Anne Stanley (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The role of Attorney-General is never-ending, and we're fortunate on our side of politics to have produced some of the nation's best. HV Evatt and Gareth Evans come to mind, and to that company I'm sure we can add the current Attorney-General. But the demands of the job are constant. New issues are always emerging, with the result being that existing legislation always needs to be updated, tailored and amended.

With this in mind, I commend the Attorney-General for bringing this legislation, the Crimes and Other Legislation Amendment (Omnibus No. 1) Bill 2024, before the House today. It updates existing legislation to address the way modern criminals conduct their business and also includes provisions that will deter them from undertaking similar activities in the future. The bill makes a number of amendments to certain crime related provisions in several Commonwealth acts. These acts include the Crimes Act 1914, the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, the National Anti-Corruption Commission Act 2022, the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979, the Telecommunications Act 1997 and the Criminal Code Act 1995. The end result of all these amendments will be that certain legislative provisions administered by the Attorney-General will be improved and clarified. Further, the ability of law enforcement agencies to investigate criminal activity relating to digital currency exchanges will be improved.

Schedule 1 of the bill relates to the seizing of digital assets under warrant. The means by which criminals conduct their business is always evolving. The days of hiding behind a large rock with a posse and arms waiting for a stagecoach to pass are long gone. Nowadays, with the advent of the digital economy, criminal activity often includes digital assets, especially cryptocurrency. Criminal activity involving digital access includes the purchase of drugs, child exploitation material and firearms through the dark web, ransomware, cyber related offences, money laundering and financing terrorist organisations. Therefore, it is essential that law enforcement agencies have appropriate tools and mechanisms to address the emerging issues. This bill does that by amending the Crimes Act 1914 and the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 to ensure that the powers available to law enforcement to seize digital assets under a warrant reflect the operating environment. In doing so, this amendment will ensure that criminals are deprived of the benefits of their crime and may be deterred from future criminal activity.

Schedule 2 refers to extending the current investigative and freezing powers that cover financial institutions to digital currency exchanges. In many respects, this relates to schedule 1, as the way in which criminal activities are undertaken has changed. As a consequence, the responses from law enforcement also need to change. The bill before us, through schedule 2, amends the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 to expand the definition of a financial institution to include digital currency exchanges. These amendments will ensure that freezing orders, notices to financial institutions and monitoring orders can be made in relation to accounts held in digital currency exchanges. Again, the aim is clear: by allowing law enforcement to freeze relevant accounts before any restraint action can be undertaken, criminals will be unable to move or dissipate their proceeds to other activities.

Schedule 3 amends the Crimes Act 1914 to increase the value of a penalty for Commonwealth offences for $313 to $330. Maintaining the value of the penalty unit is necessary to ensure that penalties for the Commonwealth offences keep pace with community expectations. It is necessary that penalties act as the deterrent they are meant to be. Raising the amount that is charged will ensure the consequence meets the offence. On this matter, I note the last ad hoc increase was January 2022, and in that time the cost of living in Australia has risen by 9.38 per cent.

Schedule 4 clarifies the functions of the Communications Access Coordinator in the Attorney-General's department and creates a new Communications Security Coordinator position in the Department of Home Affairs. The latter reform will, as a result, remove a significant administrative burden by removing the Communications Access Coordinator functions currently administered by the Department of Home Affairs into that department.

Schedule 5 of the matter before us will expand the ability of the state and territory integrity agencies to share interception information and interception warrant information with oversight bodies. These amendments will apply to the New South Wales ICAC, the New South Wales Inspector of the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission, South Australia's inspector of the ICAC, the Parliamentary Inspector of the Corruption and Crime Commission in Western Australia and the Victorian Inspectorate. The amendments accurately reflect developments occurring in the state and territory oversight and integrity space and enable oversight bodies to properly scrutinise and audit interception activities and compliance with the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 and fulfil their statutory functions through access to the interception of information and the interception of warrant information.

I have spoken in the past about cybercrime and scams. Those intent on criminal and nefarious activities are clever. They're always scheming and planning new ways to do their business. While as individuals we may not be the direct victims of their crime, others are, and our community as a whole therefore loses. The bill before us updates important aspects of our legislative framework for addressing these new types of crime. I commend them to the House.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It being 6.30 pm, the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 192B. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting. The member for Fisher will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed on a future day.