Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am speaking in continuation on the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Powers Offences and Other Measures) Bill 2015.

I was cut off before when I was talking about the government looking at undertaking a study of automatic number-plate-recognition systems at airports and wharfs. As a law enforcement tool, this is exceptionally valuable. In the days when I was with the counterterrorism squad we looked at what the UK were doing, and automatic number plate recognition was exceptionally effective at giving a very quick time response to police with regard to car registration. Obviously, cars are registered, so within a quick time the police, if they were looking at a vehicle or the whereabouts—as it used to be called—of a vehicle, could be alerted and immediately they could dispatch someone to go and intercept the vehicle.

It is the same for basic traffic offences. It allows the police to know, for example, whether the person may have had their licence suspended or if the owner of that vehicle may have warrants out for their arrest. It is amazing how many times police get information from this—especially when we look at the area of counterterrorism and organised crime groups. Obviously, around airports and wharfs the customs officers are the gatekeepers to Australia.

As discussed before, fighting organised crime redirected $64 million to the anti-gangs squad. As I said before, the partnerships between state, territory and law enforcement agencies are so vital. I think it is important to highlight that not only are we working on trafficking and organised crime but we are also addressing the issue often at the forefront of the community's focus—that is, the safety of our streets. That is the commitment we took to implement tougher penalties on gun-related crime. I very much thank Victoria Police and Inspector Ian Campbell from the Echo Taskforce, who invited me to a national anti-gangs task force forum earlier this year. It had representation from not only Victoria Police and state and territory police from all around the country but also they had experts flown in from Canada and America. They even had a former Hell's Angel there, a colourful character.

What was interesting about the forum was twofold. First of all, it was brought to my attention that firearms are a huge issue. At the moment Victoria Police, basically every night, are intercepting cars and finding firearms in those cars. So the laws at the moment are not working. We need to make much tougher laws. Interestingly, most of the firearms they are finding are coming from abandoned farmhouses. Obviously, farmers have a legitimate reason for a licence. The problem is that organised crime have realised that, if the farmers are not there, those farm properties, those households, are easy targets. So we might need to look at tightening up the laws in regard to that.

The second issue of interest when I was talking to Victoria Police who work in the area of outlaw motorcycle gangs is that—and, as I said, I was heavily involved in putting the policy together for the National Anti-Gangs Squad—in Victoria we are finding that outlaw motorcycle gangs are growing. One of the reasons for this, even though we see arrests on TV every night or read reports about that, those gangs are still, sadly, attracting a lot of people, who think, 'This is what I want to get involved in.' Bikies go to gyms and they target what we used to call the gym junkies there. Sadly, they are also targeting service members who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan, trying to lure them into organised crime. I will talk a bit later on about what Queensland is doing, because I really believe that the state of Queensland and its police force are now leading the way in how to deal with outlaw motorcycle gang members.

According to ABS data released on 26 June 2014, the statistics for firearms related crime are that, in 2013, New South Wales had 533 offences; Victoria, 138; Tassie, 17; South Australia, 44; Western Australia, 100; the Northern Territory, three; Queensland, 195; and the ACT, four. Nationally, that is a total of 1,034 firearms related offences in one year alone, and I would say those would have increased. Of those, 54 were murders, or homicides; 56 were attempted homicides; 23 involved sexual assault crimes; 43 were kidnappings, or abductions—and there has been a huge increase when it comes to kidnapping. During my time in the police force, there was rarely a kidnapping, but these days, I know from Victoria Police, there is some sort of kidnapping occurring almost every night. Lastly, of those firearm related offences, 886 were robberies.

Clearly, this is a problem for our nation that current legislation is not addressing, and it only seems to be getting worse. We just have to look at our TV screens every night to know that. We need to address the scourge that firearms have brought to our streets. The rash of thefts, kidnappings, sexual assaults and murders or attempted murders by those with access to firearms cannot continue in this way, and we need to come down heavily on those involved.

This bill will introduce mandatory minimum sentences of five years imprisonment for offenders charged with trafficking of firearms or firearm parts, under the Criminal Code Acts 1995—and it is sad that the opposition are not supporting this. These mandatory minimum sentences demonstrate how serious a threat guns are to the safety of all Australians and also sends a strong message that gun related crime and violence will not be tolerated in our society.

Having a history in policing I understand that it can also be dangerous to implement legislation without proper consideration of the safeguards that may be required in different circumstances. To ensure we take those into consideration, this legislation does not include specified nonparole periods, it does not apply to minors and it provides courts with the discretion to set custodial periods consistent with the particular circumstances of the offender and the offence for minors.

As I was saying before, the situation with outlaw motorcycle groups is that they are pretty much going south. They are leaving Queensland and coming to Victoria. Even though there have been record numbers of arrests and drug seizures, sadly, we are seeing more bikie clubhouses opening up. Something else needs to occur for us to, basically, win in this space. That is where I believe the Queensland law enforcement agencies have got this right.

I had the great pleasure of meeting a number of police in Queensland when I visited there recently, including Senior Sergeant Mark Morrish and Inspector Shane Holmes. At a different level, to talk about counter-terrorism, I also met Assistant Commissioner Peter Crawford, head of Intelligence, Counter-Terrorism and Major Events; Detective Superintendent Darryl Johnson, head of security operations; and other law enforcement members.

In Queensland—for anyone who has been tracking outlaw motorcycle gangs—the Gold Coast is where they were hanging out the most. They basically set up shop there and took control of the nightclubs and the drugs. They were bad for business and they destroyed young lives. The former LNP state government had the position that they were really going to take on the outlaw motorcycle gangs with their criminal law amendment act.

The Criminal Law (Criminal Organisations Disruption) Amendment Act 2013 contains a range of amendments targeting criminal gangs, including the creation of new offences, increased penalties for existing offences and increased police powers. The new offences include three or more members of a criminal gang, including those listed by regulation, being together in a public place, meaning that bikies can no longer sit around in their colours or leathers and intimidate other people—because that is what the colours are about: intimidation. Another new offence is a member of a criminal gang being at a banned location, such as a criminal bikie gang clubhouse, or at a banned event. From speaking to members of the police, I hear people no longer go to the clubhouses. Why? Because they will be arrested. Another new offence is a member of a criminal gang recruiting, or attempting to recruit, another person to the gang. What they do is target young people, particularly those in street gangs, and they get them involved with ice and—I was speaking to [inaudible] recently, from Victoria—it does not matter what sort of penalty they get; they basically continue to push them to keep trafficking.

It is this kind of approach to closing gaps in legislation which we really need to take seriously. I have spoken to Minister Michael Keenan about it and he has obviously made no decision on this, apart from listening to what I have said. But there is a very stark difference between what is happening in Queensland and what is happening in Victoria. From what I have seen—and I have spoken about law enforcement internationally—it is pretty much the way the Americans took on organised crime over there. They took on the bikies and they took on the mafia with the RICO laws. The RICO laws are very similar to these Queensland laws, and I believe that is where they are based.

Especially now with the ice scourge, I really believe we have to go to the next level and look at tougher measures to disrupt organised crime. If you can stop the outlaw motorcycle gangs meeting together and if you can stop the organised crime groups having meetings and basically pushing drugs and pushing firearms, it can only be good for all Australians, especially young people because bikies do not care if they sell drugs to a young person and they do not care if they sell a firearm to a young person. This is the danger that we face.

I strongly support this legislation. My next push will be to look at stronger legislation, such as the Queensland legislation, going national.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The people of Queensland passed their judgement upon that government. One of the major issues was their barbarian—and that is only word I can think of to describe it—attitude towards justice, humanity and the rule of law. People rose up against that. It was a very real element, along with the sale of the assets, that caused the biggest swing in Queensland parliamentary history—the biggest ever.

Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Not on the Gold Coast.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Gold Coast is not the end of the world; it is not even the start of the end of the world. We do not pass laws for 400,000 people in a state of 4½ million people. Mr Deputy Speaker, you can see the attitude. If you talk about humanity, justice and the rule of law, you are immediately tagged by this mob because they are a bunch of bullies. 'Bullies' is the word used extensively and continuously in the media in Queensland, outside of the Murdoch press, to describe the Queensland government. I think that everyone who I have run into and has expressed an opinion about that government and even their own supporters would say that. Mr Deputy Speaker, let him have his indulgence. I hope you have good fun with these little toys that you have because the people of Queensland cannot afford to have 7,000 people in jail.

We were regarded as very right wing—and I would use the word 'barbarian' again for the government of the 1980s—but not once during that period did we introduce mandatory sentencing and not once did we introduce reverse onus of proof. As a very active and I might even say powerful member of that government, I am very proud to be able to say that. We were people who acted in a confrontational manner when we were called upon to do so—no-one acted more aggressively than that Bjelke-Petersen government, I can assure you.

Let us get back to these 7,000 people in jail. That government, which was supposed to be a law and order, strong government—and we were—had 2,000 people in jail. The LNP last year had 7,000 people in jail. It is over $200,000 per person in jail. You can rant and rave about people getting drunk and driving cars—and there is no doubt that they should not and that they should be punished—but the people being punished are the poor taxpayers in Queensland. They are the ones suffering most of the punishment here. If we had some community service out on the territory border, up in Burketown or somewhere, I might have a different attitude, but when these people are costing us $200,000 a year then we are talking about a different animal altogether.

I have a little document here that caused a bit of a stir at the time it was written, which was the year 1215. It is called the Magna Carta. On page 39 it says that no free man is to be arrested or imprisoned except by the legal judgement of his peers. It is saying that some of these principles of justice are worth dying for. A lot of my forebears came from England. There is no doubt that some of them, like all of the people of England at the time, were involved in trying to get a system of justice that was fair and—I cannot avoid repetition—a system that delivered real justice to the people.

I have been informed that this legislation is mandatory sentencing. If you have had some illegal dealings with firearms then you have a mandatory sentencing period of four or five years, or whatever it might be. I have had 41 years of drawing up legislation myself—about 10 of those years as a minister and many times on committees prior to that—and know that you have to look at the effect of legislation. If some poor innocent beggar decides he would like a sight for his gun, a holding package for his gun or maybe actually a weapon and he orders it on the internet, when it comes in he will find out he has breached these laws and he will go to jail for five years.

The member for La Trobe, the previous speaker, talked about the bikie laws in Queensland. When they originally came out they covered the Ulysses Club and the Vietnam vets club, so we had all of our war heroes being raced off to jail by the police. They did modify it because they realised the mistake that they had made. They cast the net so widely that it picked them up. For those who do not know, you have to be pretty upper class, such as a barrister, a specialist surgeon, a psychiatrist or similar, to belong to the Ulysses Club. They are the elite of society. Of course the Vietnam Vets were people prepared to die protecting and defending their country. These people were caught by the act and were being carted off to jail—some poor school teacher librarian was carted off because she was talking to two bikies in a pub. I don't think she had ever seen violence in her whole life!

