption within those forces was such that there were investigative agencies and commissions set up to look into and then to repair those police forces. We are not dealing here with corruption of the same order, value or significance. But it is deep enough to merit a second reading speech a bit longer than what is probably the Attorney-General’s shortest second reading speech. It was about three paragraphs in all. He simply said: ‘We’ve set it up. That’s it. We hope it will do its job. The integrity of the Australia’s federal police will be ensured by (1) setting up the commission and (2) providing the commissioner with adequate access to information and making a series of consequential amendments.’

This is an interesting bill. Once you go beyond the outlying skin of this onion of a bill and start to pull the elements of it apart, you find that it goes to a series of other government bills. It actually tells you a lot about the current operation not only of the criminal law but also of the exceptions, throughout a series of bills, that allow the Australian Federal Police—and, indeed, other agencies—to act in ways that would otherwise be unlawful, simply because to do otherwise than grant them those exceptions would mean that they could be hauled before the courts, could be hauled up for internal review by the Australian Federal Police or, once this bill becomes law, before the Australian Integrity Commissioner.

Just to give the House a flavour of what this means, there are secrecy provisions imposed on the Australian Federal Police Commissioner, the Deputy Commissioner and staff, but items 4 and 5 in this bill say that those normal secrecy provisions need to be put aside, because if they are made for the purpose of this act—the law enforcement integrity act—then they will be allowed to be made. The second element is where we are dealing with ASIO officers. The unauthorised communication of intelligence by those officers is a criminal offence. The exception to that relates to the Australian Crime Commission, but this bill says, ‘We’ll add one person and that is the Integrity Commissioner.’ You could go through and look at the Crimes Act of 1914, the Criminal Code of 1995, the Financial Transactions Reports Act 1988—there are 30 or more of them, I think.

Finally, I want to indicate just what is involved here on the question of assumed or false identities. This happens; it is reported from time to time. There are a number of agencies where, in order to take up any corruption activities or investigations, Commonwealth and state agencies, such as the Australian Federal Police, the ACC, ASIO and state police forces and anticorruption agencies, acquire and use assumed—that is, false—identities. If that is appropriately authorised, these agencies can request assumed identity documents from Commonwealth, state and territory agencies—passports, Medicare cards and so on. This bill says that the staff who are working for the Integrity Commission can have that same level or degree of powers.

Given the amount of time that it has taken to get to the point where we have the bill, and I have outlined that there are a number of bills that have had to have provisions attached for the commissioner to undertake his work, and given that there have been so many reviews—we had the initial review in 1996 and there was a further one in 1997; 2004 was the last time this should have been finalised—you would have to wonder why they were not more specific as to the agencies that should have been taken into account and why they were not more inclusive, by including the Australian Customs Service and, indeed, by including the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs. Instead of keeping it isolated to the Australian Federal Police, Labor argues—and has argued in the amendment which I support—that it would have been not only sensible but also absolutely necessary to do that.

What is the reason for that? The core of this bill is about the Australian Federal Police. If you look at (1) the record of the AFP, (2) its mode of operations and (3) the opportunity for people to become involved in areas where corrupt conduct could be involved, you will see the very fact that they are not state police entities is one of the reasons there have been so few known cases of corrupt activity in the Australian Federal Police. It is the nature of the work that, in good part, determines whether or not the temptation is great enough for people to undertake corrupt activity. If you look at the specific responsibilities that agencies and the people working with those agencies have, then by going to the Customs Service and seeing how it operates and the environment it works in, particularly at Australia’s major airports, you will understand why this bill should apply to them. It is the nature of their business that underlines the fact that the operations of this bill should be extended to the vast number of goods moving in and out of Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport, for instance, one of the main security controlled airports in Australia. We have argued for that quite specifically in our amendment. For the benefit of the House and the Australian public, I will read out paragraph (3) of our amendment:

(3)

notes that, despite the fact that the Australian Customs Service officers have:

(a)

use of weapons including pistols and maritime deck mounted guns;

(b)

powers of arrest and detention;

(c)

powers of search and seizure;

(d)

ability to conduct controlled operations;

(e)

responsibility for collection of large amounts of border-related revenue

(f)

responsibility for storage of large amounts of contraband and dutiable goods like drugs, alcohol, tobacco, knives, guns and ammunition;

If that is so—and the minister needs to answer the charge put by us in this amendment—then one of the key areas that should be controlled has not been. Think about the operation, in practice, of the intersection between Customs, state police, the Australian Protective Service and the Australian Federal Police at our major airports. Think about the occasion for corrupt activity being undertaken. Think about the fact that there has been, over decades of experience within Sydney and Melbourne airports, a culture where not only drugs but also other illegal goods—for instance, guns—are traded from one end of the country to the other and where there has been, because the agencies have not been properly coordinated, no effective investigation of what has happened there.

The Wheeler report, which the government accepted in September 2005, indicated that the way in which those agencies interacted was entirely dysfunctional. They needed to be completely reorganised. He suggested there should be one single enforcement agency, one police force, put in place throughout Australia’s major security controlled airports and that it be responsible to one person. The reason he suggested that—it has not been done by the government—is that it is in the interstices of procedure, it is between the different agencies, that the greatest capacity for people to be able to do wrong and engage in corrupt conduct is available. Where you get an overlapping of functions and uncertainty in terms of who is supposed to do the job and who has a purview in what is a complex operation in any of these major airports, you have significant problems with Customs, state police, the Australian Protective Service and the Australian Federal Police, or the private security firms that have been given the job of doing a great deal of that.

Anyone in those agencies who is in a position to be bribed or brought into the criminal culture that exists within those entities could be under investigation by the Australian Integrity Commissioner, but only if it is specifically provided for in this bill. It is our view that that is not the case. It is our view that the minister may by exemption have created a situation where those who are least likely to be under the purview of the commissioner, the Australian Federal Police, because of the very nature of their job, are under the purview of this legislation. But those who are most likely in the Commonwealth government agencies are not taken into account in this bill. I would suggest to the minister that, if that is the case, they must be incorporated and that he should accept Labor’s amendment in this regard.

The amendment we have put up is pretty tough, particularly if you look at the way in which the government have dealt with these measures, but I think it is extremely significant. The first two parts go to the question of the timing. Let us look back to 1996. I was here in November 1996. I have been here for 10 years as of yesterday. I gave my first speech 10 years ago. In all of the 10 very long years that this government have been in action—they have been here but not necessarily in action—one of the fundamental problems we have had is the dilatoriness in taking up what should be seen as simply doing their job. The government, at the very start, 10 years ago, said: ‘Let’s have a look at what the Commonwealth government activity is. Let’s have a look at what the Commonwealth government should be doing.’ They produced a report from the National Commission of Audit, and the fundamental decision, the baseline for this government, was that the Commonwealth government should in fact provide no direct service at all to the Australian community and that their ultimate function is, effectively, to be a bystander; they would be auditors and benchmarkers.

