Mark Bishop (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tonight I would like to talk about progress in networking criminal databases. It is a topical issue, bearing in mind heightened concerns of late about the activities of some individuals and security generally in this country. We now know the importance of quick and easy access to a range of data in assisting police to carry out their duties. Indeed, they and other law enforcement agencies, such as the Australian Crime Commission, are working towards greater cooperation in sharing such critical information. Their efforts, it must be said, have been to some extent assisted by direction of the current government. But there is room, as always, for more leadership from the Commonwealth on such a critical issue. For instance, I note that it has taken six years for joint ministerial sign-off on one particular criminal database—but more on that in a minute. Greater commitment to the principle of whole-of-government could have seen this database up and running years ago.

Criminal databases have been scrutinised in recent weeks in a current inquiry into serious and organised crime. The inquiry is an initiative of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Australian Crime Commission, of which I am a member. As stated, it is a timely inquiry bearing in mind recent events. Countering terrorism is the domain of another Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security inquiry, but evidence emerging from the current inquiry shows a disturbing trend of organised crime to elicit and sell information and goods to any number of clients, including potential terrorists. Hence, there is an urgency to act with respect to criminal databases.

I can list some of the problems common to all law enforcement agencies. There is the lack of registration of SIM cards, similar to that given away by Dr Mohamed Haneef; fraudsters are using voice over internet technology to ‘vish’ consumers of confidential information; and there are increasing links with organised motorcycle gangs and private security personnel.

Information gathering is instrumental and critical to fighting these sorts of crime. Such information is contained on dozens of databases belonging to law enforcement agencies spread across this country. NSW police, for instance, use the Computerised Operational Policing System, or COPS. Meanwhile, Victoria Police use the Law Enforcement Assistance Program, or LEAP. There are also databases for intelligence gathering, such as the Australian Criminal Intelligence Database. But few of these databases talk to each other, exacerbating the lack of sharing of this vital information. However, it must be said that  this will hopefully change by next year with the introduction of some new technologies. There is a case in point where a man murdered a woman in New South Wales and was later picked up by Queensland police. He was charged over a routine traffic matter then released by those same Queensland police, who were unaware of a warrant for his arrest in New South Wales. That is because the databases used by NSW and Queensland police were not interoperable, so a dangerous felon walked free.

Most witnesses at the parliamentary inquiry agreed that there needs to be a coordinated approach to information sharing. But there is no national criminal database and the inquiry has heard some good reasons why this is the case. Creating another database would just add to existing resources, rather than enhance the development of current information. It would also need a whole new bureaucracy to service it. Some witnesses, including the Australian Federal Police, would rather see better use of existing databases and an extension of CrimTrac.

Established in 2000 with just $50 million seed money by the Commonwealth, CrimTrac is the closest thing this nation has to a national criminal database. It is a federated database that hooks up a number of law enforcement agencies. The analogy is that of a house with a porch. Each law enforcement agency will put on the porch the information it wants to share, but you cannot go into the house. Now, as previously mentioned, CrimTrac has been configured to exchange data placed on its porch and translate it between houses or databases.

This enhanced capability for CrimTrac will be available from early next year, after agency sign-off was achieved earlier this year. Nevertheless, problems do remain. The most difficult challenges with respect to this criminal database are not technical, legal or policy challenges; rather, as is often the case, they are of a cultural nature: ones associated with individual stances on the sharing of information. Agencies are either ignorant about how and what to share or reluctant to share. This is where I believe the Commonwealth government could provide a greater leadership role. There have been various suggestions put before the inquiry as to the types of information that should be stored, as well as where to store them. For instance, Victoria Police suggested centralising information such as driver’s licences, car registrations and firearms licences.

There does need to be a national approach to problems such as this, as indeed to funding and coordinating investigative tools. There needs to be an approach that goes across state divides and across various government agencies. But this whole-of-government approach has been sadly lacking with respect to CrimTrac. As an example, the national DNA database was officially launched in 2001. It is an integral part of CrimTrac. But the inquiry has heard that, while it was technically ready for business, it remained significantly underutilised. Why? It was because it took the next six years for sign-off by respective government ministries. This is a clear example of the silo mentality working on a national level; thus, the government can hardly expect anything different from respective state authorities.

Indeed, strategic overview of databases such as CrimTrac is not the responsibility of law enforcement agencies. Their job is to solve crime. That strategic overview responsibility lies with the federal government. It has known of problems regarding the sharing of information for at least the past two years. The so-called Wheeler review, in examining the threat from serious and organised crime at airports, identified the silo mentality with respect to information sharing between agencies. The review called on the government to take steps to break down such barriers, yet it was slow to act to adopt a whole-of-government approach, as the example with the DNA database shows.

Tonight I am calling for a coordinated, coherent strategy from the government to address problems identified with respect to criminal databases and for the government to take the initiative and recommend what and where information is to be stored and what is to be shared by whom and with whom—to work across agencies to develop a unified approach. In taking such a decisive leadership role, it will receive support from many in our community and, I am sure, from law enforcement agencies seeking direction and support in their day-to-day mission to solve crime and to rid Australia of serious and organised criminal gangs.