Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present the report of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Australian Crime Commission on its inquiry into the legislative arrangements to outlaw serious and organised crime groups, together with the Hansard record of proceedings and documents presented to the committee.

Ordered that the document be printed.

I seek leave to move a motion in relation to the report.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times to each of the speakers in today’s debate. With the concurrence of the Senate I shall ask the clerks to set the clocks accordingly.

Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Mr Deputy President. I will commence my remarks today by thanking a number of people. The first, of course, is my parliamentary colleagues, who have been of great assistance—and a number of them also of great knowledge. In fact, we have a number of people formerly of the law enforcement community in the committee. I think Senator Parry was a detective chief inspector. I am not sure what rank Mr Wood obtained in the other House. I would like to thank my colleague Mr Chris Hayes, who has exceptional knowledge of the law enforcement community.

As I said, there is a number of people to acknowledge. The assistance of the secretary, Dr Jaqueline Dewar, was invaluable. Her knowledge of the issues that we dealt with would only be surpassed by professional law enforcement intelligence officers. There is indeed a great respect for Dr Dewar and her contribution to the report. I would like to also thank Dr Robyn Clough, Mrs Nina Boughey, Ms Danielle Oldfield, my own staffer Chris Parkin and of course the many law enforcement agencies, lawyers, interested parties and ordinary people who came forward and made a contribution to this committee. I would also like to thank Monika Sheppard and Dr Richard Grant as well.

Madam Acting Deputy President, if you get an opportunity to read the report, I suggest you read it in conjunction with the report of the delegation that went to North America and Europe in April and May this year, because it does complement the report. The report is very prosaic, I might add—almost in the same way as a work of that great Scottish novelist Lewis Grassic Gibbon, who wrote in a similar fashion.

We were given a task some 17 months ago to look into what legislative arrangements we could suggest to combat serious and organised crime. I believe that, as a result of our inquiry, a number of views about the nature of serious and organised crime in Australia changed. They certainly did change for me. As the chairman I, and a number of others, had the opportunity to go to other law enforcement agencies in other jurisdictions throughout the world. I also recently went on a study tour to three continents to talk to those law enforcement agencies on what might be the best way to combat serious and organised crime. The picture that comes through on serious and organised crime is that they are international networks, but they are loose; that most serious criminals are not criminals at all—they do not have a criminal record, they are involved in covert acts that make sure they do not get exposure, they adapt quickly, they are functional—and that there is no formal structure. We grappled with this in the committee report and we made seven recommendations. People will have to read the report to see exactly what our recommendations are. As I said, serious criminals adapt quickly and are very functional. We are dealing with intelligent people.

One of the things that came through time and time again from law enforcement agencies throughout the world was that that they found that the best method to deal with serious and organised crime was to target the asset rather than the person. Currently in Australia we have, in a number of jurisdictions, proceeds-of-crime legislation under which, if assets can be proven to have been raised through criminal activity, people can be deprived of them. But in our report—and the government has introduced into the House of Representatives legislation that will assist this—we have dealt with the situation of what is called ‘unexplained wealth’, where known people who are involved in criminal activity will have to explain their wealth, how they raised it. If they cannot then it will be forfeited and seized. We found from jurisdiction to jurisdiction throughout the world, and in our own country, that this was seen to be the most successful method by which to deprive criminals of their assets. Paragraph 5.6 on page 98 of the report states:

Mr Raffaele Grassi, from the Italian National Police, highlighted the importance of ‘going after the money’ and depriving criminal groups of their assets. He noted that:

“Mafia members are prepared to spend time in prison, but to take their assets is to really harm these individuals.”

When we went to the Guardia di Finanza in Rome one of the things that they were very proud to tell us about was that their flag flies over a huge complex, which is a seized asset, in a little town in southern Italy called Corleone. That is how they came to the conclusion, as have many law enforcement agencies, that that is one of the best ways to deal with and cripple organised crime.

Crime does involve huge profits. We heard in our inquiry about people importing amphetamines into this country. If they get one container out of three through it is worth the effort. We have seen the corruption of public officers and policemen in this country. But as far as the proceeds of crime is concerned, there are huge profits in it, and drugs and money laundering is the way it is happening, particularly with amphetamines at the moment. In their report for last year, the Australian Institute of Criminology said there had been a 260 per cent increase in arrests for amphetamines. We were told that in the Netherlands an ecstasy tablet costs €2 to €3 in mainland Europe, but you can get AU$20 to AU$30 here, which I think is about €15 to €16. So of course we are going to be targeted in this part of the world.

We have also been told that parents do not want to see needles sticking out of their children’s arms, so of course amphetamines and cocaine are being used more and more by people who are using drugs. In New South Wales last year there was a 58 per cent increase in arrests for people using cocaine.