This bill took so long in part because it is an active measure. It has benchmarking and auditing functions, but it goes to the question of the operation of Commonwealth entities—in this case, the AFP. That is matched by the associated bill in which there is an attempt to bring the standards in the AFP up to date to deal with complaints in a better way than in the past. We commend the fact that those steps have been taken. But they are on too small a scale and do not really get to the nub, to the core, of what this is, because if the Commonwealth could do so I am sure they would simply outsource everything they could. We know that they have sought to do that in Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, and we know what problems have been created as a result. We know that in securing Australia’s airports a lot of the security work is left up to private companies. Those private companies are not properly vetted. The government have had a number of attempts at doing that, but because criminal elements, and indeed terrorist elements, have been able to operate within the boundaries of cleaning services, baggage handlers and so on, stopping that by proper provision but also stopping it by accurately including government services that they still have not taken responsibility for is an important thing to do.

By contrast, the American government understand very fully that they have to take responsibility for historic or traditional government activities. They are not as ideological as this government is and they therefore take very seriously the charge they have to look to the welfare and conduct of their people when they are travelling and to ensure that the action they take in relation to their federal and state agencies is such that they can ensure that corruption is rooted out. They take direct responsibility for it, and that is why it is much safer to travel in the United States and into and out of it than virtually anywhere else in the world now, because they have seriously got the message. What this government seriously needs to get the message on is that, given that it has taken so long to produce, this legislation is too narrow in its scope. We need to have it more inclusive, particularly in Customs and DIMIA.

There are also other areas, and I will speak to these last two parts of our amendment, where the government needs to be brought to task. Point (4) of our amendment states:

(4)

notes that there are a range of other Commonwealth agencies with law enforcement style powers that should also receive oversight, such as the Department of Immigration, which under the Howard Government’s maladministration wrongly held 26 Australians in Immigration detention; and

Roger Price (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

An absolute disgrace.

Michael Hatton (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Disgraceful. But there is more; lastly:

(5)

is opposed to the Government’s proposed system of adding and subtracting agencies other than the AFP and ACC by regulation, noting such a system would effectively allow the Minister a veto over corruption investigations”.

Taking into account the fact that absolutely Customs should be involved here, there is a strong case that Immigration should be involved, when you look at past practice.

Our amendment goes to the core of the whole question of whether or not there is an adequate system of administration. If you introduce legislation with the shortest second reading speech I have ever seen—there are probably about 100 words in it—if you say, ‘The focus of this is so narrow that we really do not have to go into much of the detail,’ and if you then say, ‘It may affect government agencies, but we’ll just make up a shopping list and the minister can either add a few to the shopping list or knock them off simply by determining that and whacking a regulation through so they are off the shopping list and out of the oversight of this,’ and so it is all done as a governmental driver, then you would have to question the integrity of the process of setting up an Integrity Commissioner, having that Integrity Commissioner involved in law enforcement and having appropriate powers. We would argue that the self-generation of investigations under this bill is not sufficient. Even if the commissioner has information come to him or his staff and he generates a report, there is still the fact that with a single stroke of the pen the minister can say, ‘That’s out of your purview altogether.’ That creates a situation where the integrity of the whole process can be pulled to pieces.

The government does not seriously understand, appreciate or take into account the fundamental demands of being in government and of ensuring not only that its agencies are seen as full extensions of the government but also that the people working for those agencies are under the full purview of the Integrity Commissioner. The very narrowness of the principal bill is its chief problem. Historically, if you look at this issue you see that the source of corrupt activity is not to be found in the normal sorts of operations of the Australian Federal Police, who do a wonderful job; it is to be found in the exceptions. If this commissioner is to really do his work and if his staff are to be put to the job and to do it effectively, then we need all of those relevant government agencies and organisations to be brought within its span, not to be able to be knocked off the shopping list at the minister’s whim. This is a significant bill and I commend it. I also commend our amendment to the bill to the House for its consideration, particularly by the minister. (Time expired)

Roger Price (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are having a cognate debate on the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner Bill 2006, the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2006 and the Law Enforcement (AFP Professional Standards and Related Measures) Bill 2006. I want to say a few things about this legislation. In particular, I was pleased to follow the contribution by my colleague the honourable member for Blaxland. I totally endorse his remarks. In particular, why wouldn’t you want to have the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs under the purview of the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner when 26 of our fellow Australian citizens—I repeat: 26 of our fellow Australian citizens—have been illegally and unlawfully detained in detention centres? It is an absolute disgrace, yet we are being asked to have confidence in the department of immigration.

The shadow Attorney-General has moved a second reading amendment and has foreshadowed detailed amendments to the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner Bill. The second reading amendment highlights the fact that the recommendation for the establishment of a law enforcement integrity commissioner first arose in November 1996 in report No. 82 of the Australian Law Reform Commission. In implementing a significant change—and I acknowledge that this is a significant change—it is appropriate for governments to be cautious in framing the legislation and ensuring that they have got it right. But I am sure you would not disagree, Mr Deputy Speaker, that this has taken almost 10 years. November this year would be the 10th anniversary of this recommendation. Caution, yes, but this is legislating at a snail’s pace. In fact, maybe the Leader of the House would want me to withdraw that as a reflection on snails—and if I have so reflected, I apologise and I withdraw. But I do not understand, as the honourable member for Blaxland has pointed out, why, when our law enforcement agencies have been under so much stress from heightened activity due to the threat of terrorism, it has taken 10 long years for this bill to come to fruition.

This bill is welcome and we are actually supporting it. I think our amendments will strengthen the bill and I will be most interested to see whether or not the Attorney-General—or the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, who is at the table—will be embracing our second reading amendment and, in particular, our detailed amendments. Labor would like to see the reporting regime opened up and subjected to judicial review. We would also like to see agencies such as AUSTRAC, Customs and, as I have mentioned, the department of immigration covered by the Integrity Commissioner. This bill would be greatly enhanced if those agencies came under its purview. I think that would give comfort to citizens that there are remedial steps that they can take. The Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner would be charged with dealing with corruption, and in 2004 the platform of the Australian Labor Party had this to say:

Labor supports the establishment of independent anti-corruption authorities to oversee the investigative, prosecutorial and judicial processes. Labor will ensure that the Australian Crime Commission and the Australian Federal Police have appropriate independent complaints handling procedures.

I am very pleased with it, and it is for that reason that the opposition is supporting these measures.