You get your name in The Courier-Mail by going out there and thumping your chest, like 'I'm really tough', and the last government of Queensland did that all the time. It intrigued me, because we never had to do it. No-one ever questioned whether we were tough or not—they knew we were tough. We did not have to go out and prove it by putting forward ridiculous legislation of this nature. There was a gentleman in the state parliament called Neil Turner, and Neil said, 'As long as I am in this place, you will never ever get reverse onus of proof or mandatory sentencing.' This bloke had a background as a shearer, a fencer, a stockman, he owned a cattle place and a couple of butchers shops by the time he went into parliament—he had done all right for himself. He had knocked out the heavyweight champion of Queensland when he was 19 years of age—a pretty tough boy. He did not have to have a university education to know that we were not going with mandatory sentencing and reverse onus of proof. He was determined that it would not happen. He and I and half a dozen others spent a pleasant 10 years on the backbench, seeing a lot of ning-nongs get promoted over us, because we would not roll over and accept mandatory sentencing and reverse onus of proof. Those close to the people in their electorate must know of cases of the grossest injustice that occur when you do these sorts of things.

As I have throughout all my parliamentary history, I will continue to oppose mandatory sentencing and reverse onus of proof. In this case the legislation, as far as I can see, is drawn so widely and so loosely that what you are doing is delivering discretionary powers. Some of my closest friends on the planet have been policemen, and some of the bravest and most decent men I know come from the police force, but I have lived in small towns where the policeman has wanted to take out a certain girl and she was going out with a bloke in the town, and it was amazing how many times that bloke from the town went up on charges and went to jail. So discretionary powers are not to be delivered to anyone. As far back as the Magna Carta, men have thought these principles were worth dying for. To stand up to King John and to stand up to all the other tyrants down through history men have had to sacrifice their lives, but to see little pygmies in this place run away and throw all those principles to the wind like they count for nothing is a demonstration of the relative sense of justice that these pygmies have compared to the sense of justice that the great heroes of history displayed in the stands they made on issues similar to this.

I share the comments made by the member for La Trobe about bikies and their activities in Queensland, and I can suggest a number of notorious cases where they needed to be reined in. But extra resources should have been put in that direction—not discretionary powers but extra resources. Frankly, if they are not breaking the law then they should not be going to jail. If they are breaking the law, then the resources to ensure that they do go to jail should be put in place to do the job. I venture to suggest that, if we had more sensible gun laws in Queensland, some of the 200 policemen who are out there driving us all crazy enforcing those laws could be relieved from that to do the real work of police, which is standing up to dangerous elements in our society such as some of these bikie gangs. We would have been a hell of a lot better off. I do not think the member for La Trobe was wrong when he said that we have the problem back again and it is pretty bad and pretty serious. I would agree with that. After all those draconian laws, you ended up with the problem still there—so your draconian laws did not seem to achieve very much at all. If resources had been taken out of the most stupid areas they operate in at present, it might have made a difference. I would say over 80 per cent of the population of Queensland, if asked whether the traffic police perform revenue raising duties for the government or whether they perform a worthwhile exercise, would say it was revenue raising for the government and was not a worthwhile exercise. Some of those resources could have been converted over to this area.

Some members of the police force we are recruiting now are not tough sorts of people—they are not big, tough people who can go out and mix it with some of the brutal types we get in bikie gangs. They are a different class of people altogether—they are more suited to the role of clerk than going out and doing confrontational work. The very real shortcomings of the police intake were glaringly obvious in their failure to cope with the bikie situation. I remember one classic example which occurred in Mt Isa where there were two police sitting in a car watching a woman be bashed nearly to death. She was flown out by the flying doctor the next day with a suspected fractured skull; she had bruises all over her head. I called a public meeting over the issue and the inspector of police said, 'Well what were we to do?' One police officer in the car was a little woman and the policeman was not a very formidable bloke. They were not going to get out of the car. There were 15 of the worst possible types kicking this poor woman to death and one of the famous Daisys, a famous rugby league family, George, went over, by himself, he got kicked unconscious, and they are still sitting in the car watching it all happen.

These are not real policemen. There is a serious problem in Queensland. They are talking about developing a new section of the police force, which goes back to the days when we had tough coppers who gave us all a kick in the pants if we got out of line when we as young blokes deserved it. They were the sort of people you did not trifle with. We are now at the stage where the inspector of police—he was actually having a go at me as a member of parliament—said: 'You've forced us into a situation where we have got these people who could not remotely go in there to protect this woman's life.' I might add that a few fellows who were at the disco had the courage to come out and stand up to the 15 bullies there. Their coming out probably saved the life of George Daisy. He should have received a commendation, but, because the police were sitting there in their car, he did not get a bravery commendation after saving this woman's life. I tell this story, because we do not have police who are the sort of people to confront the sort of animals we have. I would share the views of the last speaker on the point. Some of these motorcycle clubs—not all of them; the Vietnam Vets' Harley Davidson club led the Anzac procession—(Time expired)

Karen McNamara (Dobell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Powers, Offences and Other Measures) Bill 2015. This bill contains a number of measures designed to tackle crime and endeavours to make out communities safer. Forming an important component of the government's plan to deliver a safer and stronger Australia. Since this government's election, we have set about ensuring that our law enforcement agencies have the capacity and capability required to effectively conduct their duties. This is essential in ensuring the safety of Australians in a world where threats and dangers to our nation are continually evolving. This bill contains a range of measures across various Commonwealth acts, including but not limited to: implementing tougher penalties for gun related crime; ensuring our criminal offence regimes are robust and effective; and establishing efficient arrangements for administering criminal law and related provisions.

Last year I supported the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Psychoactive Substance and Other Measures) Bill, which sought to strengthen the powers available to law enforcement agencies, inter alia, in relation to firearm offences The bill introduced tougher penalties for gun related crimes, including the introduction of mandatory, minimum sentences of five years' imprisonment for offenders charged with trafficking firearms or firearm parts While this particular measure of the bill successfully gained passage through the House of Representatives, Labor, the Greens and Senators Leyonhjelm, Xenophon and Madigan voted to defeat this measure.

This bill re-introduces mandatory minimum sentence penalties previously rejected by the Senate. This re-introduction is important because Australians are entitled to feel safe, knowing our borders are free from the importation of illegal firearms. Furthermore, a mandatory minimum sentence of five years' imprisonment is a key part of the Australian government's commitment to pursue a strong and nationally consistent approach to gun crime. Mandatory minimum sentences send a strong message that gun related crime and violence will not be tolerated. Punitive measures will be enforced to deter those willing to put the safety of Australians at risk. These measures also reflect the Australian government's commitment to act quickly to implement the firearms related recommendations from the joint Commonwealth-New South Wales review into the Martin Place siege. Recommendations include that the Commonwealth, states and territories simplify the regulation of the legal firearms market through an update of the technical elements of the National Firearms Agreement; and that the Commonwealth, states and territories provide further considerations to measures to deal with illegal firearms.

Globally, Australia is renowned for its tough stance on guns. Following the tragic events of the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, the then Howard government set about ensuring the safety of Australians with tough but necessary gun reform. Since this time, gun related homicides in Australia have declined, and our nation is undoubtedly a safer place. Last year, when speaking to the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Psychoactive Substance and Other Measures) Bill, I stated:

Our laws must maintain pace with criminal activity and, where possible, foresee and adapt to future challenges and threats.

Sadly this message has been lost on those senators who failed to appreciate the need to introduce mandatory minimum sentences for particular offences. This bill amends the Criminal Code Act of 1995 to implement the government's election commitment by introducing a mandatory minimum five year term of imprisonment for the existing offences of trafficking firearms and firearm parts within Australia and the new offences of trafficking firearms into and out of Australia in the Criminal Code Act of 1995, as introduced in the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Psychoactive Substance and Other Measures) Act 2015.

This government remains steadfast in ensuring that offenders receive sentences that reflect the seriousness of their actions. There is no doubt that firearms trafficking leads to serious crimes and has a devastating impact on our community. This bill and its measures reflect the seriousness of supplying firearms and firearm parts into the illegal market. The entry of even a small number of illegal firearms into the Australian community can have a significant impact on the size of the illegal market. Furthermore, firearms can remain within the illegal market for many years. This provides a growing pool of weapons which can be accessed by groups for potential use to commit serious and violent crimes, including homicide. In 2012 firearms were identified as being the type of weapon used in 25 per cent of homicides in Australia. We must do everything possible to eliminate the trafficking of illegal firearms and firearm parts and to ensure that organised criminal groups cannot equip themselves to carry out serious crimes. It should be noted that this bill does not impose a minimum non-parole period on offenders. This will preserve the courts' discretion in sentencing and will help ensure that custodial sentences imposed by the courts are proportionate and take into account the particular circumstances of the offence and the offender. It is also noted that these mandatory minimum sentences do not apply to minors. This bill also updates technical elements of the National Firearms Agreement to simplify the regulation of the legal firearms market. We are also introducing a National Firearms Interface to improve the ability of law enforcement to track firearms across the country.

In addition to these necessary amendments to firearms and firearm part trafficking, this bill also introduces a number of measures to strengthen Australia's criminal laws. Schedule 1 of this bill provides for amendments to the Criminal Code Act 1995 to improve the operation of serious drug and precursor offences. In particular, these measures will make recklessness the fault element for attempted offences and remove the 'intent to manufacture' element from offences relating to the importation of border control precursors. This measure is particularly important in supporting the government's response to methamphetamine and ice.

These drugs, as we all know, are causing widespread devastation and destruction within our community. Methamphetamine and ice usage on the Central Coast has increased by 112 per cent over the last two years. In 2014 the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre's annual survey of people who use illicit drugs found that 61 per cent of those who inject substances had also used ice in the last six months. This represents an increase of nine per cent over the past 10 years. Last year, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reported that seven per cent of Australians aged 14 years and over have used methamphetamines one or more times in their lifetime and 2.1 per cent of Australians aged 14 years and over have used methamphetamines in the previous 12 months. Of these people, 50.4 per cent reported using crystal or ice as the main form of this drug.

