Michael Hatton (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Parliament is a funny place, because the bills that come before us sometimes seem to be exactly what is before us. They are simple, clear and contain a series of minor technical amendments to a bill to bring it to completion as a result of a review that has been conducted in the Senate—another step in the process of tidying things up. One could even think that the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Amendment Bill 2007 might just have been in the Main Committee, because it would be relatively uncontroversial if it were just seeking to do those sorts of things.

The member for Hughes has dealt with the technical aspects that this bill covers, and has dealt with it at length. But it is my experience in this place and elsewhere that what you see is not always what you get. The reality with this bill is that we do not have just a number of minor amendments but a sorry tale of a government that has not applied itself to the minutiae of securing our national security through legislation that is effective in the anti-money-laundering and antiterrorist area.

We did have a government that took a world lead in this, with the Hawke-Keating government in 1988. It took the very first steps to set up AUSTRAC and to look at money being taken overseas. It set a limit of $10,000 that an individual could take with them. When you go overseas now, you have declaration forms. If you have any more than $A10,000 on you, you have to front up.

We know that there are people of evil intent and purpose who take no notice of that whatsoever and who do take large sums of money overseas in an attempt to launder that money so that they are not in a situation in which they have to pay tax here in Australia. They take it to various other places and try to get away with this so that they do not have to do what normal Australians have to do.

The two elements of this legislation that are addressed, money laundering and antiterrorism, are conjoined in terms of the national security situation. But it is also the case that, on a simple, practical level in terms of money laundering, the amendments in the bill we have before us now and in the other bills that we will also get—minor though they are—should have been made previously.

I have direct personal experience of dealing with the federal government’s agencies and responding to information that has come to my office from the public about people involved in money laundering in the millions of dollars—carting stuff off overseas, getting through what we think are the protections in the systems and doing that on a regular basis. We need the very best legislation and the very best process for the people who are involved in this, because, if people can get away with it, they will seek to do it.

What we have before us is a sorry tale of a government that really does not look at the nitty-gritty and the detail and has not acted with alacrity to fix these problems. The amendment that is before the House today is, I think, about the strongest I have seen from any opposition in regard to any matter. It goes to the very core of the long history of the Minister for Justice and Customs in regard to these money-laundering and antiterrorist matters.

You have to ask: what is happening here? Is there no recognition on the part of the minister that 11 September 2001 happened, that we needed to take direct steps to ensure that the money trail of terrorist organisations was sealed up and that Australia did that as quickly as we could? Looking at the history of it and the fact that it has been so long in getting here, it did not happen in that way.

With these bills there is another indication in terms of process with regard to the Minister for Justice and Customs. We dealt with these bills last November then we dealt with them again. We have had the Senate have a bit of a look at them. We have got a problem in that there has not been appropriate consulting with industry, and that is outlined in the amendment that the shadow minister has moved. There are three parliamentary digests on this covering various aspects of what should be minor technical implementation and so on. But, if you look at the time frame, you can see there is a fundamental problem.

I know the Attorney does his very best to get to the nitty-gritty of things and deal with things in detail. I know that through long experience in dealing with him not only when he was minister for immigration but since he has been Attorney, and that kind of diligence is necessary in the national security area—it is absolutely and fundamentally important. You cannot let things wobble along and hope that they might get fixed up.

Let us look at this process in terms of the response to September 11 and what has happened in regard to this bill and the strongest amendment I have seen. What is point No. 1? Labor notes that the Financial Action Task Force took swift action after September 11, adding eight special recommendations on counterterrorist financing to the 40 recommendations on anti-money laundering by October 2001 and a ninth recommendation thereafter—quick action. But in point No. 2 we note that, in the minister for justice Senator Ellison’s statement of 5 June 2002, he said that criminals and terrorists:

... will continue to take advantage of jurisdictions where the law enforcement and regulatory powers are the weakest—

certainly a truism. You would expect quick action in relation to that statement. In point No. 3, we note that the government promised to meet the Financial Action Task Force standards in 2003. We also note the failure of the minister for justice to progress this legislation from that time until late last year; indeed, until November last year. We can do a Treasurer-like count and say, ‘2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006; we are up to 2007.’ Why has the minister been so dilatory in regard to this, and why has he put the security of the nation at risk when it has been recommended by that financial task force that these were urgent matters? He recognised in 2002 that this was significant, as evidenced from his very own mouth: jurisdictions which did not take appropriate action would be seen as being ‘the weakest’. On the basis of that performance over those years, you can readily argue that Australia has been amongst those weakest jurisdictions in this regard. It is not good enough and it has to be fixed. This bill goes part way to doing that, and we know there are others in train which will seek to take it further.

There is a series of arguments that the shadow minister has put in the amendment, and they relate to a significant problem the government has got itself into over the Australian Wheat Board and the $300 million that went to Saddam Hussein’s government in the Iraqi wheat scandal. Because these bills have not been corrected in that period of time, there was a window of opportunity for that sorry saga to be carried out in full. It is not good enough, and the particulars go to this.

In March 2005, a US state department report released by the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs named Australia as a major money-laundering country. I know that some of the United States government agencies may be quick at times to label other countries as being deficient in a significant area without taking a good look at themselves but, given the hurry-up call of September 11, for an agency of its importance to designate us as a major money-laundering country, you would think that by 2005 the hurry-up would have been there and that it would not have taken almost two years—about 20 months or so—until we got the bill into the House after that. The minister has not proven that he understands the depth of this problem.

