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

by leave—I move opposition amendments (1), (2) and (8) on sheet 5147:

(1)    Clause 2, page 2 (table item 2, cell at column 2), omit the cell, substitute:

Amendment (1) seeks to meet recommendation 1 of the committee report, which recommended a delay of three months after the date of royal assent. It is necessary to ensure businesses have sufficient time to train their staff and change their software and procedures in order to implement this legislation. It is comprehensive legislation in this area. Unfortunately, this legislation leaves a large part of the act of law to regulations and AML/CTF rules. I say ‘unfortunately’ because the rules are yet to be released in a comprehensive fashion. We have draft rules. It is important that industry has enough time to implement the rules because, under this regime, it is they who will police the rules. It is a risk based system; it is not only that AUSTRAC might say that compliance might give them a honeymoon period. By and large, this is a risk based system. The rules will provide how they apply to a broad framework, but companies and businesses will still need to have certainty when implementing this regime.

Amendment (2) is in line with recommendation 4 to strike out clause 6(7). I spoke about this in the second reading debate and I think the committee report also mentions it. I am not persuaded by the argument put by Senator Ellison that this clause is unnecessary. The government’s argument for flexibility does not pass the bar in Labor’s test of importance. We therefore will move to oppose the clause via amendment (2).

It is one of those matters where the government argues for flexibility but when you look at the overall framework of the legislation you see that it is a sufficiently flexible framework with much of the detail left to regulations and rules. I note, and appreciate, the guarantee by the government—through Senator Ellison during the summing up of the second reading debate—about how that clause would operate. However, certainty is always my choice in these things and if the clause is not there then it certainly cannot be abused by someone other than you down the track.

Amendment (8) on sheet 5147 is based on the committee’s recommendation 13 to reduce the review time from seven years to four. Seven years seems a long time—perhaps not so much to senators, but it is a very long time for a review for a piece of legislation of this complexity. It is more likely there will be amendments, given the finalisation of this tranche 2. You have already indicated there are likely to be amendments next year in relation to tranche 1. It would seem that once we have a timetable—and hopefully during this committee stage debate the government can outline what that timetable for tranche 2 is likely to be—we can see a four-year review.

Because it is ongoing work, I suspect there will be a need to revisit it even before the seven years is up. I suspect you will get caught out by putting seven years in, in any event. You will be back here with a review of some description well before the seven years because of the nature of the legislation and because of the nature of the Financial Action Task Force, being a living body that also finds new ways in which money launderers effect their crime. The task force, as you appreciate, with their recommendation 9 on counter-terrorist financing, came up with a new way and then amended their rules accordingly. They asked for those to be changed, so we have picked that up. So there is likely to be further change there, as well, as criminals with intent find new ways to launder money and the good guys find new ways to stop them.