The domestic production of methamphetamine and ice is growing, with close to 750 meth labs raided by police across Australia last year alone. The New South Wales Police drug squad stated that labs were often found in rural areas and have also been discovered in motel rooms, shipping containers, car boots and on the back of trucks. Domestic production is increasingly using precursor chemicals, the ingredient chemicals sourced from overseas. As a result of tightening domestic regulations, the importation of precursor chemicals is playing an increasing central role in the production of illicit drugs within Australia. This is evidenced in the increasing number of seizures of precursor chemicals at the Australian border. In 2012-13 the number of precursor chemical detections at the border increased by 11.3 per cent on the previous year to 1,043 instances.

Additionally, the number of charges laid in relation to importing or exporting border controlled precursor chemicals increased by 50 per cent from 2012 to 2014. The measures within this bill will make the enforcement of the border controlled precursor offences simpler and more effective, without affecting the legitimate drug industry. Specifically, these amendments ensure that it is sufficient for the prosecution to prove that an individual was reckless as to whether a substance intercepted was a controlled or border controlled substance. This change is necessary to ensure that serious drug and precursor offences address the impracticality of proving actual knowledge in the absence of a direct admission from the defendant. As stated by the Minister for Justice, the Hon. Michael Keenan MP, these measures will improve our ability to bring persons who seek to profit from the trade in illicit drugs to justice and ensure that they face severe punishment for their crimes.

This bill also expands on the definition of 'forced marriage' under the Criminal Code Act 1995. Currently the forced marriage offences apply where a person does not freely and fully consent to marriage because of coercion, threat or deception. Earlier this year, a Sydney man was sentenced to 10 years jail over the case where a 12-year-old girl was married in a backyard sharia law wedding. This is a sickening example of forced marriage occurring in our community. It is near impossible to comprehend the cruelty that innocent children are subjected too when forced to marry someone, usually an adult, against their wishes.

The measures within this bill will clarify that the forced marriage offences apply when a person is incapable of understanding the nature and effect of a marriage ceremony, including due to their age or mental capacity. Forced marriage offences currently carry a maximum penalty of four years imprisonment for a base offence and seven years imprisonment for an aggravated offence. Following a review conducted by the government, it has been decided to increase the penalties to seven years and nine years respectively. This ensures that these penalties align with the most serious slavery related facilitation offence of deceptive recruiting.

We have taken this decision because forced marriage is a barbaric form of slavery. It is based on gender violence and is a clear abuse of human rights. The consequences of forced marriage, including emotional and physical abuse, are permanent. Those seeking to deny a child their right of freedom and autonomy in regard to marriage should be dealt with appropriately. The Australian public would expect nothing less.

This government is committed to ensuring that our law enforcement agencies are equipped with the necessary tools to fight crime in Australia and abroad. Recently, I argued for the need to introduce new powers under the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 in order to capture important metadata information essential for successful investigation into national security threats and other serious crimes. This bill will also ensure sufficient prosecuting options in the Commonwealth criminal law by making those who are knowingly concerned in the commission of an offence liable for their involvement. This will ensure that people who actively participate in a crime but cannot currently be held liable for it because they do not fit neatly within existing categories of liability can be held responsible and prosecuted. The concept of 'knowingly concerned' was previously introduced in the Crimes Act but was not carried over to the Criminal Code when it was drafted. The Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecution has found that its absence has hindered prosecutions, often making them more complex and less certain.

While time does not permit me to outline all the measures contained within this bill, I have focused my contribution on the major elements which require the consideration of the House. This bill contains a number of minor amendments that are critical to supporting our law enforcement agencies, including changes to the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006, the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner Act 2006 and the Australian Crime Commission Act 2002 to ensure our law enforcement agencies are equipped with the tools and powers required to combat crime.

As evidenced by the measures contained within this bill, this government are committed to strengthening our national security. We want to ensure that our communities are safe from crime, no matter what type of crime it may be. This government acknowledge that there is not one single measure that will strengthen our security. This is why we are continually looking to improve the powers and resources of our national security agencies. We will continue to legislate and bring measures, including the ones contained within this bill, before the parliament in order to strengthen our national security. I commend this bill to the House and call on members opposite to support its measures in full.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to rise to speak on the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Powers, Offences and Other Measures) Bill 2015. I would like to start with some figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics about a fortnight ago. They showed how our state governments, our federal government, our Federal Police force and our state police forces are actually being quite successful at reducing crime. Some of the numbers published are very noteworthy.

We have actually seen major reductions in almost every level of crime over the last 12 months. I will just run through a few. Armed robberies were down 14 per cent—from 5,631 in 2013, down 776, to 4,855 in 2014. Unarmed robberies had an even more impressive decline of 17 per cent in just 12 months—down from 6,076 to 5,033. There was a decline of over 1,043 unarmed robberies across the nation in 2014. Again these are impressive numbers. Unlawful entry with intent was down from 194,000 to 181,000, a decline of 12,000 or 6.5 per cent. Motor vehicle theft is still way too high in this country. The last number for 2014 shows that there were 50,000 motor vehicle thefts and that was down 4.4 per cent on the previous year. Kidnapping and abductions are also down eight per cent.

So over the last 12 months the Australian Bureau of Statistics record that we have been successful in making significant reductions in most of the major categories of crime. Even though there are reductions these numbers are still way too high and there is a lot more work to do. That is why the measures in this bill are so important. They are practical measures. At their heart they send the message to those who wish to break the law, those who wish to engage in criminal activities, that this government takes law enforcement seriously, in complete contrast to the previous Labor government.

In 2009, when the previous Labor government had money to spend on everything else and were prepared to run deficits in the tens of billions of dollars, they decided it was wise to cut Customs screenings by $58 million. There was a $58 million cut in Customs screenings. What happened? This led to a 75 per cent reduction in air cargo inspections and a 25 per cent reduction in sea cargo inspections. Then in 2011, when Labor still had all this money to spend and throw around like confetti, their cuts resulted in mail inspections being reduced by 30 per cent and we saw 20 million packages come into the country uninspected.

What happens when you do this in our society? It sends the message to those who wish to get involved in unlawful activity and import illegal firearms and import illegal drugs that the holes in the net are bigger and that they have a greater chance of getting their illegal contraband through the security net that we put up at our borders. That is exactly what happened. Across the border from my electorate in Sylvania 150 Glock pistols were imported into this country through a post office. Thankfully the police have done a good job and have found many of those guns and bought many of those people before the courts, but there are still at least 80 of those Glock pistols out there, mainly in Western Sydney, in many parts of my electorate.

There is another reason why we need to crack down on those who seek to import illegal firearms. In June 2009 a Canberra truck driver was driving along Milperra Road in my electorate. He had done his day's work. He had left Canberra early in the morning and was driving back to Canberra in the evening. He was driving along Milperra Road, like tens of thousands of other motorists do after their typical day at work, and across the road a criminal gang decided that they would have a gunfight in the carpark of the KFC. One of those bullets, just a random shot from that criminal gang, went across the road, went through the guy's cabin and struck him in the head and he died. An innocent civilian, an innocent worker—someone just going about their everyday business—lost their life because of gun crime.

We in this parliament owe it to the citizens of this nation to crack down on this activity. We are going to put strict laws in place to crack down and say this is unacceptable in our society. That is exactly what this bill does. We say it is unacceptable to seek to import firearms and to traffic firearms in this country. This bill introduces a minimum mandatory five-year sentence for firearm trafficking offences. We owe that to the people of our society. Those who go about their lawful business, who go about their everyday work, should be free from these criminal gangs shooting guns and having access to guns.

The other provisions in this bill include taking action on the growing problem of methamphetamine, or crystal meth as ice. Over the past week during our parliamentary break, one of the things I did as chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement is hold hearings in Melbourne, Sydney, down in South Australia and Brisbane. We heard heartbreaking stories of the destruction that this drug is doing to people, the destruction that it is doing to families and the deaths it is causing. There is no magic bullet for the solution to the problem of methamphetamine use in this country, but this bill takes one more step to close the gap. The measures in this bill will make recklessness the fault element for attempted offences and will remove the intent to manufacture element from offences relating to the importation of border controlled precursors. This will send a strong message that we are taking action against those who seek to import the ingredients to manufacture methamphetamine in this country.

The other issue in this bill is tackling the problem of forced marriages. I have raised this in our parliament before. I have cited cases of girls as young as 12 being forced into marriage, becoming pregnant and having miscarriages. We need to send a very clear and strong message that forced marriage in this country is completely unacceptable. That is what we need to do because, unfortunately, there are some people in this country who think it is just another multicultural practice. We need to send the message that the rights of young girls in this country are predominant, and that is what this bill does. We are increasing the maximum penalties, which are currently four years' imprisonment for a base offence and seven years' imprisonment for an aggravated offence, to seven years and nine years respectively. We are changing the definition of what a forced marriage is to make that definition stronger so that there can be no escape for those who engage in this most abhorrent practice.

In this bill, there are some other steps and some other schedules that are minor, but those three things—the issue of serious drug importation, the issue of firearms importation and the issue of forced marriage—are scourges in our society and we are taking strong steps and we are sending a clear message to those who are engaged in those practices: the government is coming after them. We are strengthening the penalties and we are giving our law enforcement authorities the ability to chase these people, prosecute them, bring them before our courts and put them behind bars where they belong. As I said earlier, our law enforcement officials, our Federal Police and our state police, have done made an absolutely fantastic effort over the last 12 months. The reduction in crime that we have seen over the last 12 months is something that we should celebrate in this nation as a great success, but there is still a lot more work to be done. The bill takes those steps and I commend it to the House.

Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry and Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Powers, Offences and Other Measures) Bill 2015. This bill is a significant piece of legislation in the fight against crime. It includes improvements to the operation and effectiveness of the serious drug and precursor offences of the Criminal Code Act 1995 and seeks to introduce a mandatory minimum sentence of five years' imprisonment for firearms trafficking. It is these two key parts of this bill, along with the changes to forced marriages, that I wish to focus on today.

The bill delivers on this government strong stance against unlawful firearms and illegal drugs. These serious threats to Australia are intricately linked together. As the member for McPherson on the Southern Gold Coast, I can say that we have had our fair share of both in recent years. Organised crime is at the heart of the crimes that we are looking to tackle in this bill. The United Nations states:

Organised crime threatens peace and human security; it violates human rights and undermines economic, social, cultural, political and civil development of societies around the world.

It is well recognised through research that organised crime has diversified, moved globally and reached national levels. This global reach means illicit goods may now be sourced from one country or continent, trafficked across another and marketed in a third, perhaps halfway around the world. In developing nations, organised crime is undermining governance and democracy by empowering those who operate outside the law.

