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

I thank Senator Hanson-Young for that question. Australia has strong people-smuggling offences that apply to crew of people-smuggling vessels. Arrangements for people-smuggling prosecutions are no different from those for other types of Commonwealth offences. Under our constitutional arrangements, almost all federal offences are tried in state and territory courts and those convicted are sent to prisons in the state or territory in which they are prosecuted. The number of people charged with people-smuggling offences in Australia is a very small proportion of the total number of federal offenders dealt with in state and territory systems and of the people being tried in state and territory courts generally and held in state and territory prisons. Overall, if you look at the comparison, people serving sentences for maritime people smuggling comprise approximately 0.9 per cent—