Louise Markus (Macquarie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Justice. Will the minister inform the House of the importance of metadata in the fight against ice?

Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Macquarie for that question. Yesterday I released the first national picture, which we have had prepared by the Australian Crime Commission, of the illicit ice market in Australia and the growing impact that it is having on our communities. The ACC report highlighted to us several things that we have known anecdotally but have now been reflected in their intelligence, including that organised crime is playing a central role in the distribution of ice. As 60 per cent of the most serious criminal targets in the country are involved in the peddling of this drug, the higher price that ice gets in Australia is drawing in criminals from all around the world.

What the report also highlighted was the success that our law-enforcement agencies are having in battling this drug. Recently we had our agencies carry out operations that have resulted in an unprecedented seizure of ice and other drugs. An example I want to share with the House is the seizure of 25 kilograms of ice, a couple of weeks, ago in Sydney's central business district. This drug was seized—along with a smorgasbord of other drugs—along with guns and over $4 million in cash. The drugs themselves had a street value of $27 million. This case is currently before the courts, but I can inform the House that metadata was essential in detecting and disrupting this hall of drugs.

Our police can only operate effectively if we give them the tools to do so. Over the past two years the AFP alone has seized seven tonnes of methamphetamine, which has an estimated street value of over $4 billion. Our agencies had been warning us for years, though, that the investigative tools that they need to do this job, to disrupt the illicit drug trade, are consistently being eroded. This is happening because serious providers no longer automatically keep the metadata, that they routinely collect, for long periods of time. With data retention in place we will provide the certainty for our police agencies to be able to do their jobs. It will give them the intelligence they need to make the major drug busts they have been continuing to do and to keep the scourge of drugs, such as ice, off our streets.

As the Prime Minister has already outlined in question time today, metadata is an essential tool in 90 per cent of counter-terrorism investigations, in 100 per cent of cybercrime investigations and in 80 per cent of other serious criminal investigations, including drug investigations. Today the Senate has the ability to make sure that the police continue to have the tools they need to protect us from the worst elements of society. I would urge the Senate to support these measures, which will give our law-enforcement agencies the best chance they need to fight the criminal gangs that peddle in this misery.