Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise as Chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement to speak about the committee's report Examination of the Australian Federal Police annual report 2022-23. One of the committee's key roles is to provide an oversight of the AFP by examining each of the AFP's annual reports. The role recognises that agencies which have been granted strong coercive powers, such as the Australian Federal Police, should be subject to additional oversight.

The committee is pleased to report that it has not identified any major areas of concern. The AFP met almost all of its performance criteria during the reporting period.

The committee recognises the increasing complexity and long lead times of some Australian Federal Police cases which did not fit neatly into an annual report period. The inclusion of case studies containing the details of particular operations is therefore helpful to illustrate this aspect of police work.

In 2022-23 the AFP:

The committee recently tabled its report on its inquiry into law enforcement capabilities in relation to child exploitation. At its public hearing on the AFP's annual report, the committee followed up with the AFP about the ongoing work in this area.

As noted in its report, the committee shares the concerns of the Australian Federal Police in relation to the effect of encryption on reporting child exploitation. The AFP Commissioner, Mr Kershaw, was very clear that the move towards encryption will be one of the biggest issues they face when it comes to offences committed online including child exploitation. The committee will continue to monitor this area to see if there is, as expected, a drop in reporting as a result of encryption.

The committee recently commenced an inquiry into the capabilities of law enforcement to respond to cybercrime, so this will be an area of focus for the committee over the next reporting period.

The committee spoke to the AFP about the results of the 2022 staff survey which pointed to areas for improvement, particularly in relation to communications. The AFP outlined steps taken to improve the results, and the committee will be reviewing the 2023 staff survey to see whether these actions have resulted in improved results.

The committee was pleased to hear of the continued rollout and uptake of the SHIELD program, which is the AFP's main support service for staff.

I commend the AFP for continuing to perform well in the service of the Australian community. I also wish to thank the AFP officers who gave evidence to the committee, as well as my fellow committee members for their contribution to the committee's important scrutiny work. I would also like to place on record our committee's appreciation for the secretariat, for their contribution to this important work.

I would also like to speak about the committee's examination of the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission'sannual report 2022-23. ACIC bears an important responsibility in relation to Australian law enforcement. Its stated purpose is 'To protect Australia from serious criminal threats by collecting, assessing and disseminating intelligence and policing information'.

Recognising that the ACIC has been granted strong coercive powers, the committee examines each ACIC annual report as part of its ongoing parliamentary oversight.

The 2022-23 annual report is broadly positive regarding the ACIC's performance. For instance, during the reporting period:

The annual report also highlights the completed transition to the NAFIS NextGen, which is an improved fingerprint-matching capability. In addition, the ACIC recently established the Fraud Fusion Centre to help to counter exploitation of government programs by serious and organised crime.

A key interest of this committee is the National Firearms Register. In December 2023, National Cabinet agreed to work together to ensure the register is fully operational within four years. The ACIC will be responsible for providing the technical arm of the program—that is, the register itself—and officials reported that work on this is well under way.

The committee will closely monitor the ACIC's progress, considering that a national register will greatly benefit not only law enforcement but also our community safety. The committee observed that the ACIC fully met seven of its performance criteria; subsequently, it met three and partially met three. The committee acknowledges that the ACIC's rationale in relation to the targets were not fully met, and it is positive that the ACIC is already implementing measures to redress some of the shortcomings, such as improvements to the National Police Checking Service.

Further matters are discussed in the committee's report, but on behalf of the committee I thank the former CEO of ACIC, Mr Michael Phelan APM, whose five-year term as CEO concluded on November 2022. I also thank Mr Matthew Rippon, who acted as CEO until recently while a selection process was undertaken. I welcome the incoming CEO, Ms Heather Cook, and I look forward to the contribution she will make to the ACIC and the Australian law enforcement. I thank the ACIC for providing a satisfactory annual report and look forward to the committee's ongoing oversight of the agencies. I commend this report to the Senate, along with the annual report of the Australian Federal Police, and note the very important work that both of these organisations do in combating organised crime and protecting the Australian community.

David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement's reports on the examination of the Australian Federal Police annual report. At the outset, I acknowledge that, yes, there is a significant amount of important work done by the Australian Federal Police, but they have been some very disturbing trends in the behaviour of the Australian Federal Police that were not addressed in the committee's report. Indeed, there is some conduct of the Australian Federal Police that I believe and that the Greens believe have bought the Australian Federal Police into some significant disrepute. That occurred in the last financial year.

That was the financial year in which the Australian Federal Police decided to issue a major covert operations order against a 13-year-old boy with autism and an IQ in the low 70s, whose family had come to them seeking help. On examining the evidence that was eventually presented when the AFP sought to prosecute that boy for very serious terrorism offences, a magistrate found that, instead of helping, the AFP drove that child towards extremism and put in his mind the very concept of becoming a sniper and a suicide bomber. The AFP taught that child about radical Islam—a 13-year-old boy with autism. That happened in the financial year of 2022-23, which this annual report covers. The magistrate threw the case out—they were so disgusted by the evidence presented that they made the highly unusual step of issuing a permanent stay. And we have not heard a whisper from the government about that conduct. We've heard nothing from the Attorney-General—and the AFP lies in his portfolio—nothing from the chair of the oversight committee, nothing—not one word about it. How could any government who has responsibility for the oversight of the police allow that conduct to go unmentioned?

