Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in relation to the report by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity on its inquiry into law enforcement integrity models. I note the presence of the member for Werriwa. I hope I get my facts straight and reflect fairly on the committee’s hard work. I give credit from the outset to the chair of the committee, the member for Fremantle, and all of my parliamentary colleagues for the spirit of bipartisanship and the professionalism which has typified our work on this committee. As a new member in this place, it has been very satisfying and professionally rewarding for me to be involved in such productive work, and I give much credit to the member for Fremantle for her level-headed approach and even-handed treatment of all members. All credit to her in that regard.

I would also like to thank the committee secretariat and the staff for their outstanding support over the months of the inquiry and thank the people who appeared before the committee for their insights, their forthright comments and the submissions they made, which have guided the committee in its report. As I said, as a relative newcomer to the committee, I missed some of the early stages of the inquiry, but I have appreciated the willingness of the other committee members and support staff to bring me up to speed on the issues of interest.

ACLEI itself is also a relative newcomer to Australian public life. It is worth reminding the House that it was formed to provide oversight of the Commonwealth law enforcement agencies: the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Crime Commission. Unlike many of the state based agencies, which were formed as a response to evidence of major corruption or other incidents relating to law enforcement, ACLEI was not created because of any findings of corruption or misconduct in these agencies. That does not mean, of course, that a level of corruption does not exist, but it is worth emphasising that ACLEI came about more as a pre-emptive measure. I believe it is inevitable that it will need to expand its role in the future, particularly in the areas of prevention and education.

During the inquiry, as the report before the House reflects, a number of witnesses argued for a stronger corruption education and prevention role or focus for ACLEI itself. ACLEI has noted that it has limited capacity to advertise widely at the moment, but its awareness-raising activities undertaken so far have produced results, and the agency has experienced an increase in the flow of information to it.

I believe the big issue for the future will undoubtedly be the level of resources provided to ACLEI and the agencies for which it has oversight. In terms of resources, the report recommends that the Australian government undertake a review of ACLEI’s funding levels as a matter of urgency, and I wholeheartedly support that recommendation—and not in any political or partisan way. I believe that it is inevitable in the future that ACLEI is going to require more resources to undertake the work it is expected to do.

As I understand it, the decision to establish ACLEI in the first place was always intended as a building block approach. It was expected that ACLEI would establish itself and get a direct understanding of the task at hand, and the funding requirements to fulfil that role may well flow out of that experience. By starting small, the commissioner, Philip Moss, and his team have been in a position to build relationships with the agencies in what has been described—and this is reflected in the report—as an ‘integrity partnership’. I think that is a good model going forward.

As I mentioned previously, ACLEI was not formed in response to some cataclysmic event, but, as witnesses to the inquiry reported, it is wrong to suggest that corruption does not exist within these agencies. The Commonwealth Ombudsman, Professor John McMillan, commented to the inquiry:

I am strongly of the view that it is misguided to work from the premise that we have not seen corruption and, therefore, that it does not exist and it is not a problem. Firstly, corruption has been a problem for every police force internationally and it would be wrong to assume that it cannot be a problem for any policing agency in Australia.

The creation of ACLEI has been a precautionary policy, and I strongly support the recommendations which deal with the issue of future funding and resourcing for the organisation.

Just by way of reference, in 2007-08 there were eight ongoing staff at ACLEI and six casual or seconded staff. As a matter of comparison, ACLEI has an oversight role for the Australian Federal Police, which has 6,598 staff, and the Australian Crime Commission, which has 585 staff. Given its main purpose of enhancing the integrity of Commonwealth law enforcement agencies by providing independent and effective external investigation of possible instances of corruption, this quite small staff at ACLEI has a very large job on its hands.

Another of the key recommendations in this report, which goes directly to the task of ACLEI performing its role, is the issue of a secure hearing room. The committee has recommended that the government fund a secure hearing room and associated technical infrastructure and personnel support as a matter of priority. It is a significant issue in terms of the independence of ACLEI and its capacity to hold its own investigations without relying on the facilities of other agencies, as is currently the case. The committee noted that a secure hearing room is one of the fundamental building blocks for ACLEI, and it considers that there would be important practical and symbolic benefits to the effectiveness of the integrity system if ACLEI had its own purpose-built hearing room here in Canberra. An on-site hearing room would allow ACLEI to hold investigations as necessary rather than subject to the availability of other facilities.

