Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Justice, Customs and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

These funding cuts to Customs, the ACC and the AFP have clearly had a significantly impact on the ability of federal law enforcement agencies to do their job properly. The minister at the table says, 'Is there any chance of talking about the bill?'

This bill deals with the smuggling of guns across state borders. The point is that, when you cut resources—the number of personnel available—to Commonwealth law enforcement agencies, it impacts on the ability of those agencies to do their job. This is the problem with the government. They are more interested in spinning away their failure than they are in doing something to tackle the problems which their cuts have significantly contributed to.

We are supportive of measures to combat gun crime. We are particularly supportive of anything we can do to take guns off our streets. Sadly, we are seeing on our streets the impact of these cuts to Customs. More and more guns have been smuggled into our country because of the very significant cuts that the Labor Party have made since they came to office. We in the coalition believe that the Commonwealth should do its job properly. The law enforcement role of the Commonwealth is to increase the ability of the states to fight crime. Of course, the states have primary responsibility for law and order within their home jurisdictions, but when the Commonwealth is not policing its borders and it is cutting Commonwealth law enforcement agencies then we are making the job of state law enforcement agencies harder. That has to stop.

This Labor government has systematically made damaging cuts, and this has placed an enormous burden on our state police forces, who are called upon to deal with the consequences of more illicit drugs, more contraband and more illegal firearms on our streets because our borders have been penetrated by organised criminal syndicates. If the Minister for Home Affairs is serious about tackling organised criminal activity—and he says that he is—the first thing he should do is seek to rectify the damaging cuts that have been made to the agencies which he is responsible for. But unfortunately we have a minister who has not proved capable of doing that to date and, until he does so, he cannot be taken seriously when he comes into this place and says that law and order is a significant priority for the Labor government.

The priority for the Labor Party at the moment seems to be to deflect blame for the fact that we have had this spike in the number of weapons coming into our country because of these cuts and their impact on our borders. Clearly, if you are going to cut resources—if you are going to cut the number of personnel in our agencies—it is going to hamper the ability of law enforcement agencies to do their job. You cannot possibly believe that these savage cuts will not have an impact on our law enforcement agencies to do what we expect of them.

Due to the nature of the measures proposed in this bill, it is right and proper that it have an airing within the Senate committee process, and the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs is due to report back on the bill by 13 March. We will be scrutinising what they have to say once they report. Clearly, we will reserve our right to move amendments in the Senate if they highlight areas in which we should do so. We do support the measures contained within this bill. It is important that the Commonwealth have a workable proceeds-of-crime and wealth confiscation program, but, sadly, we do not believe that implementing six of the 18 recommendations that the committee—which was chaired by the member for Fowler, who is due to speak after me—reported on will achieve that. The member for Fowler will not say this, I suspect, but I am pretty sure that he will be very disappointed in his government's response, because he takes his responsibilities on that committee very seriously. He listened to what the police forces around the country had to say to us about these matters. So we will look to rectify and strengthen this framework when we come to office. But, until Australia gets the election it deserves, we will support these measures, albeit reserving our right to make appropriate amendments if the Senate committee highlights areas in which we should do so.

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