I am focused on the Australian Federal Police, because on Monday I raised a privileges matter concerning tampering with mail. I understand that Australia Post has its own internal security, but I specifically wrote to the Australian Federal Police because I had no confidence in having an impartial examination of the serious issues that I had raised—that is, between 3,000 to 5,000 mail items were shredded. Unfortunately, the security bin holding my material has now been removed. Another federal member is in the same boat as I am—of having their mail tampered with—not by the workers at Australia Post Nepean centre but by the management.

This is why I was very keen to see the Australian Federal Police look at what I believe is a climate of corruption in the New South Wales state branch of Australia Post—but they did not. I suppose I have cause to write to the Ombudsman. I have lodged my complaint with the Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police, but I have not heard from him. I must say that this is uncharacteristic. I have the greatest admiration for Commissioner Keelty. I think he has done a great job, and I also believe that he presides over a very effective and efficient Australian Federal Police force. The officers of the Australian Federal Police have my admiration and my total support.

Unfortunately, many members of the Australian Federal Police are tied up on overseas assignments, where they are doing a great job. The 2004-05 annual report states that 258 officers are stationed at overseas posts; at least a further 147 are on peacekeeping duties overseas; 1,205 Protective Service officers are involved in guarding duties, not investigative services; 26 are on secondment to other agencies—I would be very happy if that were 27 not 26, so that we had one on secondment to Australia Post; 1,291 are unsworn; 608 are appropriately on ACT local policing duties; and 20 are on local policing duties in other Australian territories.

We have talked many times in this House about the Australian defence forces being at perhaps their highest tempo of operation since the Vietnam War. I think that is a true statement. I also think it is true of the Australian Federal Police. In recent times they have been at an exceptional level of operation and are deeply committed all over the world to duties as they have been announced by the Australian government. This is putting a lot of pressure on the Australian Federal Police. Perhaps I should take a more charitable view of the Australian Federal Police not investigating what happened at the Nepean delivery centre and what I understand to be a climate of corruption operating within the New South Wales Australia Post operations at management level—and I want to stress ‘at management level’.

Why would we argue, for example, to have Customs involved in this? I have spoken a number of times about what is happening on our northern borders. It is a matter of record that last year 13,000 foreign fishing vessels were sighted in either our coastal waters or our economic zone. Now, 13,000 is a lot of fishing vessels, along with 78,000 illegal foreign fishermen, in our waters. Of the 13,000 boats, only 400 were apprehended. It is a matter of record that some of those boats were landing on our shores.

I have raised the quarantine issues associated with that. We are at grave risk of foot-and-mouth disease entering this country by illegal foreign fishermen landing on our coast. The most probable way that avian flu will enter this country is through illegal fishermen. And, of course, there are marine pests. We already know that it cost $3 billion to eradicate the black striped mussel from Darwin Harbour. If it hit our pearling industry, it would wipe it out, which is the last in the wild pearling industry. It would be not only a huge economic loss to us but also a tragedy for the world.

The point I want to make is that no-one can tell us whether drugs are coming in on these boats. We cannot say whether drugs are coming in on these boats. We do not know whether weapons are coming in on these boats. We do not know whether there are persons, other than refugees, seeking to enter Australia by landing on our coast. This is a serious issue. It is not confined just to one small spot on the Western Australian coast, it is not confined to the coast of the Northern Territory, it is not confined to Queensland—it is across our northern waters. It is a very serious issue.

I would never argue that this scandal, in my view, is an issue of corruption within Customs or an issue of corruption within Coastwatch or an issue of corruption within the Federal Police. I would not make that argument. But when you have 78,000 illegal fishermen in our northern waters and we are unable to respond, then certainly some ministers should stand up before the dispatch box and accept responsibility. I also say to those agencies that they are derelict in their duty by not recommending more strongly to the government appropriate measures that would stop this.

This country was thrown into utter turmoil by a couple of thousand illegal refugees wanting to land in Australia. We turned our immigration laws upside down. We took extraordinary action on border protection, but in any one year the numbers were relatively modest, certainly compared to other countries. For example, in the UK up to 100,000 people would seek refugee status. But here I am talking about genuine people, because they are poor fishermen, trying to earn a livelihood, being financed by illegal cartels operating in Indonesia and some other countries. I have some sympathy for the fishermen but these 78,000 illegal foreign fishermen are, at will, being allowed to enter our coast and we are doing absolutely nothing about it. I am sorry; that is not true. The government are proposing to lift the number of vessels apprehended by 4.62 per cent. ‘In the case of 78,000 illegal fishermen, we hope to apprehend 3,700.’ This is seen by the government as an adequate response.

I think it is a totally inadequate response. It is another example of the government refusing to protect Australian sovereignty. We know what you are doing on the immigration bill, we know who you are appeasing on the immigration bill, but you will not stand up and protect our sovereignty and our borders. The government knows and the agencies know that these illegal fishermen are landing on our coast. Why shouldn’t we have Customs under the purview of this Integrity Commissioner? I think we should. In relation to the scandal that is operating on our northern borders, I certainly hope that we do not have to wait another 10 years to see some action.

The Commonwealth Ombudsman will have an additional role in relation to the Australian Federal Police. We will still see complaints made to the Ombudsman, but his title will be changed, I think, to the Law Enforcement Ombudsman. But not all complaints will be handled by the Ombudsman. The so-called serious corruption complaints will be handled by the new statutory body that we are establishing in these bills.

To sum up, there is still a lot to be done in the law enforcement area. I regret to say—and, again, I apologise if I am offending snails—it has taken a decade, with a snail’s pace tackling of these important issues. Labor support the legislation and welcome it. We think it is long overdue, but we still welcome it. We have a second reading amendment—which I am sure, if you had your druthers, Mr Deputy Speaker, you would be supporting—and some in detail amendments that strengthen the bill.

Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Reconciliation and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I endorse the comments of my colleagues the members for Chifley, Banks and Denison, who have spoken to these bills, and reiterate that Labor welcomes this legislation finally coming into the House. Three bills are being considered cognately, and the substantial amendments that the shadow Attorney-General has moved warrant consideration. There is absolutely no doubt that a rationalisation of law enforcement is long overdue in this country, and the government has finally managed to present us with this legislation. The opposition takes a very keen interest in both the substance and the efficacy of the legislation that comes into the parliament, and I think it is notable that the debate conducted in the House today goes to issues of substance and efficacy.

We note that the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner Bill 2006 and the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2006 establish the Law Enforcement Integrity Commission as a new agency under the Attorney-General’s portfolio, that there are specific powers for the investigation and reporting of corruption issues—and that is important—that new offences are created for not cooperating with the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner and that the bills are limited in operational scope to the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Crime Commission but that any other Commonwealth law agency that has a law enforcement function could be included by being specified in regulations. I will come to that issue in a moment.

