David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice and Customs) Share this | Hansard source

ASIS has a function to perform and has relationships with sovereign governments and the intelligence services of sovereign governments. The genesis of money laundering which would affect Australia occurs inside these sovereign nations. We have no capacity to carry out enforcement et cetera in such countries. ASIS simply provides the intelligence, and in order to provide the intelligence it has to have the same level of access as set out in 133. So we have given ASIS that power such that it may pass on the information necessary to enable that sovereign power to arrest—and I use that word generally—money laundering or the beginnings of money laundering using the information we provide.