I freely acknowledge that all this will cost money, in an environment of very difficult economic circumstances. I think members on all sides, though, would place a high value on the anticorruption initiatives undertaken by ACLEI and would appreciate the importance of the work that has been undertaken by the organisation.

I would also like to acknowledge that ACLEI has received a significant budget increase in the past, but it was the committee’s view—and one that I fully support—that ACLEI is not sufficiently resourced to meet its increasing workload or to deliver adequately on its designated output. Without wishing to pre-empt in any way future decisions, it is highly likely that ACLEI will expand into other appropriate jurisdictions in the future, and it needs to be fully funded and appropriately resourced to fulfil that role.

In closing, I would like to reiterate my thanks to the chair and to my fellow committee members, along with the support staff, for their work. It is the first report that I have been part of in this place and I look forward to continuing the positive working relationship within the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity. I commend the report to the House.

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

I am very happy to follow the member for Gippsland. He may be a newcomer, but he is a very significant contributor on the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity.

This was the committee’s first inquiry, so to that extent it was a significant review of the position of ACLEI and what it needs to expand upon its role and to go further in terms of law enforcement integrity. Regrettably, when it comes to law enforcement we probably will continue to increase the powers of law enforcement agencies, which means, in respect of the Commonwealth, the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Crime Commission. When we do, that obviously impacts on the freedom and rights of individuals. Therefore it was considered back in 2006 that it would be appropriate, as we are increasing powers—including coercive powers in some jurisdictions—to have a proper regime of integrity insurance built into our system. That is how the Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity was initiated. As the member for Gippsland said, it did not arise out of some corruption investigation into either the Australian Federal Police or the Australian Crime Commission, but it was created as a check or a balance, if you like, to ensure for the public that preservation of integrity in those law enforcement jurisdictions is regarded as an absolute premium.

The Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity was initiated by an act of this parliament in 2006. This organisation is small, certainly in comparison to the Police Integrity Commission in Sydney, the bodies that operate in Western Australia and the Crime and Misconduct Commission of Queensland. It only has eight ongoing officers and, I think, six secondees. Its role is to carry out an ongoing review and check of integrity measures within the AFP and the Australian Crime Commission. Of late, I think there have been one or two inquiries which it has undertaken that have actually been drawn to the public’s attention. So its work is quite significant and quite demanding, particularly given the fact that it has a small staff.

One of the things that the member for Gippsland raised—and I echo his view on this—is that, when we talk about law enforcement integrity, there are more organisations than just the AFP and the Australian Crime Commission involved in law enforcement activity in the Commonwealth. One of the areas that we think it is worth the government addressing in due course and funding appropriately is the jurisdiction of this Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity to ensure that the appropriate integrity regimes are functioning in a proper manner in other organisations which also have law enforcement powers—organisations which may, without limiting them, involve, say, customs, immigration, taxation et cetera. Those things are certainly live in the mind of the committee. What we would request of government in that respect is that, should it be considered, it must be done on the basis that the organisation is appropriately resourced to undertake that work.

The committee made a series of recommendations and I will quickly summarise those: that the government review ACLEI’s level of funding as a matter of urgency; that the government fund the establishment of an anticorruption education and prevention unit within ACLEI as a matter of priority and that this object be an active function to be strengthened by an appropriate and detailed amendment to the act; that as a priority the government provide a secure hearing room so that ACLEI can conduct various hearings and also provide the necessary technology and personnel required. On that recommendation, given the fact that this organisation undertakes highly secret inquiries within the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Crime Commission, it is a bit strange that this organisation has to go and borrow hearing rooms to be able to undertake investigations. I have seen the hearing rooms of some of the states. They are secure rooms that are purpose-built and equipped to hold what are not interrogations—I would not say that—but very detailed question and answer sessions with people who are brought before those organisations. Unfortunately, ACLEI needs to interview people in any room that is available. If we are going to take this organisation seriously, if we take the policing of law enforcement integrity seriously, we should ensure that this organisation has not only the staff but the proper facilities to undertake that work.

