Kym Richardson (Kingston, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today in support of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Bill 2006 and the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing (Transitional Provisions and Consequential Amendments) Bill 2006. Back in 2003 it was agreed that Australia would implement the financial action task force’s 40 recommendations on money laundering and nine special recommendations on terrorism financing.

This government has undertaken a lengthy and detailed consultation process, the purpose of which was to ensure that, while complying with our obligations in relation to money laundering and terrorism financing, we also ensured that legitimate businesses did not suffer adversely as a result of the implementation of the legislation to put the recommendations into effect. These new regulations will cover the financial sector, gambling sector and bullion dealers as well as lawyers and accountants who provide financial services in direct competition with the financial sector.

From the outset, let me say that we cannot underestimate the importance of dealing with the methods used by terrorists and their organisations to obtain financial support for their cause. Without the ability to finance their attacks on our freedom and on our way of life—without the ability to finance their brutal and barbaric attacks—they have no means by which to invoke fear. Legislation like this is an important aspect of the government’s war on terror and is an important weapon in our arsenal in our fight against terrorism.

This bill imposes obligations on reporting entities when they provide designated services. Those services include things like opening an account, issuing a credit card or making a loan. The obligations include customer due diligence—that is, identification, verification and ongoing monitoring requirements. The obligations also extend to reporting requirements, including in relation to suspicious matters, threshold transactions, internal funds transaction instructions and compliance reports and record keeping.

This bill implements a system whereby reporting entities will determine the way they meet their obligations based on their assessment of the risk of whether providing a designated service to a customer may facilitate money laundering or terrorism financing. The transitional bill makes a number of consequential amendments to various acts—for example, the Privacy Act, which will now be extended to all reporting entities with respect to their compliance with these new regulations.

After consultation with industry it has been determined that this legislative package will be implemented over two years and that there will be an amnesty period of 12 months after each stage of the bill comes into effect. During amnesty periods AUSTRAC will concentrate its efforts on education.

This bill puts into effect a number of measures which are, quite simply, common sense. If we as a nation failed to implement these measures we would leave the Australian financial market open to abuse by money launderers and those who finance terrorism.Furthermore, failure to meet the international standard would put our reputation at risk, along with the reputations of our financial markets, international business relationships and individual companies. This bill seeks to meet our international obligations. It makes common-sense amendments to our existing laws and, in the long run, protects Australians from the far-reaching impact of terrorism. For these reasons I commend this very important bill to the House.

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