Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and Veterans’ Affairs Legislation Amendment (2006 Budget Measures) Bill 2006. Perhaps hereafter we can call it ‘the bill’. The bill was introduced into the Senate on 11 October 2006. It was referred to the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. That is unusual because these types of bills usually go to the community affairs committee or another committee.

The bill went to the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs principally because of schedule 2. In short, schedule 2 contains proposed entry, search and seizure powers. Schedule 2 would amend the A New Tax System (Family Assistance) (Administration) Act and a number of other acts to provide Centrelink investigative officers with a wide range of powers. In short form, those powers can be explained as powers to enter premises with the consent of the occupier; apply to a magistrate personally, by telephone or by electronic means for a warrant; execute the warrant to enter premises with assistance and using reasonable force as needed; search the premises for evidential material; take photographs or video recordings; use equipment to process items found in the search; operate electronic equipment at the premises to obtain and copy data; and obtain an order requiring a person to assist in accessing a computer and copying its data. Quite a wide range of powers, in fact, are being sought in schedule 2.

Principally, as I understand it, it was sent to the legal and constitutional committee, to have a look at those powers, because of the very nature of those powers and the use that investigators from Centrelink could in fact then put those powers to. The remaining parts of the bill are relatively uncontentious. But you do question why the government in this instance put an omnibus bill together which contains relatively uncontentious changes to this area but also includes schedule 2 within all of that, which provides quite wide-ranging powers for investigative officers of Centrelink.

When examined by the committee a little bit further, it did become a bit plainer, if that is a reasonable way of putting it. Most of the submissions—in fact, the key submissions—were all opposed to the inclusion of schedule 2 in this bill but particularly to the powers that would be conferred on Centrelink investigative officers. There is a need for Centrelink officers to investigate fraud and to ensure that payments to people are appropriate. Centrelink have a range of powers already. They have a system of administrative breaches. I will not go into great detail about that. But they do have significant powers as it is.

Investigative officers in Centrelink, I am sure, play a vital role in combating both administrative breaches and fraud. In fact, if you look at the statistics, something in the order of 20,000 cases are investigated by Centrelink officers in combating fraud. The overall framework that we work within in this area is the fraud control guidelines promulgated by the Commonwealth. In short, the guidelines provide that fraud which is serious and complex be referred to the Australian Federal Police for investigation, as you would expect. Usually, under the fraud control guidelines, minor fraud or fraud which does not meet that criterion is required to be dealt with in-house. What that means is that the relevant agency or department should include within its overall administration a method to ensure that fraud is dealt with in an appropriate way—in other words, it should have proper processes and administrative procedures in place. That is the general framework that you would expect.

What is sought in this bill is in fact the movement of significant powers to Centrelink investigative officers to assist them in matters that are not being referred to the Australian Federal Police or which would not meet the case categorisation and prioritisation model that the Australian Federal Police use to assess serious and complex fraud cases, which they will then pick up. Of the 20,000 cases that Centrelink investigates, about 4,000 end up being referred to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions to be dealt with. For most of those, guilty pleas are usually entered. Of those, there is a significant or at least a very high guilty verdict rate. In other words, a quarter of the cases that they investigate and move towards completion obtain a guilty verdict.

You would have to say that, on the statistics they have provided to the committee, many of those fall within the areas that you would expect. Those are areas such as the employment sphere, marriage like relationships, education and the like. Without going to the particular detail of that, Centrelink does have a program in place. What has happened, by the look of it, is that a range of budget measures have sought to increase the focus of Centrelink on this area. To that end, the Department of Human Services put forward a series of measures under the headings Better Compliance and Better Service. One of these measures was an enhanced focus on serious social security fraud. I am sorry; my mobile phone is ringing. You occasionally get that, unfortunately.