The next few points are very significant. First, in April 2005, the minister created a new anti-money-laundering task force but, incredibly, left off AUSTRAC, the nation’s prime anti-money-laundering agency. Second, important antiterrorism legislation was drafted incorrectly, and the parliament had to be recalled at great expense to fix sloppily drafted antiterror legislation by changing one word. 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. Lastly, in October 2005, the Financial Action Task Force reported on Australia’s compliance and found that—and this is utterly astonishing—the government had failed to meet the FATF standards, scoring just 12 out of 40 on anti-money laundering, and zero out of nine on counterterrorism financing.

What is going on? This is a government that has prided itself from the very outset—using the National Commission of Audit to say that its only real function is to benchmark and audit, not to get into service delivery. Is this the end result of that: in an area that they say they are strong on, national security, to score zero out of nine on counterterrorism financing; 12 out of 40 on anti-money laundering?

What has the Minister for Justice and Customs been doing? What has the Treasurer of this country been doing about an overview of this area to ensure that our national security in terms of our financial systems and the arrangements in place is locked up tight and secure? That is a devastating assessment of the government’s performance, which is not examined closely enough. I cannot think of a single instance in my time here or throughout the Hawke-Keating government period where the government received this kind of report card in an area of such significance. It is a fundamental failing. As the Attorney-General knows, and as I know, there can be significant problems in drafting legislation, and legislation may have to be revisited to address issues you did not see at the time. Indeed, there may be problems in getting people with the right skills to put the legislation together.

There may be some members or senators who have the background experience to draft the legislation competently, but it is a highly technical job and we have to ensure that it is done well. However, overarching this is the fact that this minister and his department have a hell of a lot to answer for, not just to the parliament but to the people of Australia—and not just about the money laundering but about the antiterror connection. We were promised by the government that we would have absolute certainty—as much as is humanly possible—that Australia would be secure. We have made complaint after complaint, and we have argued that the government has not driven hard enough on airports, seaports and a series of arrangements. Here is yet another example of the government’s poor response.

As I said at the start, I have not seen a stronger amendment than Labor’s, and it should underline the depth of concern not just of the shadow minister but of every single member of this parliament and every single member of the Australian population. It should be part of a reckoning, come the end of this year, on this government’s performance. The government is wonderful at self-projection, self-promotion and marketing, but the reality that we see here in this bill utterly belies that. It is something to keep a note of as we run through the rest of the year.

When you look at the shadow minister’s core assessment, people might think it is counterintuitive. However, I think it goes to the core of the issue. Item (7) of Labor’s amendment 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 ...

The drafting stuff still has to be fixed. We know there are a series of other reforms to come. That might seem counterintuitive in terms of the way in which the government promotes itself, but we have had five years of soft and weak legislation on terrorist financing. Who is going to back that up? The US state department’s report by the bureau of international narcotics and law enforcement said that we are a major money-laundering country. I did not think we were in the realm of South American republics—those comparisons might have been made some time gone in respect of our collapse in the terms of trade. We need to fix this, and we need to fix it in terms of how we are seen.

I know the Minister for Justice and Customs is responsible for it, and the Attorney-General, of course, is the responsible minister in this House. With these revelations, the sorry five years of weakness and indeterminacy, it is important that the Attorney acts quickly within the cabinet to get the government to get onto this matter.

So where are we with this? We are in a situation where, in an area where we are particularly vulnerable in terms of money laundering, if we get that reputation badged on us by the US, it affects the way they see us, the way they deal with us and the way our agencies interact, and, in dealing with other governments, the whole antiterror network is based on governments working together in order to solve international problems where we are threatened by terrorist organisations.

Some of the key weapons in the battle of getting al-Qaeda, Jemaah Islamiah and those sorts of organisations are anti-money-laundering and antiterror provisions—following the money trail and trying to stop their easily and readily funded operations worldwide, whether it is in Yemen, the Sudan, in Indonesia, Australia,  Britain, the United States or wherever. We have to choke off their ability to move funds easily and quickly. We have not been doing our job. We have not been doing our part of that process adequately, because the government has not focused on it—or at least one minister has not, and that is why the shadow minister has condemned Senator Ellison and his department for what we see here before us today.

I trust that this is a big enough wake-up call for the government. We dealt with it in November, we had a Senate review and we have a clear and present danger this year with APEC. We have already had initial meetings in Perth. There will be a cavalcade of cars and meetings Australia-wide throughout the rest of the year. We will have a month-long process of ministerial meetings and departmental meetings prior to 8 and 9 September, when the leaders will meet in Sydney. The focus on Australia will be immense, with 35-plus regional leaders visiting from around the Asia-Pacific. The potential for a terrorist incident here is extraordinarily high. What is the government doing about money laundering and antiterrorism? What is it doing about cohering this whole Asia-Pacific region in order to cut off the sources of funds to terrorists and to help to solve that fundamental problem?

This sorry tale of the past five years should not continue for one minute beyond this. The government should really concentrate on what it was elected to do, not electioneering but governing in the interest of all Australians and governing to ensure that our national security is not weak and soft—as the process has been with regard to this legislation—but strong, robust, certain and definite and that we really are secured rather than imperilled by what this government is doing. I will leave it to the Attorney in his summing up and also to the Attorney in practice to take this matter forward as efficiently and diligently as possible. (Time expired)

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