Research also tells us that organised crime is not static. It adapts well as new crimes emerge and as relationships between criminal networks become both more flexible and more sophisticated. According to research from our own Parliamentary Library, transnational organised crime has been estimated to generate US$870 billion each year globally. Illicit drugs alone account for around half of the total, with significant funds also derived from trafficking in persons, firearms, natural resources and wildlife, people-smuggling, counterfeit goods and cybercrime. I would like to especially acknowledge the hard work of both the Federal Police and the Queensland Police in recent years who have done an excellent job at cracking down on organised crime on the Gold Coast.

I will now turn to schedule 1 of the bill. Under schedule 1, the changes proposed remove the requirement to prove intent to manufacture when it comes to the importation of precursor drugs that are used to make dangerous drugs like ice. The importation of the likes of pseudoephedrine, which is the main ingredient for ice, and other amphetamine-based drugs has been on the increase. Furthermore, as outlined in the explanatory note, we have had some success at closing down the redirection of precursor drugs, and the changes in this bill will strengthen our response at the border.

Everyone in this House would agree that ice has become a very worrying drug. For us on the Gold Coast, the distribution of ice linked directly to dangerous organised crime groups has been devastating to local families. I would like to acknowledge at this point the work of a local organisation in my electorate, Lives Lived Well, who are helping individuals and their families battling drug addiction every day. This organisation has seen bed occupancy for in-patient rehabilitation go from 87 per cent three years ago to 95 per cent this year. In 2015 alone they have had 286 people go through their 40-bed facility in my electorate, up from 193 two years ago. Ice is the third-highest reason for admission behind alcohol and cannabis. The staff at Lives Lived Well have seen firsthand the damaging effects ice can have on peoples' lives as well as on the community. It is a problem in our cities and it is a problem in our regional towns and centres.

The Australian Crime Commission considers ice to be the highest risk of all illicit drugs in our community, with ice use almost doubling in the last 12 months. More and more Australians are touched by the ice epidemic every day. That is why I was so pleased when the Prime Minister announced the National Ice Action Strategy to tackle the growing scourge of ice—crystal methamphetamine. We know that work is already underway. The Assistant Minister for Health, Fiona Nash, and the Minister for Justice, Michael Keenan, are overseeing the task force and taking the lead in the government's response to the ice issue. I support schedule 1 of this bill, which further strengthens our response to the ice issue.

As the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry and Science, I also need to put on record the great work being done by the National Measurement Institute to assist in the fight against drug crime. NMI's cutting-edge science is playing a central role in the Australian government's law enforcement response to illegal drug trafficking. As criminal methods of producing, importing and trafficking drugs become more sophisticated, law enforcement agencies need to draw on the strategic intelligence provided by science, particularly scientific testing and measurement.

The Australian Forensic Drugs Laboratory at the National Measurement Institute provides just this intelligence. The world class chemists at the National Measurement Institute provide intelligence on the geographical origins of seized cocaine or heroin, and the precursor ingredients of methamphetamines and other designer drugs. The results of this work help law enforcement agencies to disrupt drug trafficking, and this ultimately contributes to saving lives and reducing crime. It is these scientists who are helping to stay one step ahead of the criminals, and I want to say thank you for the work they are doing.

I now turn to schedule 6 of the bill and the changes to penalties for the importation of firearms. We know that the threat of unlawful firearms being trafficked into Australia is real. The Australian Institute of Criminology reported in 2012:

There are three primary firearm markets in Australia. The licit market comprises all firearms that are subject to registration and held by a person with the approved authority to do so. The grey market consists of all long-arms that were not registered, or surrendered as required during the gun buybacks, following the National Firearms Agreement (1996). Grey market firearms are not owned, used or conveyed for criminal purposes but may end up in the illicit market. Illicit market firearms are those that were illegally imported into or illegally manufactured in Australia, diverted from the licit market or moved from the grey market.

The Institute of Criminology concluded in that same report:

Overall, the trafficking network is not considered to be overly organised in structure, but largely dominated by serious and organised criminal entities (such as outlaw motorcycle gangs (OMCGs)) who traffic illicit firearms as a side venture and smaller operators, who move firearms around by word of mouth …

It is fair to say that the one constant in all the research is organised criminal groups. Whether loosely connected or through more elaborate international rings, they are the poison holding the movement of unlawful firearms together. That is why I think it so important that government send a clear message on offences like firearm trafficking. Our message is clear: as a society we will not tolerate this, and if you are caught you can expect to spend a minimum of five years imprisonment. This is exactly what the bill proposes, and it is a proportionate punishment to this insidious crime.

Research tells us that even the entry of a small number of illegal firearms into the Australian community can have a significant impact on the threat posed by the illicit market. This is due to the enduring nature of firearms, as a firearm can remain within that market for many years. In the lead-up to the 2013 election, the coalition undertook to implement tougher penalties for gun-related crime. This bill represents a government implementing its election commitment. The offences preserve a level of judicial discretion to allow courts to take into account mitigating factors when setting the period offenders spend in custody. These are important safeguards to have in place when we are dealing with mandatory sentencing.

Finally, the bill also introduces tough new penalties for forced marriages. I know that the serious crime of forced marriage of a child or a person with a disability is particularly relevant at present. These amendments deliver greater protection to children and to vulnerable people. One only has to look at recent media on the issue to see that across the country, in particular in parts of western Sydney, this crime is very real, and these changes add further protection for possible victims and serve as a serious deterrent.

In concluding, this bill delivers on our key election commitment to tackle the serious crimes related to drugs and firearms, strengthens our stance against forced marriage and sends a clear message that we will not bow to organised crime in this country. I commend the bill to the House.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to speak on the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Powers, Offences and Other Measures) Bill 2015 and to support the measures contained in it. I have a very strong view about law enforcement and the appropriate level of legislation necessary for our law enforcement agencies to be able to do the job that we expect them to do and that our communities expect them to do. One of the strong commitments of this government has been a focus on keeping our communities safe. This is just another step in that work. I heard the previous speaker talk about the issue of serious and organised crime. The reports in that space are very concerning. When you consider that, internationally, this is an area that is worth $870 billion, it is an extraordinary figure.

The crimes legislation amendment bill is delivering on our commitment to tackle crime and to simply make our communities safer. That is what is asked and expected of members like me at all times in our communities. We have to provide our law enforcement agencies with the basic tools and powers they need to do their job and we have to make sure that our laws are robust and very effective. This bill reflects our efforts to target criminals and to reduce the heavy cost of crime for Australians. They are very personal costs, as you would understand, Mr Deputy Speaker.

The bill contains a range of measures which are covered in Commonwealth acts, including implementing tough penalties for gun related crime, improving the operation and effectiveness of serious drug and precursor offences, increasing penalties for forced marriage offences, ensuring our criminal offence regimes are robust and effective, and ensuring efficient arrangements for administering criminal law and related provisions. These are the simple ways that the government is delivering on our commitment to tackle crime and to help keep our communities safe.

There is no question that our communities around Australia have very real expectations of law enforcement. That law enforcement is enabled not only through the legislation put through this House but also through the legislation that operates at a state level. Criminals are extremely creative and they work overtime to find their way around whatever laws apply. They are extremely creative in the methods they use. The laws contained in this bill will help to increase the possibility of successfully prosecuting individuals who are knowingly engaged in large-scale drug and precursor importations. We want to make sure that the process is effective. That is what the community is asking for. They do not want to see those engaged in this type of crime simply get off on a technicality. This legislation is making sure the laws are simpler so that the prosecution of individuals is likely to be more effective. It will simplify the offences for the importing of chemicals used to manufacture illicit drugs as well.

The capacity to prosecute individuals for attempted drug offences is at the centre of this legislation. The first change ensures that the same burden of proof applies to cases involving an attempted drug offence and to cases where an accused actually committed an offence. Under this change, where a person attempts to commit a serious drug or precursor offence, the prosecution will need to prove only that the person knew there was a risk that the substance involved was an illicit drug. This will make it simpler to prosecute individuals who are part of a larger drug enterprise but who deliberately ignore the obvious signs about how their actions fit in to the broader scheme. I think many of us want to see this happening in a practical sense in our communities. We want to see local law enforcement being able to deal with this at a grassroots level. It is particularly important where a controlled operation is used as part of the drug investigation. Simplifying offences for the importation of precursor chemicals is important, as they are what the criminal groups are using in the production of illicit drugs like methamphetamines, including ice.

I want to focus my comments on two key areas of change by the Commonwealth: firstly, the drug and precursors offences and the simplification of offences for importing chemicals; and, secondly, the issue of forced marriage. In this debate the importance of proceeds of crime investigation cannot be underestimated. At my local level this has a major impact on the decisions made by those involved in the drug scene—for want of a better word—and those seriously engaged in major amounts of this particular drug. The Proceeds of Crime Act will be amended to streamline the appointment of examiners and to support the administration of confiscated assets by the Official Trustee, and that is very important. From talking to local police, I know that that is a very effective tool that sends a very clear message to those engaged in serious drug offences and in the manufacture and distribution of drugs.

When local police, for want of a better phrase, kick down the doors of these places, the individuals involved are subject to the proceeds of crime laws and they lose their assets. That sends a very clear message to the broader community and to those involved in the drug trade. At a local level, it has a major impact because of course there are a whole range of others who are involved in the distribution and sale of the drugs. It is a very clear message that local law enforcement needs to make sure that this is having an impact at a local level. We want to see the laws resonate on the ground. This is a really critical area. From talking to local law enforcement, I found that this was one area on which they could not place more importance.

I have been engaged in discussions on this issue, particularly around methamphetamines. I do not think anybody in this place can afford not to be, given the impacts these drugs are having. I see the effects on our voluntary emergency service people, like St John Ambulance and those at the emergency departments in hospitals. Most recently I have seen the effect that ice is having on individuals, some of whom are destroying affordable housing. That has an impact on the agencies that have to deal with such people and remove them from those premises. Then I have seen those who cannot go out—those who are doing this work cannot then go out in the local community, because they become a target because of the work that they have to do. Of course, the violence, the threats and the risk that go with that are huge.

