Arch Bevis (Brisbane, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Homeland Security) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the government’s amendments to the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Amendment Bill 2007, the AMLCTF Act. I think it might suit the convenience of the House if I formally move the second reading amendment standing in my name. I move:

That all words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: “whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:

(1)

notes that the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) took swift action after September 11 2001, adding eight special recommendations on Counter-Terrorist Financing to the forty recommendations on Anti-Money Laundering by October 2001, and a ninth recommendation thereafter;

(2)

notes the Minister for Justice (Senator Ellison)’s statement of June 5 2002 that “criminals and terrorists will continue to take advantage of jurisdictions where the law enforcement and regulatory powers are the weakest”;

(3)

notes that the Government promised to meet FATF standards in 2003 and further notes the failure of the Minister for Justice to progress this legislation from that time until late last year;

(4)

notes that, in the interval between indicating an intent to produce legislation and actually tabling it; and

(a)

the Government, either through collaboration with AWB or the grossest incompetence, enabled AWB to fleece the UN of some $300 million in funds to channel them to the evil Iraqi Dictator, Saddam Hussein;

(b)

in March 2005, the US State Dept Report Released by the Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs named Australia as a “major money laundering country”;

(c)

in April 2005, the Minister created a new anti-money laundering taskforce, but incredibly left off AUSTRAC, the nation’s prime anti-money-laundering agency;

(d)

important anti-terrorism legislation was drafted incorrectly and the Parliament had to be recalled at great expense to fix sloppily-drafted anti-terror legislation by changing one word;

(e)

further, provisions of the Anti-Terrorism Bill (No. 2) 2005 were also drafted incorrectly and had to be amended to avoid significant hardship to Australian business; and

(f)

in October 2005, the FATF reported on Australia’s compliance and found the Government had failed to meet the FATF standards, scoring just 12 out of 40 on anti money laundering, and 0 out of 9 on counter-terrorism financing;.

(5)

condemns the Government for allowing criminals and terrorists to launder money for three full years while the Minister fumbled the drafting and consultation process including the embarrassment of having his Bill rejected out of hand twice by Cabinet;

(6)

condemns also the Government’s collaboration with AWB or gross incompetence in allowing the channelling of funds to Saddam Hussein;

(7)

notes that the present regime, while a substantial improvement on the past five years of soft and weak legislation on terrorist financing, still represents just the first tranche of the required reforms;

(8)

notes that this bill is again aimed at fixing drafting errors in the principal Act, which was shunted through the Parliament without government accepting an amendment; and

(9)

calls on the government to outline a timetable for passage of the second tranche, so Australia will no longer be a target for criminals and terrorists seeking to take advantage of the Government’s soft and weak AML/CTF laws”.

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