Chris Hayes (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Former AFP, I think, too. This is part of a suite of technologies that is absolutely crucial for combating serious and organised crime. It is great to see that the Victorians have now come on board with their new organisation, the Independent Broad-Based Anti-Corruption Commission, with the same or similar powers to the Independent Commission Against Corruption. They will be able to delegate, to authorise and to supervise conduct of telecommunication intercepts.

In leaving this debate, one of the points I think must be understood by all of our state and territory jurisdictions is that, whilst we refer to criminals as being a bunch of crooks, the truth of the matter is that they are businesspeople. They will, like any business, pursue a window of opportunity to make a profit. They are profit-based organisations. We need to ensure that we disrupt their profits and their enterprise, and one of the ways we do that is through using modern techniques—particularly, in this case, telephone intercepts.

The bill is an important step in ensuring that state bodies responsible for the detection, investigation and prosecution of serious and organised crime have the ability to access investigative tools which are contemporary in nature and certainly have an absolutely proven track record through most of our police jurisdictions of being the vehicle by which prosecutions have been made. I do not think I need to go on. I think my friend is about to take over and probably continue that line, hopefully supporting our police. I commend the bill to the House.

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