When I looked at the Australian Crime Commission illicit drug data of 2012-13, the detections of amphetamines were the highest on record, as was the number of heroin detections. So organised crime is extremely active in Australia, and the number of amphetamine-type stimulant precursor detections at our Australian borders is also at its highest reported level in the last decade. Yes, our law enforcement agencies are doing an amazing job, and I have great respect for what they do, but in this place we need to make sure that they continuously have laws that underpin their efforts. We also had a record number of national illicit drug seizures and arrests in 2012-13. I would suggest that number—86,918 seizures—is the tip of the iceberg. That is seizures, but the amount of drugs coming into this country is just extraordinary. Organised crime have money to make in this space. That is why they are so active

I saw an article in The West Australian by the WA police commissioner. He said that WA's Chief Justice described the numbers of murders and armed robberies committed by people addicted to ice as truly frightening, saying that 95 per cent of armed robberies and up to half of all murders could be attributed to people taking methamphetamines. That article quoted independent researchers saying, at the Perth watch-house, that 15 per cent of people had used methamphetamine and the figure has now risen to 43 per cent. Ambulance data in Victoria, that article said, shows a 318 per cent increase in ice related attendances. It spoke of the importance of enhancing cooperation between state and Commonwealth agencies—something that this government is working very hard on.

The federal government review of interstate freight in Australia showed the challenges in dealing with drug shipments. Commissioner O'Callaghan spoke also about police focusing on key drug transit hubs and corridors—the practicality and the logistics—and rail, air and postal systems. In that article, a federal review of interstate freight showed 63 per cent to 70 per cent of freight entering WA from Victoria and New South Wales is on trains, 8 to 10 per cent is by road, and 22 to 26 per cent is by sea. Because I do so much in cybersafety, I am well aware of how much of the drugs are entering and circulating via Australia Post. At my ice forum, we focused on the community need to be the eyes and ears, on how to respond, on how to report to our local police, and on the need for evidence that can be used in what the police do.

Briefly, I want to talk on the issue of forced marriage. I am very pleased to see the measures in this bill. On the issue of forced marriage of a child in Australia, I ask the members in this House: what should a young girl of 12 be doing? She should be going to school. She should be at home with her family. She should be enjoying her friends. She should be socialising, perhaps playing a bit of sport—whatever. She should not be forced into a marriage with a man perhaps old enough to be her father or—indeed, as we heard evidence of—old enough to be her grandfather. Just the thought of it literally makes you feel sick. So I am very supportive of the measures in this bill.

The members in this House who have children are horrified at the thought of a 12-year-old child being forced into having sex. Physical abuse and violence is often part of that. The risks of internal damage and poor reproductive health are just some of the practical reasons why forced marriage is absolutely abhorrent. It is against the law, and the law will be further strengthened by the measures in this bill. As we know, in many cases forced marriage is just like slavery. It is exploitation. There is no member in this House who would be supportive of that at all. I think that all of us only have to relate it to our own family and our own friends. Any measure to prevent forced marriage will be supported for very sound reasons by the members in this House.

In section 270.1A of the Criminal Code Act, coercion is defined to include force, duress, detention, psychological oppression, abuse of power and taking advantage of a person's vulnerability. In this place, all members of parliament work overtime to protect children and in this space of forced marriage, even more so. So I am very pleased to speak on this bill. I see this as a key part of how we are working overtime to keep Australian families safe and the community safe.

We are dealing with drugs, in particular methamphetamines, in our communities on a daily basis. The effects on local people are just appalling. In the ice forum that I held, I had a 70-plus-year-old woman who was unable to go home, because she was going to be belted up by her ice-addicted son, and she was living in a refuge. We have put together a number of those people to support each other, because the families who are affected by ice share a dreadful journey and they need people to talk to. One of the simple things that we are doing is linking them up so that they can sit down and have a talk and then talk about what resources might be there to help them. So many of them live in what some of them describe as their own personal hell. What is not well understood is that the first time that young people and people of all ages—I have seen 50-year-olds addicted—try ice they are affected by this and potentially addicted. It is a dreadful drug. I applaud the efforts of all of our ministers and those involved in this space.

Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a great opportunity for me today to lend my support to the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Powers, Offences and Other Measures) Bill 2015. There is no doubt that there are a suite of measures in this bill which address, quite frankly, the most fundamentally important thing for any government and the most fundamentally important thing for any parliament, and that is ultimately the security, safety and order of our society and the safety of our people. If we are unable to guarantee the safety and security of our people then, in effect, any other discussion or argument that we have in this place is rendered meaningless. The suite of measures that are being proposed in this bill take us a long way to addressing a number of areas where, I think it is fair to say, we have seen gaps in our existing legal security and law enforcement framework.

This bill seeks to deliver on a number of key commitments that we made prior to the last election to ensure that the Commonwealth legal framework is up to date and robust when it comes to providing our law enforcement agencies with the tools that they need to do their job and reduce the impact that crime has on our communities. In particular, this bill seeks to make a number of changes in broadly the four following areas: gun related crime; serious drug offences, including importation; forced marriage; and proceeds of crime. I will seek to briefly address each of those four key areas.

With respect to gun related crime and illegal firearms and to ensure the safety of our community and the safety of our broader society, we know from the swift and important decisions made by the Howard government back in the mid-nineties that being able to limit the number of firearms of any description in our society will have an appreciable and positive impact on gun or firearm related crime. Obviously, the last thing that we would ever want to see is the prevalence of gun crime in Australia that we see in many other jurisdictions around the world, most notably the United States, which is culturally very different with its constitution—but we see the outcome. We see the outcome of the prevalence of illegal firearms in their communities, and it is quite horrific.

Over the last 15 or 20 years, I think we have probably patted ourselves on the back a lot and said, 'Haven't we done fantastically well in ensuring illegal firearms have been, in effect, expunged or removed from our society with the gun buyback?' It is fair to say, though, that, over that period of time, criminal networks, criminals in general, have become extraordinarily adept at getting illegal firearms into this country, and they are often the worst type of firearm. They are handguns, which are easily concealed. They are the source of many, many crimes. That is why we took to the election a commitment to implement tougher penalties on those who engage in gun related crime.

This bill seeks to fulfil that commitment in a number of ways, including through introducing—and this is one that I am particularly proud of—mandatory minimum sentences of five years imprisonment for offenders charged with the trafficking of firearms or firearm parts under the Criminal Code. As I have said many times in this House in relation to a range of criminal matters, mandatory minimum sentences are an extraordinarily powerful way for the legislature to ensure that the wishes of our communities, the wishes of the Australian public, are met. I do not want to use my contribution to bash the judiciary, but, far too often, in every range of crime that you look at, the judiciary do not reflect the wishes, the values and the expectations of our community. That is the sad reality. I am not suggesting for a minute that that is the primary reason that has motivated this particular change, but as somebody who has been a long-time advocate for mandatory minimum sentences, to say to somebody, 'If you are going to illegally try and bring in a firearm, a handgun or a handgun part or perhaps a whole heap of handgun parts that you will then later assemble, you are going to have a mandatory minimum sentence of five years.' I think every single person in this House and 99.9 per cent of people in the Australian community would sleep extraordinarily well at night knowing that that person will have a five-year sentence.

The second major area that this bill seeks to address or the major area of concern that we spoke about before the election that we wanted to address is in relation to serious drug offences. We have heard some wonderful contributions about the impact of drugs and the reality of precursor drugs, in particular, being brought into Australia and the impact that they are having on our communities. This is again a very, very important way that we can do some practical things to arm our law enforcement agencies with the ability to address the importation and sale of those drugs.

Most notably, I look back to April this year when the Prime Minister, along with Minister Keenan and Minister Nash, announced the establishment of a national task force to address the growing danger of crystal methamphetamine. I have held forums in my electorate and, indeed, in neighbouring electorates, and there is no doubt that it is a significant issue that is absolutely hitting communities across the country. I do not think there is any community that is immune. Importantly, the task force was set up to provide a forensic assessment of the problems that this drug is causing to the health, welfare and safety of our community and how we can fix the problem. But we are also wanting to give our law enforcement agencies the powers and the resources that they need to limit the supply of these drugs to start with.

Our law enforcement agencies, most particularly in this case the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service and the Australian Federal Police, have had some success. So, we know that they can do it. We know they have the skill and the ability to stop a lot of methamphetamine and precursors being brought into our country, but we have to give them the tools. Do not ask them to do their job with one hand tied behind their back. This legislation unties that hand. One example was 150 kilograms of ice which was stopped only a couple of months ago by those two agencies. That is 150 kilograms of drugs that would do untold damage to our community. It is not just causing untold damage to our communities but it is also a major attraction for organised crime. The more organised crime can peddle in these drugs, the greater the resources that they ultimately have to cause other mischief within our society.

The bill seeks to improve, importantly, the operation of the serious drug and precursor offences in the Criminal Code. This seeks to make recklessness the fault element for attempted offences and removes the intent-to-manufacture element from offences relating to the importation of border-controlled precursors. The amendments in this bill ultimately seek to more easily enable the enforcement of border control in this area without affecting the legitimate use of these chemicals in industry, and it improves our ability to bring justice to those who seek to profit from the manufacturing of drugs such as ice. What could be worse than somebody getting rich by ruining our communities, ruining lives and ruining families?

Another very important area that this bill seeks to address is forced marriage. I never thought that in Australia, in federal parliament, we would have to discuss forced marriage. It is perhaps naive of me, but I never thought that that medieval, barbaric undertaking would be an issue that we would have to deal with in Australia. Sadly, it is. We cannot pretend it does not happen, and we cannot try to appease certain lobby groups by pretending these things do not happen. Our duty is to protect children. That is our duty, and that is what this bill will seek to do.

Under the current legislation, forced marriage offences apply in cases where an individual does not consent freely and fully to marry another, due to coercion, deception or threat. Over recent years, the federal police have learned of cases where—and other speakers have mentioned this—girls as young as 12 have consented to be married to much older males. How can a 12-year-old consent? How? It is absolutely outrageous, quite frankly, that it has taken the Australian parliament this long to fix it. It really is quite embarrassing that it has taken both sides of politics this long to fix it, but I commend the minister. He has acted swiftly: he has seen a problem, he has made an election commitment and he has absolutely ensured that, to the best of our abilities, we can address it.

The bill amends the act to state that forced marriage has occurred in a situation where one of the parties is incapable of making an informed decision. A 12-year-old cannot enter into a contract—a 12-year-old cannot do many things—because they cannot consent. They cannot make an informed decision, therefore the legislation brings in line our criminal law with what is absolutely within community expectations. There is nothing controversial about this, but it took the current minister to make the change. He must, therefore, be absolutely commended for doing that. I know it has huge support within the community. I think, in years to come—though we will not be able to record it in any way, and we will not be able to measure it—there will be countless women in Australia whom we will have saved from a life of subjugation and abuse. That is why that is probably one of the best parts of this bill.

The last of the four broad areas I mentioned at the beginning were the amendments regarding the proceeds of crime. Again, in the community, in my electorate and probably in every one of the 150 electorates in this country, Australians do not want to see anybody who is engaging in illicit activities being able to, ultimately, profit from those crimes. Crime must not pay. How else do we remove the incentive for those people tempted to get into crime? So, in this bill, we are seeking to make amendments which really enhance the Proceeds of Crime Act, to ensure that the old adage that 'crime does not pay' actually applies.