By establishing a new agency, the Australian Law Enforcement Integrity Commission, or ACLEI, to investigate corruption allegations against law enforcement agencies and officers and to conduct public inquiries under the control of an integrity commissioner, the government is bringing to the 21st century that which should have been done some time ago—but the measures are welcomed nevertheless. Such an agency was recommended as far back as 1996 in the Australian Law Reform Commission report No. 82 and also in 2003 by the Fisher review. The commissioner is given a broad range of powers in relation to investigating corruption but can only investigate law enforcement agencies. Additionally, it is worth while pointing out that article 6.9 of the 2004 ALP national platform states:

Labor supports the establishment of independent anti-corruption authorities to oversee the investigative, prosecutorial and judicial processes. Labor will ensure that the Australian Crime Commission and the Australian Federal Police have appropriate independent complaints handling procedures.

Clearly, that is an important part of the legislation before us. We agree that the proposed regime is a fair improvement on the current regime. The current regime relies on the Australian Federal Police and the Commonwealth Ombudsman to investigate, and the AFP has had a conflict of interest in, effectively, investigating itself. As other members have mentioned, the bill is not yet optimal, particularly in the fact that it does not draw Customs and the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs into its regime. We believe that deficiency needs to be considered by the government. It is the case that a broader range of agencies can potentially be added or delisted from the regime, and that is something we will take some interest in as this legislation unfolds and as the policy issues that need to be considered in relation to the legislation continues.

The Law Enforcement (AFP Professional Standards and Related Measures) Bill 2006the other bill to be considered in this cognate debate—repeals the Complaints (Australian Federal Police) Act 1981, establishes in the Australian Federal Police Act 1979 a new four-category system for complaints and own-motion investigations into conduct and practice issues, and amends a range of acts as a consequence. It incorporates a provision relating to alcohol screening tests into the Australian Federal Police Act 1979. It amends the Australian Federal Police Act 1979 to make new provisions for suspension, termination and resignation from AFP employment. This legislation provides improvements in the arrangements. The Federal Police Disciplinary Tribunal has pretty much stopped working; it certainly has not heard any cases for the past seven years. Importantly, this new regime is an integral part of a broader anticorruption regime which includes ACLEI, so, along with our amendments, Labor believe the bill should be supported.

I note that the bill provides minimal protection for whistleblowers by making an offence of victimisation under proposed section 40YA, part VA, division 3. A provision relating to the stripping of superannuation from those found guilty of corruption offences is deleted from the bill. We believe some additional issues arise out of this which should be considered, including how complaints can be referred against AFP local police contingents in external territories. That is a technical issue but clearly an important one given that there are a number of the AFP local police contingents now operating in external territories. Also, under clause 40TC, which relates to ordered training and development action, a provision ought to be considered to protect people from pecuniary loss. A number of other technical matters are contained in the amendments that the shadow Attorney-General has moved.

One of the things that is clear is that Labor will use the Senate committee process to examine the bill closely in an endeavour to secure necessary amendments. But I have to say in relation to that particular matter that the decision in the last 24 hours by the government to effectively seek to take control of the Senate raises some very legitimate questions about whether or not we will be able to properly scrutinise this legislation, or any other legislation which has such far-reaching consequences, when it comes through the House.

I draw your attention to the chain of events that have led from the Prime Minister, upon taking control of the Senate and announcing that the approach that the government will take will be humble—I think that was one of the words that was used—to the situation that we are faced with this morning, when we learn that in fact it is the government’s intention in the Senate that it will determine who heads the committees. The government will effectively control the agenda of Senate committees, including whether or not witnesses will be called and heard.

When we are considering a bill about improving the governance, accountability and efficiency of the purview of police agencies in the Commonwealth, a far more important but related issue is whether or not the parliament can continue to exercise its proper oversight duties in relation to these bodies and any others, including legislation. That is what this is all about at this point in time. We need to be very aware that, since taking control of the Senate, the government has, amongst other things, unilaterally changed the allocation of questions and awarded itself two extra questions each day at the expense of non-government senators, cut off debate and prevented full and open debate in the Senate on a number of really important bills that people in the gallery who are listening to me speaking would know are important and go to the very heart of their lives and what goes on in their communities—the Telstra bill, Work Choices, Welfare to Work, voluntary student unionism. Those are some of the bills that were subject to much less scrutiny.

The guillotine was imposed on the debate concerning $30 billion of taxpayers’ assets that are tied up in Telstra, leaving no opportunity for the Senate to do what the people of Australia expect it to do: hold the government to account. The government unilaterally altered the sitting hours in the week of the Telstra debate; it did not consult with other parties—the Labor Party, the Greens or the Democrats—in the Senate. Additionally, the Howard government has unilaterally pushed Senator Fielding down the senators list so that Senator Joyce could jump into his place. The Family First senator did not get to speak on that legislation in the Senate. That is a disgraceful abuse of process.

Additionally, debate has been gagged. People may remember that, on 13 October, when we were considering the antiterror legislation that was coming through the House, Senator Hill, the then government leader in the Senate, put a motion for the inquiry into the antiterror legislation after 4.30 pm on Thursday, as no vote could be held at this time. This would have effectively meant a one-day inquiry into the legislation. That is what the government was trying to do at that time.

Some ministers have shown a contempt for Senate abuses by not showing up to portfolio estimates, either sending parliamentary secretaries or junior ministers. Senators Kemp and Colbeck replaced Senator Ian Campbell at Environment and Heritage and Senator Sandy Macdonald replaced Senator Hill at Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade. Debate was gagged on 3 November in a debate about hours and routine and business, in the Senate again. Debate was gagged on 8 November in a debate over Labor’s proposed amendments to the references to the Work Choice inquiries. The legislation committee inquiring into the radioactive waste bill inquiry did not travel to the Northern Territory for local input. It did not even go to the very place where the legislation was likely to have its impact. Again, an antiterror bill and two welfare bills were guillotined and the debate was gagged on 5 December.

While I am reciting what has actually gone on in the Senate and noting the decline in the openness, accountability and thoroughness with which all elected senators can perform their tasks in the Senate, who could forget when Senator McGauran gave the finger to non-government senators during a vote count. I have not been in the parliament that long, but I must say that democracy dropped down a level of respect when Senator McGauran reacted in that way.

Additionally, there has been a considerable abuse of question time in the Senate. But now, more importantly, we see a final step taken by the government in seeking to reduce the capacity that the parliament has to consider bills and their effects clearly, including bills such as the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner Bill 2006 and cognate bills.

