David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Justice and Customs, Senator Ellison. Will the minister inform the Senate of measures being taken by the Australian government to assist and enhance the private security industry?

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

Chris Ellison (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice and Customs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Despite the mirth of the opposition, this is a serious issue. It is one which the Australasian Police Ministers Council looked at recently. There have been some concerns over a period of time in relation to Australia’s private security industry. There is always the risk that organised crime can infiltrate private security, and Senator Johnston’s question is a very sound one. In relation to the recent security environment, COAG looked at this in February and referred the issue of reforming Australia’s private security industry to the Australasian Police Ministers Council.

I am pleased to say that a report which was commissioned by that body has now made 32 recommendations, which have been sent to all jurisdictions. They relate to a number of areas. The first recommendation is that jurisdictions provide nationally consistent training—and this is something I think the opposition would be interested in. It is certainly desirable that where we have private security guards carrying out a very important function we have consistent benchmarks across the country and we have consistent training requirements.

As well as that, one of the recommendations was to introduce a close associate requirement—that is, you look not only at any criminal record in relation to the person who is being employed in the security but also at any of those people with whom they associate and with whom they have a financial interest. This is extremely important when you are looking at the aspect of a possible infiltration by organised crime. It was also recommended that all jurisdictions require a 100-point test for identification for the issuing of a security licence. That is something that is required.

It was also recommended that there be mandatory fingerprinting at the time of application for the purpose of verifying identity. This is something which we as a country need to address, not only for the current environment in which we have a heightened security alert but also for the fact that you have the risk, as I said, of organised crime targeting the private sector in the security industry. The report, as I understand it, is the first of its kind. It is comprehensive, and the Commonwealth government urges all state and territory governments to abide by and implement its 32 recommendations.

There certainly was support from the jurisdictions and the police ministers at the time, but I think that it now remains for those jurisdictions to implement in state and territory legislation the recommendations which have been made by this report. I might say that New South Wales, which carried the lead in this, did a very good job in relation to this inquiry. It indicates yet again the very good work you can do when you have a partnership in relation to security and law enforcement matters. This is something which is serious for Australia and which does require a whole-of-government approach. I want to endorse the vein in which this was approached by police ministers, but now what remains to be done is the implementation of these recommendations so that we can see reform in the private sector for the security industry. So it is a very important step forward.

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.