The bill increases existing penalties for failing to comply with a production order or with a notice to a financial institution in proceeds-of-crime investigations. No longer will people be able to flout the laws when our law enforcement agencies are exercising those notices and undertaking those proceedings. The bill also increases the integrity of the process for appointing persons to conduct proceeds-of-crime examinations, facilitates the administration of confiscated Commonwealth assets by the Official Trustee in Bankruptcy and addresses ambiguity in a range of other existing provisions.

This bill does a lot. It does a great deal of good towards ensuring that our society is safer and that we are meeting our election commitments in an earnest fashion. I commend the bill to the House.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Joey Williams in my electorate is someone I have quite a deal of time for. Joey played in the National Rugby League competition with South Sydney, Penrith and Canterbury Bulldogs. He has returned to Wagga Wagga and he does a bit of motivational speaking. Last year he spoke at the Mount Austin High School presentation day. He also runs a gymnasium right next door to my electorate office in Fitzmaurice Street. Joe has also had problems with depression, which he has bravely overcome and also very courageously spoken up about in the public domain.

When he speaks I listen to him. He recently stood up at the Wagga Wagga ice forum. There were nearly 1,000 people in the Wagga Wagga High School Currie Hall that night. The meeting was chaired by my predecessor, Kay Hull AM. We had heard from a number of speakers and Joe stood and asked the meeting quite passionately, 'Why has it taken this long for us to hold such a forum here in Wagga Wagga, the largest city in inland New South Wales?'

Kay Hull, as was always her wont, addressed his question very appropriately and very eloquently and said, 'That is because the alarming trend towards ice has taken the community by surprise.' She pointed out that cannabis and alcohol are still the major causes of criminal behaviour that ends up in admissions to the Wagga Wagga Base Hospital, and that anecdote was backed up by Associate Professor Dr Shane Curran, who runs the emergency department at the Wagga Wagga Base Hospital. She said the major problems they have not just in Wagga Wagga and not just in regional Australia but right throughout Australia are marijuana and alcohol, but she said there was an alarming take-up rate of ice and it had dreadful repercussions, as in people addling their brains and committing crimes for no apparent reason—people from good families. I know from personal experience that people from good families often get into trouble with drugs. As the member for Paterson just pointed out, ice is a scourge in society.

As I said, there were 1,000 people at that forum in Wagga Wagga—and it takes a big community issue to get 1,000 people out on a cold winter's night in Wagga Wagga, let me tell you. On 14 May there were more than 600 people at Gundagai—and Gundagai is not nearly as big a community as Wagga Wagga. At Tumut on 14 July, just two days before the Wagga Wagga forum, it was standing room only in the venue when 500 people turned out. They are big numbers, and that is why I am so pleased to talk about this Crimes Legislation Amendment (Powers, Offences and Other Measures) Bill 2015—because I know it will help those people who are responsible for applying the law to do whatever they can within the law to wipe out or minimise this dreadful scourge that is affecting particularly regional Australia. Whilst I know that Joe Williams meant very well when he asked why it has taken this long, I know that Kay Hull was also quite truthful when she said this ice epidemic has just swept everything before it.

A recent story in The Australian was headed—unfortunately, I might say—'Ice epidemic: Narrandera, the sweet country town in the grip of crystal meth.' It brought home quite a few home truths, but I do not think that all the anecdotal evidence in that article of 11 July was entirely accurate for Narrandera—the town of trees, as the sign says on its outskirts, just 100 kilometres west of Wagga Wagga. It has the distinction, I suppose, of being on the crossroads of the Newell Highway, which is the longest highway in New South Wales, and the Sturt Highway, which is the major inland road linking Sydney to Adelaide, starting 40 kilometres east of Wagga Wagga and working all the way through to the South Australian capital. Those two highways, the Sturt and the Newell, carry a huge amount of freight across the nation. The mayor of Narrandera quite correctly told The Australian that there is a real vibrancy around the place. Councillor Clark said that unemployment is low, approvals have just been granted for a $70 million hazelnut plantation and a $60 million chicken farm and, as she pointed out, they are going to be good, solid employers for years to come. She talked proudly of the district's other main industries—a state-of-the-art engineering works, its piggery, the cotton and fruit farms, the feed lot just down the road at Yanco, which is due to expand very soon, and the timber mill.

Much of Narrandera's prosperity is due to its locality. Unfortunately, because of its unique location, being on the junction of those two highways, there are also a lot of drugs coming into town—and included in those drugs is a lot of ice. Narrandera police sergeant Brett Roden said that the drugs—ice—started to appear two or three years ago and ice has now taken hold of a disturbing proportion of the town's inhabitants. Some of the statistics that accompany that report have probably exaggerated the situation, to the point where I have co-signed a letter with Katrina Hodgkinson, the elected member for the new state seat of Cootamundra, which is going to Ken Lay, the chair of the National Ice Taskforce, to see what we can do, what communities can do, not only to address the problem but also so we do not see the picture painted that every adult, or a large proportion of them, and certainly every Indigenous adult, in communities the size of Narrandera, or in communities with a high Aboriginal population, are beset by this dreadful drug. Sure there is a problem, and I am pleased that this crimes legislation amendment bill addresses some of the issues that Narrandera has and that Wagga Wagga has, and indeed that those two other towns I mentioned, Tumut and Gundagai, and many other regional communities, also have.

I am pleased that this legislation, if passed, will introduce mandatory minimum sentences of five years imprisonment for firearm trafficking offences. That is good—that is committing to an election policy that we took to the 2013 ballot. It will enhance the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions' ability to prosecute importers of border controlled precursors and ensure that the Australian Federal Police's use of controlled operations to prevent illicit substances from reaching Australia does not unduly complicate prosecutions. That, too, is essential. It will clarify that proof of an intention to influence a particular foreign official is not required to establish the offence of foreign bribery.

The member for Paterson very well prosecuted the need to expand the definition of 'forced marriage' to include circumstances in which a victim does not freely and fully consent because he or she is incapable of understanding the nature and effect of the marriage ceremony due to age. I too, like the member for Paterson, am quite disgusted that a young girl could be married off under those sorts of dreadful circumstances at the tender age of 14. Quite frankly, 14-year-old girls should be playing with Barbie dolls and communicating with friends and going to parties and doing all the sorts of things that 14-year-old girls do. I think all too often in society these days, due to the internet and other things, that kids are forced to grow up far too young. They are exposed to far too many things at far too early an age. I am speaking as a father of three. To think that a 14-year-old girl was forced into a marriage is, as the member for Paterson quite correctly pointed out, just disgusting. Increasing penalties for forced marriage offences in the Criminal Code to make them commensurate with the most serious slavery related facilitation offences is a good thing. I am sure that members on both sides of the House would agree with that.

Getting back to the ice epidemic or problem, we need to make sure that as a parliament and as a community we do everything in our power to minimise the scourge of this dreadful drug. That is why I am pleased that the Prime Minister announced on 8 April this year the establishment of a National Ice Taskforce to develop a National Ice Action Strategy. The aforementioned Mr Lay, the former Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police, is heading that body. He will be greatly assisted by my colleague, the Nationals' Assistant Minister for Health, Fiona Nash, and the Minister for Justice, Michael Keenan who, I have to say, is doing a fantastic job in his portfolio. They will oversee this taskforce and lead the government's response to the ice issue, which is also very important to Labor members and to the crossbenchers. We as a parliament must do everything in our power to minimise the impact it is having on individuals and the community.

We just heard the member for Paterson say that ice users are at an increased risk of a range of health related harms—most notably psychosis and mental illness. One snort, one injection, one puff or one insertion—whichever way you take it—can destroy your life and your health. That is how dangerous it is, and the trouble is that it is so damn readily available and so damn cheap. That is one of the biggest worries. Kay Hull told me that, whereas they need meth labs in garages, with ice it can be done out of the boot of a car. That is such a worry because it is then so mobile.

Around 200,000 Australians have used ice in the past 12 months. What an alarming statistic! Since 2010 the number of people requiring treatment has more than doubled. Professor Curran at the emergency ward of the Wagga Wagga Base Hospital would tell you that the rate is far higher in his section of the hospital than that national statistic. The impacts of the increased use of ice are being felt nationwide, as I say, but no more so than in regional Australia. Kay Hull, who is the chair of the Australian National Advisory Council on Alcohol and Drugs and a key member of the National Ice Taskforce, has been pivotal in driving the message of the dangers of ice not only in her former electorate of Riverina but throughout Australia. I would certainly encourage members to contact Mrs Hull and invite her to a community ice forum in their electorates and do the same with Senator Nash, who has already travelled more than 20,000 kilometres—the length and the breadth of the nation—to gather firsthand accounts and information as part of the National Ice Taskforce.

In the time I have left, I want to share a few more alarming statistics. Wagga Wagga police have arrested more than 50 people since initiating their Strike Force Calyx antidrug blitz on 16 June. More than 30 sellers of illegal drugs such as meth, cannabis and ecstasy have now fronted the Wagga Wagga local court since the crackdown began. Disturbingly, between five and 10 people are caught driving under the influence of illicit drugs—quite often ice—in Wagga Wagga each and every day. That is horrendous. They are mobile time bombs; if they do not kill themselves, they will certainly kill somebody else. I commend the Wagga Wagga Local Area Commander, Bob Noble. When he was asked on national radio, 'What's the best thing parents could do?', he told listeners on 2GB: 'Look after your kids. Talk to your kids.'

Ban mobile phones at the dinner table and talk to your kids about their futures and about ice. Listen to them, but, more importantly, tell them about the dangers. It is good advice; it is old-fashioned advice but good advice. I commend this legislation to the House.

Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the bill and in doing so commend it to the House. We hear repeatedly that the first duty of government is to ensure the safety of its citizens. It is a commitment I am sure that both sides of this place take seriously. This legislation is a further example of how our government takes that commitment seriously.

It takes a bit to shock a bloke who worked in the criminal law for 10 years, but I recently had occasion to speak to a senior police officer in Mount Gambier about an incident, the terms of which I will not go into. It involved an illicit drug user who was addicted to methamphetamine or ice, as it is termed. I sat listening to the story gobsmacked. This is someone, who on ice, committed an act of self-harm that, but for the intervention of emergency services personnel, would have resulted in the loss of his life—effectively in a fit of psychotic rage, I expect a direct product of the illicit substance he had consumed. I will come back to that a little further down the track.