I come into the parliament as the member for Kingsford Smith. I want to reiterate the comments of my colleagues, the member for Banks and the member for Dennison in particular, and note that there is a lost opportunity in this legislation in that we do not have a single oversight body that can deal with law enforcement, and to particularly note the fact that Customs and DIMA have not been brought directly within the purview of the legislation. The electorate that I represent has a significant port facility. Some of the problems and issues that we have seen in relation to Customs, and some of the significant difficulties—both security difficulties and difficulties and issues that relate to corruption itself—are really on the mind of my constituents; and, as I represent them, on my mind as well.

Mr Deputy Speaker, you may recall a report into the Customs IT system. That was the system that almost stopped the nation’s ports. The report showed that the new system had not expedited sea cargo by any measure, had not delivered streamlined and simplified dealings with Customs, had not delivered on improved security via cargo profiling and had not delivered any cost efficiencies, despite Senator Ellison promising the parliament that ‘these will be the greatest reforms to occur to the Australian Customs Service since Federation.’ The report found that ‘almost immediately’ the system ‘caused disruption to the nation’s ports’ and that Customs continued to introduce changes to the software up to 6 October, only one week prior to the go-live date.

If we had the opportunity to properly scrutinise the performance of ministers and the way in which legislation rolls through this parliament then we would be able to ask more questions about this, but in the future we will not be able to do that. But more importantly, I think, is the prospect that on the ports and the wharves there are opportunities and environments which place both security issues and corruption issues into the front field. To that extent, the fact that this legislation does not as a matter of course provide for or include Customs is an oversight.

I will conclude my remarks. There is no question that this legislation is needed. Additionally, there is no question that the issues that we have brought into the parliament are issues of efficiency, of efficacy and particularly of whether or not Customs and AUSTRAC, which are clearly law enforcement agencies, ought to be included in this legislation rather than being simply dependent on the minister’s listing for regulation. So they are important issues that have been raised. We will support the bill, awaiting and inviting the government to consider the amendment that has been moved.

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

During my contribution to the debate on the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner Bill 2006 and cognate bills, I will turn to some of the issues highlighted by the member for Kingsford Smith in his contribution to this debate. Like other members on this side of the parliament, we are very concerned about the way this government has eroded the democratic process within Australia and within this parliament.

This legislation seeks to establish the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner and a new agency under the Attorney-General’s portfolio, the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity. It specifies a power for the investigation and reporting of corruption issues. It creates new offences for not cooperating with the Integrity Commissioner. It is limited in operational scope to the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Crime Commission—the former National Crime Authority. However, any other Commonwealth government agency that has a law enforcement function could be included by being specified in regulation. The Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner Bill 2006, which we are discussing today, allows the Integrity Commissioner access to certain powers under the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979, the Crimes Act 1914 and various other acts. It extends the scope of the Telecommunications (Transitional Provisions and Consequential Amendments) Act 1997 to allow the ACLEI to cooperate with other organisations.

Whilst we on this side are supporting this bill, it does have some flaws. We are quite concerned about the omissions in this legislation and I think that there are a few points that I need to make in relation to this legislation. As I have already stated, it establishes the Office of the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner, and we on this side of the parliament welcome that development. But it is also worth noting just how long it has taken the government to develop this legislation: it has taken it almost two years to come good on the commitment to set up an independent national anticorruption body.

You might ask why this is necessary. I think members would be aware that most states have similar bodies, and it is very important that we can ensure the integrity of our Commonwealth law enforcement bodies. It should be noted—and I say without reservation—that the majority of law enforcement officers within the Commonwealth jurisdiction are very honourable, hardworking and dedicated people. But, unfortunately, at times there are some people who do not operate at the same level of integrity. So this is needed. It is an independent national anticorruption body and, as such, members should all get behind it.

But I do see it as a bit of a missed opportunity. This government had the opportunity to set up a body that would provide that oversight for all law enforcement bodies. As previous speakers on this side have mentioned, it has ignored DIMA and AUSTRAC and the Australian Customs Service. Even the Australian Taxation Office could be looked at in the context of this legislation. But, unfortunately, the government has not chosen to do this. There are still a number of minor flaws in this bill which add to the trend that this government has of putting before the parliament sloppy legislation, legislation that is half finished.

I think this links in to the arrogance that has developed within the coalition ranks since it has had control of both houses of parliament. It thinks it can just throw legislation into the House without going through the proper processes. It is a government that does not feel it is really accountable to anyone. It is a law unto itself and the only thing that can be guaranteed is that this government will push anything through this House if it thinks that it will benefit it. It took two years to develop the legislation and at the end of two years we have sloppy legislation that has not been detailed properly. I think that on that account the government stands condemned.

The bill before us today clearly does not take into account the Telecommunications (Interception) Amendment Bill 2006. As a consequence, the consequential amendment bill is littered with redundant references. It is clear from the quality of the legislation and the lack of the timely response to the recommendation that the Attorney-General takes for granted that any piece of legislation he puts before the House will be successful. It is a very lazy cavalier approach to this parliament and to developing legislation of a quality that the Australian people should expect. The opposition will support this bill, but we do have a number of concerns. The shadow minister has put it to the House that we will be moving amendments that are vitally important to bring the Customs Service, AUSTRAC, justice portfolios and other law enforcement agencies under this legislation.

The Lateline program of 18 September last year highlighted the need for this type of legislation. However, it needs to be broader than the legislation before us today. The Lateline presentation was a special report on the trade in drugs, guns and people over the Torres Strait, between Papua New Guinea and Australia. As we all know, there have been increased tensions between Australia and New Zealand over these matters. However, it is a trade that has been taking place for a very long time and one that this government has not moved to stop. In this Lateline report, it was alleged that corrupt officials were making this trade even easier. I know that the member for Chifley spoke at some length about illegal fishing, the failure of the government to stop that practice and the failure of the government to stop many of the illegal activities that take place in the northern part of Australia.

This Lateline report highlighted the need for the government to address this issue. Very important information was put forward in that program—information that makes it so much more important for us to include in this legislation Customs and other areas. One of the contributors said:

Sometimes the drug dealers give drugs and buy off the Customs guys.

The question was asked:

So are Australian officials corrupt?

The answer:

Yes ... especially Immigration.

Where in this legislation is Immigration covered? The answer is that it is not. Because it is not covered, we have flawed legislation before us here in the parliament today. As I have already highlighted, this is sloppy legislation put to us by a very lazy Attorney-General who thinks he can serve anything up to this parliament, say what he likes and it will get through because he has the numbers in the House and in the Senate.

