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

My question is to the Minister for Justice and Customs, Senator Ellison. Will the minister inform the Senate of measures taken by the Australian Federal Police to ensure close and ongoing cooperation with law enforcement agencies in our region and around the world?

Chris Ellison (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice and Customs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Parry for an important question on law enforcement activities that the Australian Federal police is engaged in overseas. We now have 86 officers in 31 cities in 26 countries around the world taking the fight offshore in relation to transnational crime and counter-terrorism. This has been an outstanding success in the history of the Australian Federal Police. We have seen intelligence gathered from the presence of our police overseas and we have also engaged with foreign law enforcement to assist them in capacity building in areas such as South-East Asia and the Pacific in particular.

It is fair to say that a range of initiatives that we have put in place have protected Australia’s interests. I refer to such things as the Jakarta Centre for Law Enforcement, which is in Semarang in Java, that has provided the region with a centre of excellence for training in the fight against transnational crime and terrorism. We have the Manila operations centre in the Philippines, which we have set up. That too provides a regional focus in that area for the fight against transnational crime and terrorism.

As well as these, we have set up teams such as the sex trafficking team and the Commonwealth extraterritorial child sex tourism strike force, operating with our offices overseas. We have seen successful prosecutions in relation to sex trafficking and also in relation to Australians who travel overseas for child sex tourism. All of that has been facilitated by a strong presence overseas by the Australian Federal Police. This is taking the fight offshore, and it does this in a number of ways. We pick up intelligence and we also provide intelligence.

It is interesting to note that each year more than 13,000 pieces of information are transmitted from the Australian Federal Police international network desks in Canberra to overseas law enforcement agencies via our AFP officers overseas. More than 11,000 pieces of information are returned via this process. A staggering 24,000-plus pieces of information go to and from Australia in relation to the fight against terrorism and transnational crime, and all of it through the Australian Federal Police and our overseas network.

The fight against drugs is at the forefront of our presence overseas. We saw just recently an operation with the Royal Malaysian Police in which an illegal clandestine amphetamine laboratory was closed down with the assistance of intelligence gathered from the Australian Federal Police. We have seen a very large laboratory of a similar kind closed down in both Indonesia and Fiji, all with the cooperation of overseas law enforcement and the involvement of the Australian Federal Police.

I certainly commend the work being done by the men and women of the Australian Federal Police who work overseas, often in very dangerous situations. From Myanmar to Bogota and Colombia, and from areas in the remote Pacific and the South-East Asian region to Europe, the United States and the United Kingdom, the Australian Federal Police are fighting against transnational crime and protecting Australia’s interests.

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.