This legislation seeks to strengthen and secure our country. It does, substantively, three things. It implements tougher penalties for gun related crime, it increases the operation and effectiveness of investigations and prosecutions in relation to serious drug and precursor offences, and it increases penalties for forced marriage offences. There are some other technical amendments which deal with the sharing of information under the Crimes Act. The legislation improves the process for dealing with applications and requests under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act. It ensures the efficient use of functions by the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity. It enhances the operation of the Proceeds of Crime Act, which we all know is such an effective way of dealing with serious and organised crime. It extends powers and offences under various Commonwealth laws, such as the newly established office of the Independent Commission Against Corruption in my home state of South Australia. It clarifies approval processes for controlled operations and makes minor drafting amendments to the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Act 1995.

I will turn to the substantive penalties for firearm trafficking offences. Every time I hear of a massacre emanating from the United States, I am just so grateful for our very rigorous gun laws here in Australia. It is a credit to former Prime Minister Howard and his government that they took such a principled stance in the face of strong opposition perhaps from their conservative base. But I think every Australian is safer on account of it. I reflect on this regularly whenever we hear the stories emanating from America—and there seems to be a weekly occurrence of massacres, principally as a result of easy accessibility to firearms. We have a very strict regime in Australia, and I think we have the balance right on our regulation governing the ownership and use of firearms.

This legislation is a really important approach to mandatory minimum penalties for those who traffic in firearms and those who would seek to engage in illegally importing firearms. We need to do all we can at every point in the process to ensure that those who would seek to do us harm cannot access firearms illegally. Mandatory minimum penalties send a strong deterrent message with respect to this offending. The entry of even a small number of illegal firearms into the Australian community can have a significant impact on the threat posed as a result of the illicit market. Mandatory sentences in this case will not apply to children. There is no minimum non-parole period. So the offences as drafted preserve a level of judicial discretion to allow courts to take into account mitigating circumstances when setting the period that offenders will need to serve in custody. That is how it should be. The concept of judicial discretion is one that should be respected.

Obviously in the lead-up to the 2013 election the coalition undertook to implement tougher penalties for gun related crime. In legislating in this way, we are carrying through on our promise. The introduction of this penalty is appropriate to ensure that higher probability offenders receive sentences proportional to the seriousness of their offending while providing courts with the discretion to set custodial sentences consistent with the idiosyncratic circumstances of their respective offending.

I will now turn to forced marriage. It is obviously something that in modern Australian society we abhor. We are introducing new laws to the parliament to clarify what constitutes forced marriage and increased penalties for the conduct that causes a person to enter into a forced marriage. As a consequence of these amendments, a child under the age of 16 is presumed incapable of consenting to marriage. In effect, it is a rebuttable presumption. That will make the prosecution of these offences easier. It is consistent with a number of sexual offences to do with crimes which deal with children of this age. I have not personally come across any of these examples, but I accept what we have heard—that there are very many occasions in our community when children as young as 14 are forced to enter into the institution of marriage in circumstances where they do not understand what they are being asked to commit to. I think a rebuttable presumption in this case is appropriate, bearing in mind that we as legislators need to be careful about rebuttable presumptions because a fundamental tenet of our criminal law that underpins our criminal justice system is the concept of innocence until proven guilty and that one's guilt needs to be established beyond reasonable doubt. It is for the prosecution to establish those objective elements. But, in this case, a rebuttable presumption, in my respectful view, is appropriate.

I want to speak about amendments that seek to address illicit drugs and the importation of precursor chemicals. These new laws make two key changes to the Commonwealth drug and precursor offences so that it is easier to successfully prosecute individuals who are knowingly engaging in large-scale drug and precursor importations. First, the law will ensure that it is simpler to prosecute engaged individuals who evade punishment because they manage their involvement in a drug operation in such a way that the prosecution cannot prove they have the relevant intent. Second, these amendments will simplify the offences to do with importing chemicals used in the manufacturing of illicit substances.

I said earlier that I had a reasonably long career acting for people on criminal law. Given that I acted for people in regional communities, I know that invariably it was victims themselves who were forced to sell these drugs. Very rarely were prosecutions able to be successfully maintained in respect of those people that go about the large-scale importation of, particularly, precursors.

These changes will ensure that the same burden of proof applies to cases involving an attempted drug offence and in cases when an accused actually commits the offence. Of course, we all know that when for reasons of community safety a precursor is exchanged with an inert substance then the offender can only be charged with the offence of attempt. These amendments seek to deal with that.

Rarely have I seen an issue solidify rural communities like the concern surrounding illicit drug use, particularly with the methamphetamine known by many as ice. I have long been aware of the drug, but it seems to me that communities are now coming to understand the harm that it afflicts on individuals, the fact that it rips families apart and it smashes up communities. At one point in this debate it was suggested that my home town of Mount Gambier held the title of Australia's ice capital. I reject that on the basis that, in my view, illicit drug and methamphetamine use in Mount Gambier is no more prevalent than in any other regional community in Australia.

We had over 350 people attend the Sir Robert Helpmann Theatre for an information session. That would have been significant enough, but there were a further 350 people outside wishing to enter the venue. We then had a series of other forums throughout the Limestone Coast where 100 to 200 people attended. We saw over 700 people in the Riverland attend a forum. I am sure the member for Wannon, who is in the chamber, will speak of similar experiences. This issue has brought rural communities together, perhaps because of our close relationships, perhaps because our communities are small, perhaps because on average country constituents are more open about their circumstances or perhaps because they just cannot hide them because the communities are so open. We have seen a level of concern around illicit drug use that I have never seen before, and it is in that context that I am incredibly grateful that the Prime Minister has seen fit to establish the National Ice Taskforce.

The interim report, of course, speaks of six key criteria. That interim report was taken to COAG and I think the most powerful and persuasive point that needs to be made is that there was a clear understanding that there needs to be a national strategic and collaborative approach between the federal, state, territory and local governments. Clearly, we need to do something about educating everyone in our community about the harms of illicit drugs and in particular methamphetamines. We need to make sure people in the community understand that the serious and organised crime that trades in this drug is engineering the drug daily to be more addictive. We also need to do more to ensure harm minimisation. In my electorate of Barker it is unfortunate that, while this debate is raging, one of the few regional rehabilitation facilities in South Australia—the Karobran New Life Centre—has had to close on account of their financial position. I have raised this issue with the justice minister.

So having identified the need to embark on education and having spoken about harm minimisation for those people that are suffering from the effects of addiction to illicit substances, particularly ice, we are left with one other thing that needs to be done—that is, we need to focus our efforts on law enforcement. We will not prosecute our way out of this, but we can certainly work hard to strengthen the tools that are available to our Federal Police at our borders. It is our responsibility, in this place, to deal with precursors, and this legislation is seeking to do that. I am hopeful that our respective state counterparts who have responsibility for local law enforcement on a day-to-day basis will see fit to strengthen the tool kit available to police on the front line and prosecutors as they go about ensuring that those who seek to trade in this type of misery are given appropriate sentences and in very many cases immediate custodial terms.

I am so pleased that our community has identified this issue. I am so pleased that we are embarking upon a respectful and robust debate about what is required. I am grateful that I am part of a government supported by an opposition which wants to do everything it can to secure the safety of Australians, particularly when it deals with illicit substances like ice or methamphetamines.

Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I recognise the member for Barker and thank him for his significant contribution in his speech this evening on the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Powers, Offences and Other Measures) Bill 2015. He has worked in a law firm in Mount Gambier and has been on that side of the fence, especially when it comes to dealing with serious drug and precursor offences. Also recently, since he has become a member of parliament, he has had forums where communities have come forward saying how afraid and scared they are about the impact that ice is having on regional and rural communities. He has done a first-rate job in that regard.

I would like to take this moment to support him when he calls for extra services in regional and rural areas when it comes to rehabilitation from drug use. One of the worst effects of isolation is that people do not seek the treatment that they should, because services are not as readily accessible as they are in urban areas. We see the statistics for a range of illnesses which are damning because of the distance that it requires individuals to travel to get to services. That has a huge impact on regional and rural areas. Given the impact that ice in particular is having on regional and rural communities, once again we need to look at what services are available when it comes to rehabilitation in country areas. My hope is that the taskforce that has been set up through COAG will be able to make some positive recommendations in this regard, because it is going to be vitally necessary for us to deal with this issue.

The bill before us is the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Powers, Offences and Other Measures) Bill 2015. It delivers on the government's commitment to tackle crime and make our communities safer. This is a policy that we took to the last election and are now implementing by providing our law enforcement agencies with the tools and powers they need to do their job and by ensuring government laws are robust and effective. This bill reflects the government's efforts to target criminals and reduce the heavy cost of crime for all Australians, and crime does have a cost. It has a cost to the individual on a personal basis, it has a cost to the family members of those who commit crimes, it has a cost to those whom the crime is committed against, it has a cost to the local community and it has a cost to the economic productivity of our nation. It has a cost every which way you look at it, and that is why, as a government, we are determined to deal with it.

The bill contains a range of measures across various Commonwealth acts. These measures include the need to implement tough penalties for gun related crime; increase the operation and effectiveness of serious drug and precursor offences, as I touched on briefly; increase penalties for forced marriage offences; ensure our criminal offence regimes are robust and effective; and ensure efficient arrangements for administering criminal law and related provisions. In this way the government is delivering on our commitment to tackle crime and keep our communities safe. As the Prime Minister has said on numerous occasions, keeping our communities safe and keeping our nation safe has to be the No. 1 responsibility of government, because without that all the other freedoms that we seek to protect and enjoy become meaningless.

I would like to touch on three aspects of the bill in particular. The first is the penalties for firearms trafficking offences, which is schedule 6 of the bill. Mr Deputy Speaker Goodenough, I know you are a keen shooter yourself. I obviously represent an electorate where shooting occurs. Being a rural electorate, a lot of sporting shooting takes place, but there is also a need for farmers to shoot as they go about their general business. What we are seeking to do here is very much target the illegal use of firearms. The bill introduces mandatory minimum sentences of five years' imprisonment for the offence of illegal importation of firearms and firearm parts into Australia and illegally moving firearms and firearm parts across borders within Australia. These mandatory minimum penalties send a strong message on the seriousness of gun related crime and violence and acts as a deterrent for criminals. It is very important that we deal with those who want to use firearms illegally in a very tough way, where the penalties are clear-cut. The entry of even a small number of illegal firearms into the Australian community can have a significant impact on the threat posed by the illicit market and, due to the enduring nature of firearms, a firearm can remain in that market for many years. It is the intent of the government to make sure that illegal firearms are removed. Obviously, those who have legal firearms which they want to use for legal purposes can continue to do so. Mandatory sentences will not apply to children as there is no minimum non-parole period.