By not seeking accountability of the Australian Federal Police, by not mentioning that here today, by the ongoing silence on it of the Attorney-General, they are effectively giving the green light for further such conduct by the AFP. What is deeply troubling is that, in the last budget estimates session, when I challenged the Australian Federal Police about their conduct and asked them how they could justify the behaviour of their covert operative that was so comprehensively rejected and criticised by the magistrate, and when I asked the deputy commissioner who issued the major covert operations order against the child if he would do it again, knowing what he knew now, he said yes, he'd do it again. The reason he can say that is that this government has delivered no consequences to the AFP and permitted no consequences for that kind of behaviour. That's a deep failure of the government: to be silent on it, to permit no accountability on it and to require no accountability on it. And it's not just the AFP of course. The same lack of accountability applies to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, who insisted upon this prosecution having been in the public interest and wasn't even undertaking a review.

Yes, let's acknowledge some of the important work the AFP does. I particularly want to acknowledge the staff in the AFP who are largely based in Brisbane, who are identifying child exploitation and child abuse material, and seeking to keep those kids safe and hold perpetrators to account. They do extraordinary work and I want to acknowledge that work. But in doing that, in just celebrating the good work, which is what we heard from the chair of the committee and what we hear from the government, and not holding them to account when they so obviously fail, ultimately does no favours to the Australian Federal Police, and it definitely does no favours to the public.

On one final matter: we heard the chair of the oversight committee talk about the surveys from the Australian Federal Police. Annually, the Australian Federal Police have done surveys which assess how the staff feel and what the staff attitude is to senior leadership and to the direction of the Australian Federal Police. Year after year after year, those surveys, which are published, show an incredible lack of faith in the senior leadership. Only a tiny proportion of the people who work in the AFP are supportive of the senior leadership. They complain of nepotism, of favouritism, of an unhealthy culture, about not being supported, of not having the systems in place to support them doing their work and of not being listened to. It's year after year after year. When you hear the opinions of the people who actually do the work in the AFP—not the senior management but the people doing the day-to-day work of policing—they have been viciously critical of the leadership.

Those surveys have been deeply embarrassing to the AFP. So what did they do last year? They changed the survey. They removed almost all the questions asking for an opinion about the senior leadership. They removed almost all the questions asking for opinions about how the systems worked. They just pulled them out of the survey. It's the most blatant example of self-censorship you could possibly imagine.

But, even though that had been done, the 2023 survey is still an indictment on the senior leadership of the AFP. Again, only 19 per cent of staff surveyed actually have faith in senior leadership. That's less than one in five who give a tick to the senior leadership. When it was put to them by a journalist at the Canberra Times about how they had deleted all the critical questions from their 2023 report, we got this verbiage from the AFP: 'The AFP has taken a pro-active approach to better understand psychosocial hazards in the workplace by focusing on those matters in the 2023 'In Focus' survey. This data is key to building a safe workplace in an environment of increasingly high-risk work.' It's a word salad, no doubt because they're deeply embarrassed that somebody pointed out the fact that senior leadership took all of the hard questions out of the survey.

What's really offensive about it is that, in responding to the deeply critical 2022 survey, which had that trend of criticism of senior leadership, Commissioner Kershaw sent an email out to all of the staff comparing them to cattle, with a big picture of a cow, saying: 'You have been herd. We've heard what you had to say.' It was some sort of play on words, comparing his staff to a herd of cattle and the use of the word 'heard'. I don't know who thought that was a good idea. Commissioner Kershaw obviously did, because he sent the email out comparing his staff to a herd of cattle and saying he'd heard them in 2022. It turns out that he did. He heard it so loudly that he never wanted to hear it again, so he chopped all of the critical questions out of the 2023 survey. So I'm sure that the thousands of staff in the AFP are feeling really heard by Commissioner Kershaw right now—so heard that he's silenced them.

Again, there's been nothing from the chair and nothing from the government. This is all business as usual. You couldn't make up some of this stuff about the AFP. It's like the Keystone Cops parading around as the senior leadership. They parade around as an elite squad, but they act like a bunch of amateurs—and worse. They should be held to account.

Let's acknowledge the good work of thousands of largely lower ranked members in the AFP who do that amazing work—I can't imagine how they do it—looking at child exploitation and abuse material, bringing offenders to account and protecting kids. Let's celebrate that work and acknowledge the work that those staff do in the AFP. But we do them no favours, we do the public no favours and we ultimately do the AFP no favours by failing to hold the senior leadership to account.

Question agreed to.