David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice and Customs) Share this | Hansard source

There are circumstances in which police involved in operations, not having obtained a warrant, see evidence but cannot get it because they need to get a warrant. To advise the subject of a warrant of the nature of the warrant and specify what the warrant is for will clearly, in a network type situation, lead to the removal of the evidence. I have given the example of clandestine drug laboratories. When you are seeking to close one laboratory and you have suspicions about others, and the headquarters of the operation contains information about the location of those other laboratories, then the disclosure of the information in the warrant and having the owner of the headquarters present will mean that the evidence will be removed from the other clandestine laboratories; they will be closed in the blink of an eye. There is an anecdotal example.

The government is very conscious of the need for balance. Can I take you through the balance again. For an officer to get a delayed notification search warrant, he must go to the chief officer—defined as ‘the Commissioner or his delegate’—and spell out on reasonable grounds his suspicions that serious offences are being carried out in circumstances that would give rise to a late notification warrant—that is, that this type of warrant would suit that particular operation. Serious offences are defined as offences carrying a jail sentence of 10 years or more. The chief officer—that is, the Commissioner—has to consider all of that and then give his permission. Then that constable has to go before an eligible issuing officer—a judge or a member of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal—and fulfil nine legal requirements. He has to make a written application; specify the name of the applicant; specify the name of the constable who, unless he or she inserts the name of another constable in the warrant, is to be responsible for executing the warrant; provide details or attach a copy of the authorisation given to him by the chief officer; specify the address, location or other description of the premises and any other adjoining premises; specify the proposed duration of the warrant; provide a description of the kinds of things proposed to be searched or seized, copied, photographed, recorded, operated, printed, tested or sampled; provide a statement on whether things are to be placed in substitution for seized things—in other words, in a controlled operation; and support all of that with an affidavit. Then you get the warrant.

And then we have the follow-up over the six- and 12-month regime with respect to the Ombudsman reviewing those things if the operation goes on, and the minister tables the report. I am having difficulty imparting to you, as lawful citizens, the level of criminality that we are seeking to deal with here. This is the great unknown; people do not understand the dynamic nature of serious organised crime, serious organised drug trafficking and serious organised terrorism financing. These are the things that, in the face of those checks and balances, we seek to arrest. With respect, Senator Stott Despoja, to want to throw those out with no substitution, in the face of what I have just said, strikes me as being seriously unable to come to terms with the level of criminality we are dealing with here.

Question put:

That schedule 2, as amended, stand as printed.