Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My constituency question is for the Minister for Justice. Can the minister update the House on what the government is doing to take the profit motive out of organised crime and to protect local communities in my electorate of Hughes from criminal exploitation?

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

I thank the member for Hughes for that question. When we came to government, members would be aware that we established the Safer Streets Program, which was a $50 million investment of money that we have taken from criminals—$50 million that we are providing in grants to local communities for crime prevention projects to prevent antisocial behaviour. So far we have given out $19 million, some of which—I am very pleased to say—has gone to the member for Hughes's electorate after very substantial lobbying from him, including taking me down to see the sort of antisocial behaviour that he was interested in addressing. In the member for Hughes's electorate we have installed 20 CCTV cameras, auspiced by the Liverpool City Council, to make the Liverpool CBD safer and more family-friendly. I congratulate him for his efforts in doing that.

Round 2 of the Safer Streets Program will close tomorrow. I am hoping that all members of this place have been encouraging councils in particular, or anyone else who might auspice a project, to make applications under this program to make their communities safer. Importantly, the funding—every single dollar—within this program comes from proceeds of crime. It is money that we have taken from crooks from their illegal activities. When Labor were in office they froze this account. The tried to use proceeds of crime—money that was taken from crooks—to prop up their budget bottom line. Indeed, if this had continued, $112 million would have been locked away in this account by the financial year 2017-18. When we arrived in office we unfroze this money and we are making sure that we are using every single dollar to assist law enforcement agencies to do their jobs in local communities.

We have been very diligent in doing all that we can to undermine the business model of organised crime, part of which is of course making these sorts of investments. We have been doing what you would consider to be traditional law enforcement—going after the organised criminals and using the powers at our disposal to tear down their criminal gangs—but we have also been using other tools at our disposal. The minister for immigration has been making sure that people cannot be here, preying on people holding the privilege of a visa. We have been using the Australian Taxation Office to go after unexplained wealth, and the parliament recently passed legislation to make those unexplained wealth laws stronger. We will continue to use every tool at our disposal to go after criminals that use the culture of violence and intimidation to prey on their fellow Australians. One of the best ways we can do this is by getting more proceeds of crime and then reinvesting it in law enforcement projects, like in the member for Hughes's electorate and like we will be doing through the second round of Safer Streets, which I am pleased to say will be closing tomorrow.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

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