Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will commence my comments in relation to the Australian Crime Commission Committee report by acknowledging the work of other committee members, in particular the Chair, Senator Hutchins, whom I will disagree with shortly on a minor matter. Secondly, I would also like to acknowledge the hard work by the secretariat. The report, which is some 200-odd pages long, is the second report that has been produced by Dr Dewar and her staff in a relatively short time frame. We are very appreciative of their efforts and the quality of the production of the report.

The report indicates that we travelled extensively around Australia to examine serious and organised crime within this country. We met with a number of witnesses and received quite a large amount of evidence. Out of the seven recommendations, there are two that I particularly want to comment on. Recommendation 1 at paragraph 2.58 recommends that:

… the ACC work with its law enforcement partners to enhance data collection on criminal groups and criminal group membership, in order to quantify and develop an accurate national picture of organised crime groups within Australia.

Senator Hutchins touched upon this matter and indicated that crime groups and the information about crime groups was not necessarily forthcoming and the data in Australia was not as sophisticated as it could be. I think that this is one of the reasons why the Liberal Party members and Family First found a need to have additional comments in the report. Whilst we support and endorse the report, we wanted to strengthen some of the provisions in the report.

The first recommendation highlights the need for all law enforcement agencies in this country to collate and share information and that the responsibility for the central repository and the collation should be with the Australian Crime Commission. The Australian Crime Commission is the premier intelligence-gathering body in this country and we felt that that would be appropriate. With that, it probably needs police procedures in compiling information, especially at arrest, highlighting the fact that people belong to particular gangs or organisations, so that this data can be more accurately collected. In the United States of America, in particular, they have a very extensive database on gangs and that aids tremendously in investigations. I think this would help us by putting us in the international scene in relation to having more accurate data.

The other recommendation I will touch upon is recommendation 7 at 6.88 in the report:

The committee recommends that the Australian Government, in consultation with regional partners, give consideration to establishing an intelligence fusion centre in the Oceania region.

This would have enormous benefit for Australia; we could be leaders in this fusion centre. Fusion centres occur in other places in the world where intelligence is gathered and collated on a regional scale—in this case, the Oceania region—in order to assist in law enforcement and be pre-emptive in some cases as well as to be accurate with data collection and focused when combating organised and serious crime.

In my remaining three minutes, I turn to the additional comments that we as coalition members, along with Family First, have seen fit to include in the tail end of the report. The additional comments, as I indicated, do not detract from the report itself but, we feel, strengthen some of the provisions and add provisions that we felt were not necessarily reflected in the recommendations. In particular, in relation to criminal associations, for a long time in police forces around the world there have been forms of consorting laws or laws where association has been deemed to be beneficial. They can prevent associations in order to prevent the conduct or implementation of criminal activity. They also go a long way toward preventing groups from getting together and planning particular operations. We found, as part of the international study tour that the ACC took and also as a part of this particular inquiry, some other interesting aspects, but I will talk about some of the international aspects mentioned in the report:

In Italy, anti-association laws in conjunction with the unexplained wealth provisions—

which we wholeheartedly support, provided we get the legislation right. These laws have really gone a long way and—

been pivotal in prosecuting major figures in the mafia.

In the United States, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations Act—

commonly known as RICO, has been instrumental in prosecuting major crime figures, in particular—

the heads of the Gambino and Genovese crime families and their known associates.

In Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police use laws targeting specific offences for participating with a criminal organisation to control outlaw motorcycle gangs—

which are a problem in Australia. Finally:

In Hong Kong, anti-association laws were used with great effect against the Triads.

In addition to this, we believe that South Australia’s Serious and Organised Crime Control Act 2008 can be effective. There is also the New South Wales Crime (Criminal Organisations) Act 2009. Furthermore:

... the Queensland government has signalled its intention to implement similar anti-association laws.

Whilst anti-association laws are complex to prosecute and can be divisive in communities, especially where the right to freedom of association is concerned, there is a need for those laws to be there to supplement the other recommendations of the report. Also, as I mentioned, we strongly support the unexplained wealth provisions, which attack the business model of any criminal organisation and so impede them from continuing. If leaders or senior operatives of crime groups are jailed and their organisations still exist, that does not stem the problem. In fact, all it does is allow someone else to step into the breach and to then continue that criminal organisation. By attacking the business model, by removing the money, we go a long way towards dismantling serious and organised crime groups in Australia. I commend the report and thank all those involved.