Hayes, Chris, MP

Mr HAYES (Fowler—Chief Opposition Whip) (17:35): I too join in supporting the Australian Crime Commission Amendment (National Policing Information) Bill 2015and related bills before the House. I know that some issues have been raised and that we would like to see some greater scrutiny take place in the Senate, particularly in relation to issues of privacy that might be affected as a consequence of the merger. In my contribution I would like to talk about the merger itself and the need for having the proper tools to fight not only serious and organised crime but also terrorism in this country. One of the things that underpins and is crucial to contemporary law enforcement is information and criminal intelligence. We see that time and time again, particularly with the amount of seizures that our Australian Federal Police have been to be able achieve at ports and airports. Most of that has not actually come about as a consequence of the X-raying of containers and the like. Most of that has come about because of the vast network of criminal intelligence information that has been drawn in and analysed and the intelligence products that are being produced to assist not only the Australian Federal Police but all of our law enforcement agencies. We should be looking at this as a step in contemporary law enforcement strategy. It is something which will give greater efficiencies, particularly in relation to the collection and the analytics that are applied to criminal intelligence and research in this country. Therefore, I support the merger, which has been discussed for a heck of a long while. When we were in government, we had discussions about the respective roles of the Australian Crime Commission and CrimTrac. During our time in government, we brought the ACC, which was already under the purview of the Joint Parliamentary Committee for Law Enforcement Integrity and that oversight was extended to CrimTrac with their agreement. The difference with CrimTrac, I suppose, is the way that it was set up and the fact that they were doing a lot of work on a contractual basis not only on players within the law enforcement spectrum but on their information. What they have been able to collect has been of huge importance—particularly on issues such as the national DNA database, which has had a fundamental impact on law enforcement in this country. The truth is that we are country of 23 million people; we have only a few law enforcement jurisdictions; we have seven police forces and we have criminals who do not necessarily understand, but want to understand, the geographic or the constitutional difference between sovereign states. They are happy to exploit every window of opportunity to enhance criminal enterprise. It means that we need to be smart in the way we go about servicing state and territory police forces, as well as the Australian Federal Police, with criminal intelligence to allow them to have the right strategies to get on and do their job. Therefore, I support the merging of the functions of CrimTrac and the Australian Crime Commission. The bills that are before us seek to merge these organisations by giving effect to those functions. This follows the recommendations made last year by the National Commission of Audit, which made a number of recommendations but particularly in relation to the merger. As I said, CrimTrac has done much to enhance law enforcement capabilities in this country. I briefly spoke about the national DNA database. I know it had a bit of a tortured history, but it showed that the Commonwealth has a very clear buy-in for criminal intelligence; at that stage, I think it was a $50 million buy-in. It established a national database that can be accessed by law enforcement jurisdictions regardless of state boundaries. Similarly, the national ballistics information system and the Australia-wide missing persons matching capability are things that are pretty fundamental to contemporary policing. The efficient and effective way they have been hosted for over a decade is to the credit of CrimTrac. I should also indicate that CrimTrac's development of the Acorn cybercrime reporting tool, which has recently gone to tender to produce a national fingerprint database. Again, anyone involved in policing or law enforcement would think that these are, at a minimum, essential tools for policing. The government's intention is to bring the national criminal intelligence agency—the Australian Crime Commission—and CrimTrac under the one banner. Hopefully, that will achieve an enrichment of our understanding of criminal intelligence, organised crime and terrorism. As a consequence, police and law enforcement agencies and policy makers will all benefit from an effective, evidence based approach in combating crime. When contemporary information is not only gathered but, more importantly, analysed, it helps our law enforcement agencies invoke the proper strategies to combat serious crime and no doubt terrorism. I believe the merging of the ACC and CrimTrac will allow for a better sharing across jurisdictions and help suppress, deter and disrupt criminal enterprise itself. The ability of criminal information to be transmitted on a needs basis across jurisdictions is quite frankly now paramount. I did say that crime does not respect borders or the Constitution. Serious players in criminality look for windows of opportunity, and one of the things the merger does is to close the gap. It makes the Australian Crime Commission the paramount criminal intelligence agency for the nation, and that is a good thing. It will ensure that those who need and rely upon criminal intelligence have up-to-date information that has already been subjected to analytics through the commission. It is also important to understand that this is not just about merging two organisations. The Australian Crime Commission consists of each commissioner of police from every state and territory and the Australian Federal Police, together with the Commissioner for Taxation and customs to ensure there is a holistic approach when it comes to fighting crime. They use the same holistic approach in their fight to suppress outbreaks of terrorism in this country. From our side we welcome this. We acknowledge that the Australian Institute of Criminology has also indicated their support for this merger, on the basis of enhanced efficiency of law enforcement capability through better intelligence. But one thing that I thought was interesting in their report—and I noticed this is slightly different to what the Australian Crime Commission says—is that the Australian Institute of Criminology estimates at the moment that serious and organised crime is costing this country in the vicinity of $36 billion a year. It is a pretty high figure and, I suppose, when you think of that figure it is not just the actual cost associated with a particular drug haul, or the particular criminal enterprise itself; it also factors in the cost to the community. I know the member for Cowan is going to speak after me, and he is a former police officer, so he could probably give more credit to this—but the thing is, when we when we say we are going to disrupt and suppress crime, it is not just about suppressing a statistic. When there is a crime, there is always a victim to the crime. I think that is one of the smart tools that we need in the approach in law enforcement—we need to suppress, we need to disrupt, and we need to deter all criminal activity. Because if we do not, there will be a victim to each one of those crimes. There is no such thing as a victimless crime. So this is doing something proactive in preventing crime. If you do that, that gets back to that figure that was put out by the Institute of Criminology as to the economic cost to a community of crime: $36 billion a year. That is something to think about, even before we start applying to that the human cost of criminal enterprise, and how it impacts on our respective communities. In the limited time I have, I would just like to talk about some of the by-products of this merger which will help law enforcement in an area which people probably do not see as serious and organised crime—but, I tell you what Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, in any of our communities it has got to be seen as very serious. That is in relation to domestic violence. We have seen the rise in domestic violence cases now for some time. It is a blight on our society. In New South Wales alone, three-quarters of all women killed over the course of the year died as a result of domestic violence. According to the New South Wales Police Commissioner, Andrew Scipione, a very good man, this is one of the biggest issues facing modern society—that is, domestic violence. Even Fairfax Media, investigating International Women's Day this year, reported that domestic violence was responsible for two out of every five homicides in New South Wales. That is a staggering figure. At the moment, I think that we are still seeing an average of two women dying per week at the hands of a partner or former partner. That is certainly an indictment on our communities. Having greater opportunities to do detailed background checks on people, and having the ability to cross-reference on a multi-jurisdictional basis the state issues of Apprehended Violence Orders; these will now be able to be done under one roof. That will be something that will materially and positively impact on victims of domestic violence, and on the perspective of victims of domestic violence. I would like to put on record my support and gratitude for Chris Dawson, the CEO of the Australian Crime Commission and all his staff. I have great respect, as everyone here does, for the men and women of our respective law enforcement agencies, and for those people who are brave enough to wear the police uniform. And I understand it takes a special type of person, no doubt with a special type of courage, to put that uniform on, to go out, and to do what we expect of them to protect our communities. The least we can do is give them the necessary tools to do the job. I would think that giving police the up-to-date, criminal intelligence information they need to do their job is a good start. I support the bill. I support it being referred to a Senate committee for the opportunity for greater scrutiny, particularly in relation to the provisioning of privacy information and how it might be applied across the two respective organisations.