These are the issues that the committee was confronted with. I hope that people will read the full report. There is one issue in there that a number of my colleagues have made an additional statement about and that is the issue of gang membership. I refer people to paragraphs 4.34 and 4.143 in the report. These deal with the issue of so-called bikies. The Australian Crime Commission was not all that interested in it—I might be using the wrong words about them, but they were not. Mr Justice Roberts-Smith from the Western Australian Corruption and Crime Commission was not interested in it either. There are a number of reasons for this. Mainly because, as law enforcement agencies, they are well aware of how much effort has to be put in to try to prove that people are involved in gang membership.

The professionals said that one of the best ways to target serious and organised crime was to target the assets, and that is exactly what our government has done. In the last session of parliament we introduced a bill that goes a significant way towards that. It follows up on the Prime Minister’s National Security Statement of 4 December last year.

So we have the political will, but we also know that a lot of political will is needed in other parts of the world. The global financial crisis has had a tremendous effect on the stability of governments. They talk about failed states in west Africa, where they move from one to another. At the moment Equatorial Guinea is regarded as a haven for criminal activists on the west coast of Africa.

The committee has seen all of these things. There are seven recommendations in the report, which I urge all members to read and, as I said earlier, I also urge members to read the committee reports from North America and Europe. I would like to thank all of those people involved, particularly the secretariat and the secretary.

Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will commence my comments in relation to the Australian Crime Commission Committee report by acknowledging the work of other committee members, in particular the Chair, Senator Hutchins, whom I will disagree with shortly on a minor matter. Secondly, I would also like to acknowledge the hard work by the secretariat. The report, which is some 200-odd pages long, is the second report that has been produced by Dr Dewar and her staff in a relatively short time frame. We are very appreciative of their efforts and the quality of the production of the report.

The report indicates that we travelled extensively around Australia to examine serious and organised crime within this country. We met with a number of witnesses and received quite a large amount of evidence. Out of the seven recommendations, there are two that I particularly want to comment on. Recommendation 1 at paragraph 2.58 recommends that:

… the ACC work with its law enforcement partners to enhance data collection on criminal groups and criminal group membership, in order to quantify and develop an accurate national picture of organised crime groups within Australia.

Senator Hutchins touched upon this matter and indicated that crime groups and the information about crime groups was not necessarily forthcoming and the data in Australia was not as sophisticated as it could be. I think that this is one of the reasons why the Liberal Party members and Family First found a need to have additional comments in the report. Whilst we support and endorse the report, we wanted to strengthen some of the provisions in the report.

The first recommendation highlights the need for all law enforcement agencies in this country to collate and share information and that the responsibility for the central repository and the collation should be with the Australian Crime Commission. The Australian Crime Commission is the premier intelligence-gathering body in this country and we felt that that would be appropriate. With that, it probably needs police procedures in compiling information, especially at arrest, highlighting the fact that people belong to particular gangs or organisations, so that this data can be more accurately collected. In the United States of America, in particular, they have a very extensive database on gangs and that aids tremendously in investigations. I think this would help us by putting us in the international scene in relation to having more accurate data.

The other recommendation I will touch upon is recommendation 7 at 6.88 in the report:

The committee recommends that the Australian Government, in consultation with regional partners, give consideration to establishing an intelligence fusion centre in the Oceania region.

This would have enormous benefit for Australia; we could be leaders in this fusion centre. Fusion centres occur in other places in the world where intelligence is gathered and collated on a regional scale—in this case, the Oceania region—in order to assist in law enforcement and be pre-emptive in some cases as well as to be accurate with data collection and focused when combating organised and serious crime.

In my remaining three minutes, I turn to the additional comments that we as coalition members, along with Family First, have seen fit to include in the tail end of the report. The additional comments, as I indicated, do not detract from the report itself but, we feel, strengthen some of the provisions and add provisions that we felt were not necessarily reflected in the recommendations. In particular, in relation to criminal associations, for a long time in police forces around the world there have been forms of consorting laws or laws where association has been deemed to be beneficial. They can prevent associations in order to prevent the conduct or implementation of criminal activity. They also go a long way toward preventing groups from getting together and planning particular operations. We found, as part of the international study tour that the ACC took and also as a part of this particular inquiry, some other interesting aspects, but I will talk about some of the international aspects mentioned in the report:

In Italy, anti-association laws in conjunction with the unexplained wealth provisions—

which we wholeheartedly support, provided we get the legislation right. These laws have really gone a long way and—

been pivotal in prosecuting major figures in the mafia.

In the United States, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations Act—

commonly known as RICO, has been instrumental in prosecuting major crime figures, in particular—

the heads of the Gambino and Genovese crime families and their known associates.

In Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police use laws targeting specific offences for participating with a criminal organisation to control outlaw motorcycle gangs—

which are a problem in Australia. Finally:

In Hong Kong, anti-association laws were used with great effect against the Triads.

In addition to this, we believe that South Australia’s Serious and Organised Crime Control Act 2008 can be effective. There is also the New South Wales Crime (Criminal Organisations) Act 2009. Furthermore:

... the Queensland government has signalled its intention to implement similar anti-association laws.

Whilst anti-association laws are complex to prosecute and can be divisive in communities, especially where the right to freedom of association is concerned, there is a need for those laws to be there to supplement the other recommendations of the report. Also, as I mentioned, we strongly support the unexplained wealth provisions, which attack the business model of any criminal organisation and so impede them from continuing. If leaders or senior operatives of crime groups are jailed and their organisations still exist, that does not stem the problem. In fact, all it does is allow someone else to step into the breach and to then continue that criminal organisation. By attacking the business model, by removing the money, we go a long way towards dismantling serious and organised crime groups in Australia. I commend the report and thank all those involved.

Steve Fielding (Victoria, Family First Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I acknowledge the other members of the committee and, while supporting the recommendations in the report, I—unlike, maybe, others—do not see the issue of outlaw motorcycle gangs in serious criminal organisations as a minor issue; I see it as a major issue. You will see at page 161 of the report—it is not labelled as page 161—a statement from Family First and the Liberals. It says that I and Family First:

... certainly believe that outlaw motorcycle gangs are serious criminal organisations and to believe otherwise is a dangerous misconception. Outlaw motorcycle gangs are still a major player in serious and organised crime in Australia, particularly in the illegal drug trade.

I do not want that to be taken as a minor issue; it is still a major issue, and I am concerned that this report, without these comments from the Liberals and Family First, potentially goes soft on outlaw motorcycle gangs and some of the behaviour that they get up to. It is a fairly major issue when you see bikies bashing each other to death in public. Mums and dads get concerned when it is only metres away from kids and other people, and I think that just highlights how serious this issue is. I do not see us dealing with serious and organised crime by saying, ‘That’s not so major; let’s just focus on the big fish and cover unexplained wealth.’ I am a big supporter of provisions to deal with unexplained wealth because they go to the heart of the finances of serious and organised crime. But to see outlaw motorcycle gangs as not needing to have laws put in place nationally to deal with them is, I think, potentially a very dangerous place to be. I quote from an article in the Australian on 15 April 2009, where Senator Hutchins says:

From my point of view, bikies beating to death some bloke at Sydney airport, do you really see that as some sort of overworked criminal operation? They weren’t even in colours.

I am a little concerned about those sorts of statements—‘We won’t worry about that so much because we are worried about serious and organised crime.’ We have an opportunity in parliament, in the Senate, to make strong recommendations after seeing the laws that were passed in South Australia and in New South Wales. The Queensland government has made comments about going the same way and putting association laws in place that would actually get tougher on this thuggery that I think most Australians and Australian families would be concerned about.

I want to make it quite clear that Family First believes we should have stronger national association laws, and we should have uniform laws across Australia so that we do not see the problem just shifting to different states. It has been reported that the laws that some states have around association and outlaw motorcycle gangs will maybe cause those gangs to move to other states with weaker laws. That is a real concern to me. I do not think Australians should be terrorised by outlaw gangs that refuse to operate within the boundaries of our society. We need to go a lot further and that is the reason I have put my name to some stronger statements in regard to outlaw motorcycle gangs.

Many innocent people were frightened and traumatised by the horrific attack at Sydney Airport, and we must ensure that we have laws in place to prevent another episode such as that. I do not want to undermine the unexplained wealth recommendations, but I certainly do not want to be seen to be going soft on this issue. It is not a case of either/or and it is not a case of just getting the unexplained wealth legislation in place; we should also be putting in place national association laws across the country.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the report of the Inquiry into the legislative arrangements to outlaw serious and organised crime groups. The terms of reference for the committee were to examine the effectiveness of legislative efforts to disrupt and dismantle serious and organised crime groups and associations within these groups. Although no-one doubts the need to work constructively to limit the scope and opportunities for criminal groups, the contentious points are how to define a criminal group and when and how to act against it. While Australia faces the threat of an increase of organised crime, especially transnationally based criminal activity, we are still unable to offer a universally supported definition of what constitutes a criminal group. And, as we are all aware, we cannot hope to control something that we cannot even define.

