Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Justice and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on Counter-Terrorism. Will the minister inform the House of action the government is taking to tackle the menace of ice and the havoc it causes in our communities?

Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Page for his question. In recent years we have seen the creep of ice used across our country, and we know that individuals from all levels of our society are succumbing to its addictive nature. The Crime Commission estimates that up to 200,000 Australians have used ice within the past year, and it has therefore reached epidemic proportions. Driving this epidemic is organised crime. They fuel its use, its availability and its purity, and because of the unique nature of the Australian market organised criminal gangs from all over the world are attracted to coming here because of the high price that people pay for this drug. The government is committed to doing all it can to stop this by tightening existing laws, filling any legal loopholes and, most importantly, destroying and degrading the organised criminals that peddle in this misery. We are using every resource at our disposal to tackle this threat, and we have to work in conjunction with our state and local government colleagues to do all we can to stop it.

Our borders are the first line of our defence against ice, and when we came to government we provided an additional $88 million in border screening after years of Labor cuts to Customs. We provided $74 million for our law enforcement agencies, to send the Australian Federal Police, and Crime Commission and Taxation officers out to work side-by-side with their state and territory counterparts through the National Anti-Gangs Squad, and we continue to ensure that we are giving our law enforcement agencies what they need to tackle organised crime.

Last week, I joined the Prime Minister and the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection at the Australian Crime Commission to announce an additional $18 million of funding, from proceeds of crime, to enhance the Crime Commission's intelligence capabilities, particularly their capability to tackle organised criminals.

Yesterday the government launched a 'dob in a dealer' campaign, which will provide our law enforcement agencies with information from members of the public to assist them in busting drug manufacturers and distributors. We modelled this on the successful Crime Stoppers campaign that ran in Victoria.

Today, the Prime Minister, Minister Nash and I met with ACT Policing officers to see firsthand the response of law enforcement to illegal drug driving. Research shows that up to 13 per cent of road deaths in New South Wales are caused by people driving under the influence of drugs, and, in the ACT alone, positive hit rates for people driving under the influence of drugs have increased from one in 18 in 2013 to one in six last year—one in six.

Our commitment to improving intelligence in targeting criminals is resulting in unprecedented dividends, with seizures of this drug at an all-time high, but we need to make sure that our law enforcement agencies continue to have the support of their government to do everything they can to smash the criminals who peddle in this misery.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.