We also recommended that the government establish a national forum through which matters of common interest to federal and state law enforcement agencies can be addressed. That was particularly obvious after we spoke with people from other law enforcement integrity regimes throughout the Commonwealth. There is a great degree of overlap and there is certainly in a practical sense a lot of collaboration, as you would expect. It is appropriate that there be some national leadership to ensure that all these organisations could come together as a group to appropriately look at and refine techniques and also to pass on information to one another on issues that arise or are emerging with respect to law enforcement integrity investigations generally.

One of the other recommendations was that the government should review and consider strengthening the existing obligations under which employees of the Commonwealth enforcement agencies report misconduct. This is something that is related to whistleblowing, but it is not just about providing protection to a person who does blow the whistle. It is to make sure it is alive in the minds of everybody involved in Commonwealth law enforcement that as a professional you have an obligation to uphold the integrity of the organisation and also the work that you are undertaking. Therefore, it is not whistleblowing; it is an obligation. We see that more needs to be done to communicate that it is a duty of all Commonwealth law enforcement officers. It is not a matter of putting one’s mates in. It is a matter of observing the proper and professional conduct that we require of our law enforcement agencies.

Another recommendation is that we review the existing arrangements for suspending and dismissing Commonwealth law enforcement agency personnel who are believed on reasonable grounds to have engaged in serious misconduct or corruption. This is a difficult area and an area where we have to ensure that people’s rights are not inappropriately interfered with. But, having regard to the level of investigations that take place within the Australian Federal Police, and the powers of the Crime Commission—and bear in mind that they have coercive powers and it may be an offence not to answer a question; these are very significant powers—if we suspect corruption there, we cannot leave someone in play with access to all of those powers while we wait to prove a case against them. On the other hand, it is difficult to work out what to do with a person if they are suspected of that; it is taking them out of a job. It is almost akin to what we would do if it we had in ASIO someone thought to be a spy; would we leave the person there unattended and with access to records that could possibly be going elsewhere? We are alive to that.

This comes out of a series of investigations that have occurred. As a matter of fact, one investigation that I am aware took place involved the Australian Industrial Relations Commission and the normal civil industrial relations regime that protects a person’s rights. However, this goes very much to the area of law enforcement and people who exercise very significant powers and have access to highly secret information. We think that where a person is believed, on reasonable grounds—and they have to be made out—to have engaged in serious misconduct or corruption, there is a case for that person to be removed from office. This does not affect a person’s rights elsewhere. We need to understand that if those organisations—the Australian Federal Police and the Crime Commission—are to work properly and fulfil the tasks that they are required to do then they must have appropriate belief in the honesty and integrity of the officers working in that capacity.

I would like to pay particular regard to the secretariat of this committee. We are very lucky to have the calibre of people we do working for us in our committees. I would like to mention the secretary, Dr Jacqueline Dewar, and her colleagues Dr Robin Clough, Ms Nina Boughey, Mrs Jill Sedaitis and Mrs Dianne Warhurst. These people do a power of work day in and day out. The degree of organisation they put into these inquiries is phenomenal. I feel a little guilty sometimes just turning up having had these people organise everything, including providing a very detailed set of research notes every time a witness comes before you. What they do in the background is very significant and, as a member of this parliament and, in particular, as a member of this committee, I would like to acknowledge that work. I think that far too often the people who do the best work around the place do not get recognised for it. I indicated some time previously—and I still hold this view—that the secretariats that we have here who work on a range of committees do a lot of work to make us look good. In reality, we have a very dedicated and hard-working group of people. Without their assistance, we would not be able to conduct these inquiries in the time frames required by government.

I conclude on that note. This was the committee’s first inquiry. I think it was very successful. Melissa Parke, the member for Fremantle, was the newly appointed chair of that committee, and I join with the views put by the member for Gippsland: she did a sensational job in that capacity. It was a pleasure to be on this committee, as all members participated fully.

Debate (on motion by Mr Secker) adjourned.