Before going back to the Lateline program, I would like to make a couple of comments on the Senate and the moves that this government has taken to interfere with the democratic process not only in the Senate but here in this parliament. This week, this House has been subject to a number of gag motions. I have been prevented from speaking on two or three pieces of legislation in this parliament because this government has rammed legislation through the parliament. This is not a government that allows for proper debate, discussion, investigation and amendments to legislation. I have been prevented from speaking on these pieces of legislation this week, as have many other members on this side of the House. We believe that legislation should have proper scrutiny, and I would argue very strongly and passionately that this government is preventing that. By preventing proper scrutiny the government is doing a disservice to the Australian people. The Australian people deserve better than that. They deserve legislation that has been properly debated and scrutinised by the House of Representatives and the Senate.

We have noticed a very big change in this parliament since the government gained control of the Senate. No longer do we sit late on the night before parliament rises. My prediction is that we will probably get out of parliament at the normal time on Thursday night because the government has control of the Senate. Previously when the government rammed things through the House, things were properly scrutinised in the Senate because the government did not have the numbers then. Now the government has the numbers in the Senate, everything will be rammed through the Senate without proper scrutiny in the same way it has been rammed through this parliament since the Howard government came to power. Today we have heard the news that the government will rationalise the Senate committees by reducing their numbers, once again decreasing the capacity of senators to properly examine legislation. It is all about the government’s removing itself from accountability. It is all about a lack of scrutiny. It is all about ramming everything through. It is all about not allowing proper democratic processes in this parliament.

The member for Kingsford Smith highlighted some of the legislation that this government had gagged debate on—very vital legislation to the people of Australia. The Telstra debate, the Welfare to Work legislation and the Work Choices legislation—I see the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations is at the table—were gagged. We were not allowed to discuss vital legislation that changed the shape of Australia. The antiterrorism legislation, once again, was gagged. Under this government, our democracy has been diminished and Australians are being persecuted because of this government’s approach to governing our country. I urge the government to rethink its plans for the Senate, because I see it as a further abuse of our parliamentary system in Australia. It is the action of a very arrogant government that really does not want to be accountable to the Australian people in a way that it should be.

The Lateline report I was examining a moment ago highlights a number of areas where there are deficiencies in policing the waters north of Australia. In that particular interview, it was stated that two local economies north of Australia are fishing and smuggling; that it was all about bringing guns, drugs and people in. The following fact was also highlighted:

Part of the problem is in the Australian side. The Australian law enforcement agencies are corrupt. Federal Police, Customs, and Australian Immigration officers are corrupt. They are part of the network.

Today we are putting in place legislation that will look at part of the problem, and I suspect the part of the problem that is most accountable now—that is, the Australian Federal Police—but it ignores Customs and DIMA. I really do not think that DIMA should escape the oversight of this legislation when we look at some of the examples that have been before the parliament of the 26 Australians held in immigration detention. I do not need to go into the plight of Cornelia Rau today as all members are aware of the activities that have happened where DIMA have not acted in the way that one would expect them to act. I would argue that there has been an abuse of their law enforcement powers and that they should receive the same sort of oversight that we are placing on agencies that come under this legislation.

I argue very strongly that, unless the government includes these other departments and agencies, this legislation is flawed, and it is very much a missed opportunity. I find it extremely disappointing that this government is prepared to cover two agencies—the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Crime Commission—when there are a number of other agencies that should come under this legislation. While I support this legislation, I condemn the government for its sloppy and very untimely approach to developing this legislation. It has been very remiss in omitting those agencies that I have highlighted throughout my contribution to this debate. I have provided supporting evidence from the Lateline show of 18 April that really supports the inclusion of those agencies to be covered by this legislation.

I hope that when this legislation reaches the Senate it will be scrutinised properly. As I have already highlighted, this government is not about proper scrutiny; it is about reducing the ability of the Senate to scrutinise legislation in the way that it should be scrutinised. I urge the government to reconsider its proposal to reduce the number of Senate committees and the ability of the Senate to do its job—that is, to review legislation.

Arch Bevis (Brisbane, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Aviation and Transport Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The three bills before us, the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner Bill 2006 and cognate bills, are principally designed to create the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner. That is an important position, and the Labor Party welcomes the creation of that office. It has been Labor policy for some time; we have been calling for the creation of that position for some time. In fact, the Australian Law Reform Commission recommended the establishment of a body such as this back in 1996 in its report of November of that year. It took the Liberal government the best part of two years before they finally adopted that recommendation of the Law Reform Commission. In June 2004, which is some eight years later, the Liberal government finally got around to adopting that recommendation.

If memory serves me correctly, I think it was the former Labor Attorney-General Michael Lavarch who asked the Law Reform Commission to look at these matters. I should reflect that Michael Lavarch was an outstanding Attorney-General who, in a number of respects, brought the administration of law in Australia into a modern contemporary frame. It is a pity that subsequent Attorneys-General have not had either his ability or his integrity. That is my view, and I am sure the view of many people in the legal fraternity who have watched the situation.

In any event, after about eight years the Liberal government finally decided that this was a good idea, that the Law Reform Commission had it right in November 1996, and adopted the policy of establishing the Australian Law Enforcement Integrity Commission. It has taken this government two years since then to have a bill materialise in this parliament, and when you reflect on the number of pieces of legislation in the law enforcement and antiterrorism areas that this government has introduced—in some cases with little or no debate—it is hard to understand why it relegated such an important measure to such a low priority. The fact that it has taken two years for this government after adopting this policy to produce a bill indicates the lack of interest it has in ensuring proper transparency and accountability.

I want to make it clear at the outset that I think Australia’s police and law enforcement bodies are, with a few exceptions, made up of very decent professional people who are dedicated to the task at hand and perform an excellent job. We see that day in and day out and, whether as legislators or as citizens, we know that if we are in difficulty it is the law enforcement agency people of Australia we turn to and they respond with great dedication and within the limits of the resources available to them.

That said, it has to be acknowledged that it is a fact of history that some people in those roles will do the wrong thing from time to time. I do not want to overplay that because, if we are going to be frank about it, there are a few politicians and ex-politicians that have done the wrong thing and have found themselves on the wrong end of a court case. Indeed, there are a few politicians who have found themselves in jail as a result of things that they have done as members of parliament or in holding office in state or federal legislatures. So I do not want to pretend or paint a picture in any way that the law enforcement agencies more than any other group in our community in positions of trust behave in a way that might be seen as improper or unlawful. The fact is that the community rightly demands that there be accountability and transparency for those who hold high office and those who hold positions of trust, and the law enforcement bodies fall into that category.

Some years ago, states around Australia, confronted with the reality of illegal and improper activity by some of the law enforcement bodies, established various commissions or committees to oversight the police bodies throughout the country. It has taken some years for the Commonwealth to recognise the need for a similar body to provide for greater accountability and transparency in the operations of our law enforcement agencies.

