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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Justice and Customs (Senator Ellison) to questions without notice asked by Senators Ludwig and George Campbell today relating to the Australian Federal Police.

The Howard government has talked up all additional funding and resources that it has given to the Australian Federal Police. But when you scratch beneath the surface, as Labor did last night in the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, we learned of a clear and systematic failure by this government to fully deliver on all of its promises to protect Australia’s national security. This failure is so large that the AFP has accumulated $275 million in unspent money. Putting that amount into perspective, it represents about a quarter of the AFP’s budget for the current financial year.

There is no better example than the AFP’s continual and growing failure to meet its recruiting targets. In 2003-04, it fell short by 83; in 2004-05, it fell short by 123; and, in 2005-06, it missed the mark by a whopping 452. This problem is starting to balloon out of all proportion. However, we had Senator Ellison, the responsible minister, telling the parliament back on 11 September that the AFP had no difficulty in recruiting.

This government remains in complete denial of any difficulties whatsoever, despite the evidence revealed last night by the AFP to the Senate committee. You may ask what the problem is. We are talking about money that remains unspent, which was specifically appropriated for national security measures in the budget. That raises the very serious question: why isn’t the money being spent on the counterterrorism and anticrime budget measures? This government thinks that issuing a press release is all you need do to protect the country from terrorism and international drug trafficking. But this government has missed the mark completely. You actually have to spend money to ensure that outcomes are delivered. But more concerning is that this government has been warned by the AFP of some of the difficulties that it is facing and the government has chosen to ignore that warning and the advice of Australia’s leading law enforcement agency and its commissioner.

After five months of stonewalling by this government, we have started to get at least to some of the facts that underpin these issues. Last night, after the hearing commenced, some light was shed on the true state of the Australian Federal Police. Only last month the government rejected Labor’s calls for a Senate inquiry. We asked for a Senate inquiry to look at this, and the government rejected it out of hand. But we do need national policing to ensure that everything is done according to Hoyle. Although we now know that everything is not running so smoothly, all that the minister can do is bury his head in the sand. Unfortunately every day that is wasted by this government attempting to cover up its own mismanagement is a day lost for fixing the problems and getting the show back on the road.

More telling is the minister’s own response. Effectively, what the minister did was to reiterate a question that I had already asked. In fact, it was a little confusing. Quite frankly, on the one hand the minister said that the $275 million that was identified in 2005-06 was PNG money, and he went on to go through all of the PNG expenditure and the way in which he had to give it back. But it is interesting in that he then went on to say that it related to what the AFP claims it relates to and where it has parked the money—and that is $119 million in employee entitlements, $67 million in accumulated appreciation, $49 million in unpaid invoices, with the balance of $40 million broadly being prior year retained operating surpluses, unspent capital injections and other receivables and provisions. But what the minister failed to say was that, even with that answer, these amounts, in the AFP’s own words, can be varied or reprioritised at any time according to the needs of the Australian Federal Police, the AFP. What that means is that they— (Time expired)

Question agreed to.