The offences preserve a level of judicial discretion to allow courts to take into account mitigating factors when setting the period offenders spend in custody. In the lead-up to the 2013 election, the coalition undertook to implement tougher penalties for gun related crime. We are now following through on that promise. The introduction of this penalty is appropriate to ensure that high-culpability offenders receive sentences proportionate to the seriousness of their offending while providing the courts with discretion to set custodial periods consistent with the particular circumstances of the offender and the offence. Once again, this is the government honouring an election commitment in a meaningful way and honouring it in a way which is solely designed to keep the community safe. Especially with what we have seen recently when it comes to the illegal importation and use of firearms, it seems to be something which organised crime in particular focuses on, so it is only right that the government seeks to deal with the illegal use of firearms and their importation.

The other schedule of this bill that I would like to touch on is schedule 1, which is on illicit drug and precursor offences. Obviously I mentioned this a little bit earlier, but these new laws make two key changes to Commonwealth drug and precursor offences so that it is easier to successfully prosecute individuals who are knowingly engaged in large-scale drug and precursor importation. We know that organised crime and, in particular, illegal bikie gangs move into this space, sadly, more and more.

First, the laws will ensure that it is simpler to prosecute individuals who evade punishment because they manage their involvement in a drug operation in such a way that the prosecution cannot prove that they have the relevant level of knowledge. This, in particular, enables us to track those who are doing the organising but very skilfully trying to keep a distance in their organisational role from those who are actually carrying out the illegal drug operations. Secondly, they will simplify the offences for importing the chemicals used to manufacture illicit drugs. By making it easier to prosecute individuals for attempted drug offences, it is the hope of the government that we will once again be able to keep the scourge of drugs off the street. The first change will ensure that the same burden of proof applies to cases involving an attempted drug offence and in cases where an accused actually commits the offence. Under this change, where a person attempts to commit a serious drug or precursor offence, the prosecution will only need to prove that the person knew there was a risk that the substance involved was an illicit drug. This will make it simpler to prosecute individuals who are part of a larger drug enterprise but who deliberately ignore obvious signs about how their actions fit into the broader scheme.

This amendment is particularly important where a controlled operation is used as part of the drug investigation. Controlled operations are becoming more and more important as a policing tool for dealing with the sophisticated way in which criminals are seeking to import drugs or precursors. In controlled operations, law enforcement agencies may substitute an illicit drug with an inert substance. This helps to protect the community, but it means that those involved can only be charged with attempted offences.

In one case the police conducted a controlled operation for 80 kilograms of ice that was imported into Australia, to replace it with an inert substance. The accused received the consignment and was subsequently charged with an attempt to import a border controlled drug rather than of importing an illegal drug. We saw at the trial how the accused successfully exploited the greater onus of proof for the prosecution in attempt cases. He argued that while he knew that he was importing something illegal, he believed that he was helping to import counterfeit money and cheating cards for use in casinos, not drugs. He denied he knew that the consignment contained drugs or that he intended to import drugs and, therefore, could not be found guilty of an attempted importation offence. Had the controlled operation not occurred, the prosecution would have only had to prove that the accused was recklessly indifferent to the risk that the consignment contained illicit drugs.

As this example demonstrates, the legitimate actions of a law enforcement agency to reduce the potential harm from a drug importation should not make it more difficult to prosecute the people involved in the offence—and there are other means and other issues that we are addressing when it comes to this schedule 1.

Before I conclude I would like to touch briefly on the forced marriage arrangements. The coalition government is introducing new laws to parliament today to clarify what constitutes forced marriage and increase penalties for conduct that causes a person to enter into a forced marriage. As a consequence of the amendments, a child under the age of 16 is presumed incapable of consenting to marriage. I think everyone in this parliament would be supportive of that. When it comes to forced marriages, this is something that we, as a liberal democracy that believes strongly in individual personal rights and especially our ability and need to protect children, should be very clear in stating—that a child under the age of 16 is presumed incapable of consenting to marry. I think this is a very positive step.

Any person who engages in conduct that causes a person who does not understand the marriage ceremony to enter a marriage, such as through arranging or officiating over the marriage of a child, may be committing an offence. In addition, these changes, if successful, will increase the penalty for engaging in conduct to cause another person to enter into a forced marriage. The penalty for an aggravated forced marriage offence will be increased from a maximum of seven years imprisonment to a maximum of nine years imprisonment, reflecting community expectations of how we, as a society, need to make sure that we are providing proper protections and ensuring that children under the age of 16 are not being forced into things such as marriage.

It gives me great pleasure to be able to support this Crimes Legislation Amendment (Powers, Offences and Other Measures) Bill. I think these are sensible changes to help tackle crime and make our community safer. Keeping our community safe is a fundamental principle that government needs to adhere to. Through this bill, we, as a government, are continuing to do that.

Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to rise to speak on the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Powers, Offences and Other Measures) Bill 2015. If there is a community that has been particularly affected by crime—and certainly by the perception of crime—and one where crime has had a detrimental impact on the main revenue source for the city, which is predominantly the tourism industry, it would have to be my city of the Gold Coast.

As the federal member for Moncrieff, I take seriously two aspects of my role. One is in relation to the protection of the income the city derives from the tourism industry and the need to safeguard the perceptions of our city—that is to ensure as a city that people's views about holidaying on the Gold Coast are positive ones, that they approach a holiday with enthusiasm and that they know that they will be safe if they choose to have a holiday on the Gold Coast, whether they are a domestic tourist or an international tourist.

The second important aspect of my role as federal member is to stand up for my community and ensure that my community feel safe—that they feel safe in their own homes, that they feel safe with their personal belongings and, in particular, that parents feel safe in the knowledge that their children are not being exposed to a drug culture or indeed, for example, to a culture of forced marriages, which would corrupt and, over time, diminish the strength of the social fabric in our city.

The Gold Coast is an amazing city. It is a wonderful place to raise a family. It is a terrific city that has not only a bright daily outlook in terms of the weather but also a bright outlook in terms of its future. Moving swiftly to ensure that we are able to address concerns in relation to crime is important and something I have been very pleased to be part of.

I regularly host community forums as part of my ongoing commitment to engaging in a meaningful way with the community I have the privilege of representing. I hold forums with my constituents on a regular basis—small business forums, crime forums, town hall meetings—all centred on the importance of engaging, mixing and mingling with my constituents, giving them the platform and the opportunity to put forward their points of view on what should be happening in our community—those aspects they like and those aspects they do not like.

Relatively recently I was pleased to host a crime forum with the Minister for Justice, the Hon. Michael Keenan. Minister Keenan travelled to the Gold Coast and took the time to meet, to mix, to mingle, to hear from and to listen to ordinary Gold Coasters who wanted to raise an array of different issues with him. I did this not only because of the opportunity it provides as a platform for my constituents but also because there was widespread concern and indeed a negative perception, which had been brought to my attention through various media, that the Gold Coast was being overrun by organised criminal gangs.

The previous state LNP Newman government moved swiftly some time ago to introduce the VLAD laws, which were directed towards doing what could be done to crack down on outlaw motorcycle gangs and, more broadly, criminal gangs across the city. It needed to happen. As a result of the decisive action taken by the former Newman government, the city was cleaned up in a fairly short period of time. Having spoken with so many people on the Gold Coast, I have to say there was widespread relief that the decisive action that had been taken made a difference to the feel of the city and thwarted attempts by organised criminal gangs, who more often than not—certainly anecdotally, but I know from speaking with police as well—were the instigators and the distributors of a lot of illegal narcotics.

In that respect, the legislation before the House today builds on the good work that has been done at both state and federal levels. Following some brawling between various outlaw motorcycle gangs, Minister Keenan moved to establish one of the first joint strike forces on the Gold Coast. This sees collaboration between federal and state police officers, and other authorities such as Immigration and the tax office, working in a comprehensive way to ensure that maximum pressure is applied to those who would seek to benefit from engaging in criminal activity and peddling drugs. That was a terrific step forward. The legislation now before the House builds on the solid foundation and the important work that has been undertaken thus far not only in my electorate of Moncrieff but, more importantly, across the city of the Gold Coast.

A great concern that we had was that the previous Labor government took the very short-sighted decision to shut down the Australian Federal Police office on the Gold Coast. It is the sixth largest and fastest growing city in Australia, with a population of more than 500,000 people. I was not literally but figuratively left dumbstruck that a Labor federal government could be so short-sighted as to shut down the Federal Police offices on the Gold Coast. The Federal Police played a crucial role in investigating organised criminal gangs, and Labor walked away from the city. I should not be surprised—it is consistent with the Labor Party, which has absolutely no regard, no inclination, no interest and no time for the Gold Coast. In fact, under successive Labor governments, the only time we saw a federal Labor minister on the Gold Coast was when they travelled there once a year to speak at the annual conference of the Australian Workers Union—or one of the unions—which always takes place on the Gold Coast. For the benefit of the President of the Labor Party, who is in the chamber, can I say that we welcome the Labor Party holding their union conferences on the Gold Coast. We value their business. Notwithstanding that, it is still a great shame that Labor should be so short-sighted. But I guess Labor ministers are but fleeting tourists from time to time.

The legislation before the House is important. It implements tough penalties for gun related crimes. It increases the operation and effectiveness of laws relating to serious drug and precursor offences. It increases penalties for forced marriage offences and ensures our criminal offence regimes are robust and effective. It ensures efficient arrangements for administering criminal law and related provisions. It is part of the coalition government's clear and consistent commitment to tackling crime and to ensuring that our communities across Australia are kept safe, particularly the Gold Coast.

I take local law and order issues on the Gold Coast very seriously. That is why I was pleased not only that we had the joint strike force but that we were able to roll out additional CCTV cameras across the city. The Gold Coast now has one of the widest networks of CCTV cameras. From the many police I have spoken with, as well as the Gold Coast City Council, I know that they play a very effective role not only in cleaning up crime through the ability to get evidence directly from videotapes but also in the prevention of crime, as police and others are able to respond in a proactive way to trouble that might be brewing, thereby ensuring that we prevent assaults and other issues like that from occurring. It is important work and it does require an ongoing substantial commitment from the federal government to make sure our communities are safer. People in communities like Ashmore, Nerang, Southport, Surfers Paradise, Benowa, Broadbeach Waters, Broadbeach, Mermaid Waters and Mermaid Beach want to know that the federal government have some investment in the city. We do. This legislation continues it. I absolutely commend the bill to the House.

Debate interrupted.