One of the great tragedies of this bill, though, is its narrow scope. The bill provides for an Integrity Commissioner but then ties the Integrity Commissioner’s hands behind his back. The bill allows the Integrity Commissioner to overview the operations of the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Crime Commission. I suspect that, of all the law enforcement agencies under the Commonwealth’s control, those are the two where there are fewer problems than anywhere else. That is not to say that there will not be issues from time to time or that there are not cases that warrant investigation, but the simple fact is that the AFP and the Australian Crime Commission have a very good reputation here in Australia and, indeed, abroad for their professionalism and the quality of the work they do. The AFP have been called on to assist neighbouring countries build their police services and security services. We see them operating in the Solomons and in Dili. They are well regarded around the world when they have been on international deployments as part of UN contingents. So having those two agencies, and only those two agencies, subject to the integrity commission is the government’s way of establishing the Clayton’s commission—that is the integrity commission you have without really having an integrity commission.

This is the integrity commission that is not going to be able to do the job it needs to, which is to supervise and oversee all of the law enforcement agencies for which the Commonwealth is responsible. Why is it, for example, that the Australian Taxation Office is not subject to an external integrity commission oversight? Why is the Australian Customs Service not subject to that oversight? Why is the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs not subject to that oversight? My friend and colleague Senator Ludwig in the Senate and my colleague here in the House of Representatives Nicola Roxon made the observation that the performance of the department of immigration has been so appalling that it can rightly be described as a ‘chamber of horrors that masquerades as a department of state’. The simple fact is that the immigration department’s performance in a raft of areas, not just over a short period of time but time and again over the last decade, has been appalling.

I just cite a couple of examples to recall some of the problems that we have witnessed in the maladministration of that department. There is the wrongful detention of no fewer than 26 Australian citizens. This is a department that has deported people who are Australians. They are having enough trouble figuring out whether you are an Australian citizen before they deport you, let alone whether you are a fit and proper person. This is the same department that has allowed five detainees to be transported locked up in the back of a van for five hours without food, without water, without toilet facilities and without a rest break. It is the same department that exports women and children to an island quarry hole on Nauru. It is the same department that allowed even mothers in the act of labour to be placed under guard and refused the right of family members to take photographs of the newborn. This is a department that is out of control, this is a department that has been the subject of ongoing criticism in this parliament and in public, yet the Law Enforcement Integrity Commission being created through this bill will not be given the power to deal with the operations of the immigration department and the enforcement of law which it undertakes. It is a glaring anomaly. Why does the minister under this bill have a roving discretion to decide which agencies should be investigated and which should not? These law enforcement agencies that are the responsibility of the Commonwealth should all be subject to the same integrity review process and oversight. They are not. Everyone who is involved in a law enforcement agency and in the administration of them in Australia knows that is a glaring anomaly.

In the inquiry of the Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee the Federal Police Commissioner, Mick Keelty, made the following observation about the problem that this gap presented:

There is a gap here—and I do not want to name agencies—if you look at the powers, such as access to search warrants, access to the use of firearms and access to detention.

The implication was that you can identify those agencies that should be subject of an Integrity Commissioner. Of course, Mick Keelty is right. It is not just the Federal Police who are in a position where they deal with warrants, have access to firearms or have access to detention. Other agencies do and they should be subject in this act to those provisions. Indeed, the Senate committee has recommended that these agencies should be brought under the purview of the Integrity Commissioner by legislative means. It should be here in the bill before us. The government, before this bill is dealt with in the Senate, should change at least that aspect of the bill to make sure that its coverage is more complete. All of the law enforcement agencies responsible to the Commonwealth should be subject to the purview of this body.

I mentioned the Senate committee inquiry on this and the recommendations that it made. I cannot let the events of the last 24 hours go by without making the observation that we may not see statements from people like the police commissioner to Senate inquiries in the future or, indeed, the sorts of recommendations that were made here. Since this government has had control of the Senate from the middle of last year as a result of the last election, it has done everything it can at every stage to muzzle the Senate and to muzzle the parliamentary process. I think the executive—the cabinet, the ministers in this government—have come to the view that the parliament is really just a bit of a nuisance, an obstacle, an impediment and a frustration that has to be endured but entertained as little as possible.

Mr Deputy Speaker, have a look at this debate. Today we have seen just one member of the government stand to support the bill. There have been about eight members of the Labor Party speak on this bill. We on this side of the parliament actually think that the parliamentary process is important. We also happen to think that this legislation is important. We think that accountability and transparency are important. These are but a trifle to members of the cabinet. They think transparency and accountability are simply an impediment to their political goals. They think the parliament is an impediment to the program they want to put through. You see that carried out here today as the gag has been applied. You see it here today in this House as government members do not even entertain the idea that they should engage in the debate in the parliament, because the parliament is largely irrelevant as far as this government is concerned.

In the Senate, where there has been scrutiny, you have seen since the middle of last year this government use its numbers as brutally as it thinks it can to ensure that debate in the Senate is also reduced. It causes me great concern. I remember well the situation at the end of last year when the ASIO bill was presented to the Senate. After 4.30 on a Thursday afternoon, the government, thinking they were very clever, dropped a motion on the table to have what amounted to a one-day Senate hearing into those quite contentious and far-reaching provisions of the ASIO bill. They thought it was clever, because the motion could not be amended after 4.30 on a Thursday afternoon, and they basically issued an ultimatum to the Labor Party and all other parties in the Senate: vote for a one-day hearing or you will get none at all.

It is a matter of record that we protested fiercely inside and outside the parliament, and the government, thankfully, under the pressure of public opinion, backed off from that one-day hearing. We ended up with a one-week hearing—not a lot better, I have to say. It was a one-week hearing that in other circumstances, before the Liberal Party had control of the Senate, would have been more like a three- or four-month hearing with evidence taken around the country. But, no, the government wanted to have a one-day hearing and it shifted to a five-day hearing under pressure.

That is an unacceptable approach to legislative debate in this parliament. That is not how you get good laws. That is how legislators make mistakes. They make mistakes when you have arrogant, out-of-touch ministers who think that the parliamentary process is simply an impediment on the road to their desired outcome and when they are so arrogant that they think that all of the knowledge and all of the answers reside within the ministerial office and the staffers who populate the advisers benches. They do not. We get it wrong in this parliament sometimes even after we have had extensive debate, but I tell you what: we get it wrong a hell of a lot more when we have half-a-dozen ministers as the only people involved in the decision-making process. That is where this government is heading.

They have gagged debate on serious matters in this House of Representatives this week. They are now in the process, announced in the last 24 hours, of closing down about a third of the Senate’s committees. One of the things that the people of Australia know is that, irrespective of who the government of the land has been, when important matters are before the parliament, invariably there will be a Senate inquiry that allows for full and public involvement—that is, people can make submissions and the media can report fully on what is going on. This government is trying to close that down.

