Matt Gregg (Deakin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The bill before us today, the Crimes and Other Legislation Amendment (Omnibus No. 1) Bill 2026, is about keeping Australians safe, which has to be the primary concern of every member of this parliament. This bill updates and improves pieces of crime related legislation, including amendments to the Crimes Act, the Criminal Code Act, the Director of Public Prosecutions Act and the Extradition Act. A lot of these changes are quite technical in nature, but if you read through the bill you'll see there are a number of very significant and important changes too, which I'd like to go through in turn. The common thread is that they are all about keeping Australians safe.

Schedule 1 is about making amendments to modernise the law around enforcement and the procedures that allow our agencies to operate more efficiently.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 10:31 to 10:42

Part 1 of the bill lists Sydney West Airport as a major airport to empower the Australian Federal Police to exercise the necessary powers at the airport. These powers already apply to every other major airport in the country. This amendment does not create new powers; it simply extends them to the new airport in Sydney's west, which is a completely commonsense change.

Part 2 of schedule 1 of the bill clarifies that specific warrants and orders contained in the Crimes Act can also be made electronically. This is so officers do not have to waste time going to court to fill out hard copy forms. It also makes it easier to obtain these important warrants and orders outside of ordinary court hours. It improves the efficiency of law enforcement and makes sure that we're keeping pace with modern lodgement practices—again, a commonsense change. It addresses major issues with in-person lodgement, which is eminently sensible.

Part 3 of the bill extends the sunset date for three sets of warrants—network activity warrants, data disruption warrants and account takeover warrants—as well as emergency authorisations. These warrants were originally set to expire in September this year. They will be extended to 2029. That will enable the government to complete its more exhaustive package of reforms to these areas, but will ensure the preservation of the status quo up until that time. Again, another very important change. Another aspect of those warrants is that the data disruption warrants will fall outside of the powers of the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission. This is to reflect the fact that they are now focused on being an intelligence gathering organisation. Disruption is really outside of their purview, and that also reflects the independent review of the relevant legislation.

Other parts of the bill look at our drug laws. These are aligning practices at a Commonwealth level with those of the states. So, instead of measuring criminal culpability based on the purity of a substance, we're simply allowing the inclusion of the total weight of any mixed substance. For example, if cocaine is mixed with pseudoephedrine, you can count the whole lot as cocaine. This is commonsense. It reflects the culpability of those involved in it and prevents unnecessary time and money being spent assessing the purity of a substance when that is not a relevant fact when it comes to these criminal offences.

There are also changes to evidence provisions, enabling the issuing of a certificate which confirms the chain of custody after drugs have been taken away and prior to prosecutions. Currently, individual officers all have to write reports. They also have to be available to give oral evidence in court. This is exhaustive and, frankly, fundamentally unnecessary. This doesn't undermine the right to a fair trial. If someone wants to contest the processing of a particular drug in court, they're still entitled to do so. But this enables a simplified approach, which means, again, that trials can focus on relevant facts at issue and not get sidetracked by these unnecessary administrative burdens.

Another small reform that I neglected to mention in relation to schedule 1 is the continuation of the Australian Capital Territory police's powers around precharge detention and investigation. When these provisions were originally drafted, the ACT had envisioned that it would be introducing its own regime. But, as time has gone on, it's become evident that the Commonwealth regime will do. So this just continues the status quo for them.

Schedule 3 is, again, a fairly uncontroversial change. Under the Director of Public Prosecutions Act currently, if there's a perception of or a real conflict of interest, the only option is for the Director of Public Prosecutions to step down so someone else can step up. This change effectively empowers the Attorney-General, if such a conflict is raised, to appoint someone temporarily to address that conflict without the current hoo-ha, which is again a very commonsense piece of reform. It also changes the title of Associate Director of Public Prosecutions to Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions. It's using language similar to that seen in other departments.

Extradition legislation will also be changed. That is the powers of police to arrest people who are the subject of orders from foreign countries seeking either to prosecute them or to ensure that they serve their sentence of imprisonment. Often we're talking about serious offenders. This will enable police to effectively exercise powers of arrest similar to those already seen in crimes legislation in Australia. This reflects the fact that we're often talking about individuals who have committed very serious offences. It allows fair and proportionate use of police powers of entry and arrest. In circumstances where, for example, there is a need to capture someone between 9 pm and 6 am, the police have to exercise proper discretion and make sure that's eminently necessary. So it's ensuring a proportionate framework but nevertheless a rigorous application of those powers.

There are also rule changes around those who have waived their extradition rights. This is ordinarily an administrative process that people go through. When a country requests that someone be sent back to that country, there is a formal review process. A person can waive that administrative process. This enables that in a more direct way, at the same time allowing those individuals to be kept in detention until such time as they're handed over to the other country, where they'll face either prosecution or imprisonment.

Schedule 5 amends the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act. This is a very technical amendment. In Victoria, what was formerly known as the Victorian Inspectorate is now known as Integrity Oversight Victoria, and this amendment simply reflects that change.

These are fairly commonsense changes to the law, as we've seen so far, so it's a bill that I absolutely commend. In particular, the changes around drug legislation are incredibly important for efficiency's sake, ensuring that the trial process is rigorous and focused on the criminal culpability of the individuals involved and not allowing a discount in culpability simply because of impurities in a substance. But it's also proportionate because it prevents double charging. So, if there are two substances that are governed by these legal regimes, you're not going to be charged for each substance separately. They're treated as one. For example, pseudoephedrine and cocaine mixed together in a powder would be treated as a packet of cocaine. You wouldn't have one charge for pseudoephedrine and one charge for cocaine. It simplifies the process. It reflects the way the states have worked for a very long time. It is commonsense enforcement that reflects the culpability of the offenders involved. This enables a more rigorous and robust enforcement. It's not awarding impurity. It's not awarding dodgy drug-dealing practices. This is just ensuring that the criminality is properly reflected in the way things are prosecuted. It is really facilitating a better and more efficient criminal justice process by enabling prosecutions to be focusing on evidence of probative value as to whether someone is guilty and culpable of an offence and not on technical administrative issues. The same is true in relation to the warrants and orders. This is about making a better, more efficient justice system , improving the way criminal justice works in Australia. It's something that ought to be commended.

I want to pay tribute to the Attorney-General, who is doing a lot of work dealing with crime. This is something that I know is incredibly important to my community and communities around Australia. The Albanese government is working incredibly hard. We have a no-nonsense approach to this kind of criminality. This is one of many reforms that the government is going through to ensure that we have a rigorous criminal justice process and that our law enforcement agencies have the powers, tools, clarity and certainty they need to do their jobs effectively. So I commend the Attorney-General, and I commend this bill to the House.

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