Serious and organised crime costs our nation approximately $10 billion per annum causing untold financial and social havoc in the process. Each year these criminal groups become more sophisticated, adopt more advanced technologies, operate more fluidly across international borders and perform in more flexible and unstructured ways. Given the enormous amount of money made from organised crime, we as a nation need to push for strong and consistent unexplained wealth provisions and proceeds of crime laws. Such provisions offer significant benefits for disrupting the operations of criminal groups through:

preventing crime from occurring by ensuring profits cannot be reinvested in criminal activity …

disrupting criminal enterprises;

targeting the profit motive of organised criminal groups; and

ensuring that those benefiting most from organised crime … are the ones captured by the law.

The Crimes Legislation Amendment (Serious and Organised Crime) Bill 2009 contains unexplained wealth provisions, and I fully support the committee’s recommendation that the bill be passed. I am also equally supportive of the recommendation calling on the Commonwealth government to examine a more integrated model of asset recovery with one agency responsible for investigation and prosecution. This, together with the continued civil forfeiture regime of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and unexplained wealth provisions, will allow law enforcement in this country to limit the capacity of organised crime groups to conduct and grow their businesses.

I note one concern in the report handed down by the delegation to North America, Europe and the United Kingdom. Each nation that was visited expressed concern that attempts to introduce a charter of human rights or similar expanded human rights mechanisms lead to a diminished capacity of law enforcement to investigate and prosecute criminal activity. Criminal groups will exploit every possible loophole at their disposal, and this includes using human rights as a platform for their own preservation. Far from suggesting that human rights should be secondary to law enforcement, I would simply ask governments, both state and Commonwealth, to consider the impact of a charter of human rights on effective law enforcement.

A second concern is one issue that was heavily discussed and hotly contested during the inquiry. The introduction of the Serious and Organised Crime (Control) Act 2008 by the South Australian government holds implications for all levels of government. The act establishes a framework under which a group or club can be declared an organised crime group. The original impetus behind the act was the actions of certain motorcycle groups and the media attention drawn to the criminal activities of such groups. The main points of contention were the labelling of individuals as criminals simply through their membership of a group, freedom of association and the effectiveness of the act in disrupting criminal activities. I personally feel that the jury is still out on whether this approach is the best one. I am not convinced that the blanket banning of motorcycle groups does effectively disrupt the operations of criminal activities. My concern is that the ban may simply drive the activities further underground, thus making it harder to tackle. Criminals are highly unlikely to cease their activities just because a ban is in place. They will continue to conduct themselves in a criminal way and will continue to recruit just as heavily to their ranks. The only people who are likely to be disrupted through such a ban are those members who act in a law-abiding manner and associate out of shared experiences and mutual interests.

Finally, I would like to thank those witnesses that came before the committee and those that gave written submissions. I would like to put on record my thanks to the secretariat and my Senate and House of Representatives colleagues on this committee and also particularly note the chairman’s contribution to this report. I also encourage all senators to read this report because the increase in organised crime in this country is very, very concerning. I commend the report to the Senate.

Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Whilst not a member of the committee, this is an area that I have been particularly interested in since I was a state member of parliament in South Australia. I would like to thank Senator Parry for giving me three minutes of his time, which is all I need and is probably more than enough. This report is very important given the pernicious impact these gangs, whether outlaw motorcycle gangs or other organised crime gangs, have on society.

Like a lot of people I wondered how there could even be self-described outlaws in this country. Central to our democracy is the notion that the laws of our land apply to all of us, that no-one is above the law and that no-one should be allowed to act above the law. State governments including the government of my home state, South Australia, often talk tough about taking on organised criminal bikie gangs. I welcome the moves that the South Australian government has made in terms of laws of association, but I am disappointed that, in the more than two years since I called for improved unexplained wealth legislation to be changed in South Australia, the state government is still considering that.

Behind most crimes is greed. Many of these gangs believe that crime pays, so law makers have to ensure that crime does not pay. If you want to tackle these groups effectively, hit them where it hurts: in their bank accounts. That is why I have called on Premier Rann in my home state to move for unexplained wealth legislation that greatly improves on what we have had in South Australia previously. I think this report provides a template for further reform. In South Australia right now it is up to authorities to prove that wealth has come from the proceeds of crime. A better, more effective test is for these criminal gangs to prove their wealth was obtained honestly. Reversing that onus would make a significant difference.

Edmund Burke once said: ‘The only thing necessary for evil to prosper is for good people to do nothing.’ The very presence of these gangs undermines society. They are a corrosive and destructive element in our society. We need to use every possible means to emasculate them and wipe them out. I think it is incumbent upon governments to ensure that the self-described outlaws are held accountable through effective laws. I welcome this report as advancing the debate. I hope that the federal government and state governments act urgently to implement a number of these recommendations, particularly in relation to unexplained wealth.

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.