There has been committee consideration of the legislation before us and they have made recommendations that I hope this government take on board. The Labor Party have moved an amendment, which I hope this government takes on board. Foremost should be an expansion of the scope that the Integrity Commissioner has. Those other Commonwealth law enforcement agencies should be subject to oversight by the Law Enforcement Integrity Commission, not just the AFP and the Crime Commission. Those other law enforcement agencies should also be dealt with here.

This is an important bill and it is a step in the right direction. We welcome it as a step in the right direction, but it falls short of the mark that I think the Australian people expect. It falls short of the mark that those involved in the law enforcement agencies expect. The words of Mick Keelty that I spoke about before should be heeded by the government, the advice of the Senate committee should also be heeded by the government and the amendment moved by Labor should be adopted by the government so that we can end up with a bill that is not just a step in the right direction but a significant advance on where we are at the moment.

Philip Ruddock (Berowra, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

in reply—Mr Deputy Speaker, I thank you very much for the call and I thank the members who have contributed in the debate on the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner Bill 2006 and cognate bills—the members for Gellibrand, Fisher, Werriwa, Richmond, Denison, Kingsford Smith, Shortland, Chifley, Blaxland, Banks and Brisbane. It has certainly been a matter of quite considerable contribution and I thank all the members. In the time available, I may not be able to deal with all of the points made, but I will try to deal with the substantial issues.

It has been suggested, during the discussion and in the amendment moved by the honourable member for Gellibrand, that there has been some delay in the implementation of this matter. The first point I should make is that this has not been a response to the Australian Law Reform Commission report; it is a new initiative that is being brought forward in the absence of evidence of serious corruption in Australian law enforcement. The matters referred to by the opposition either are not relevant to corruption or are based upon media reports that have not raised issues but matters that have been the subject of separate investigation. Our view is that it is entirely appropriate that in these circumstances the legislation that has been brought forward should be properly and fully developed with full and careful consideration.

The member for Gellibrand in her comments pressed these matters by seeking in her amendment to add new agencies to the proposed jurisdiction of the Law Enforcement Integrity Commission by seeking to extend its jurisdiction. In our view, that would involve considerable delay. Extension by regulation rather than in the legislation itself, in our view, would be a more efficient approach and repeal of such extended jurisdiction by regulation to avoid a particular investigation, even if it were technically possible, would not be politically feasible.

Mention was made by the member for Richmond of the need for appeal against dismissal. In this matter, the government has taken account of questions raised as to whether amended section 69A of the AFP Act would prevent review by the Industrial Relations Commission of dismissals under section 28 of that act for misconduct. The government will be proposing an amendment to clarify that section 69A does not affect appeals against dismissals under section 28.

Some matters were raised by the honourable member for Gellibrand, as I have mentioned, who named Customs, DIMA, ASIC and other agencies that should be covered. Our view is that the role of the Australian Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner is to deal principally with law enforcement functions. The functions of regulatory agencies which may in some similar respects deal with law enforcement issues do not necessarily mean they should be covered in a body of this sort. The functions of regulatory agencies are in many cases more narrowly focused and include roles that are different from those of law enforcement agencies. In our view, other considerations should be taken into account in dealing with these issues. This could be done on a case-by-case basis, as the need is identified and after due consideration of the relationship between law enforcement and non law enforcement functions within each agency.

The issues listed in the opposition’s amendment in relation to the Australian Customs Service demonstrate the complexities of addressing the mixed functions of agencies, other than the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Crime Commission, in extending jurisdiction to the Integrity Commissioner. Given the complex issues that are involved, we consider the incremental approach that we foreshadowed will allow for a much more adequate consideration of the particular issues relevant to each agency.

The member for Gellibrand also, as I understand it, asked why a new parliamentary committee is required to oversight this body and I think the member for Werriwa raised the same issue. The Senate committee recommended that the existing Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Australian Crime Commission could oversight it. The government accepts that there is some potential overlap with the area of responsibility of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Australian Crime Commission. However, the functions for the proposed Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Australian Crime Commission are being focused not on the law enforcement agencies, over which the Integrity Commissioner has jurisdiction, but on the work of the Law Enforcement Integrity Commission, particularly on its use of the special coercive powers which are given to it by this bill. To combine these functions would merely tend to create confusion between the roles of the two different committees in relation to the Australian Crime Commission and its role on other agencies. It should be kept in mind that the Australian Crime Commission, even at the outset, will only amount to a small proportion of the persons within the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner’s jurisdiction.

With reference to the argument made by the member for Denison for a law enforcement parliamentary joint committee, the government remains unconvinced that such a joint committee with jurisdiction over Commonwealth law enforcement officers is necessary. The law enforcement functions of the Commonwealth extend to a large range of Commonwealth agencies. A committee with general oversight of Commonwealth law enforcement would need to look into activities of all the agencies, possibly interfering with areas of responsibility of a range of other committees of the parliament.

The member for Werriwa raised some issues about the definition of ‘serious corruption’ being too wide because it has the potential for imprisonment of more than 12 months. The government does not wish to limit the Integrity Commissioner to any particular level of corruption, because this would potentially allow borderline cases to be withheld from the commissioner inappropriately. The bill expressly provides that the Integrity Commissioner should focus on serious and systemic corruption. The bill provides for flexibility for the Integrity Commissioner to leave minor issues to law enforcement agencies for internal investigation. The definition of ‘corrupt conduct’ is broad and appropriately so. It corresponds to the definition already used in the Crimes (Superannuation Benefits) Act and the Australian Federal Police Act in provisions for loss of superannuation benefits.

The member for Banks asked why resources should be devoted to this issue if there were no problem. The government agree that we should be cautious about devoting resources to what may not be an extensive problem in our law enforcement agencies, but this is essentially the approach that the government has adopted and will continue to adopt—that is, one of caution. The government are conscious of the need to avoid damage to the morale of law enforcement officers by an excessively zealous approach, but we have tried to achieve a balance by ensuring that people know there is an appropriate framework for these matters to be dealt with.

The member for Chifley would like to see the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act applied to reports and decisions under the bill. The work of the agency will be in the nature of police investigations. Giving reasons for decisions would be quite inappropriate in these circumstances and it would open an avenue for collateral attack of investigations.

In trying to progress the bill’s consideration, I will withhold further comments. There will be some government amendments, in part to improve the bill but also in part to reflect the Senate committee’s consideration. I commend the bill to the chamber and indicate that the government does not accept the opposition’s amendment.

Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Gellibrand has moved as an amendment that all words after ‘That’ be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The question now is that the words proposed to be omitted stand part of the question.

Question agreed to.

Original question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.