Mr McCLELLAND (Barton) (10.00 a.m.) —The Australian Crime Commission Amendment Bill 2003 is not controversial and is fully supported by the opposition. The Australian Crime Commission commenced operations on 1 January 2003, bringing together the former National Crime Authority, the Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the Office of Strategic Crime Assessments. We agree the bill largely addresses technical issues identified during the establishment of the ACC. A number of amendments rectify issues identified by the states, in fact, during the preparation of the complementary state legislation under the cooperative scheme which underpins the ACC. For example, the bill would enable state laws to confer functions, powers and duties on the intergovernmental committee of the ACC and members of the ACC board.
The Main Committee will recall that the board—made up of the Commonwealth, state and territory police commissioners, five Commonwealth agency heads and chaired by the Australian Federal Police Commissioner—can authorise the use of the ACC's special coercive powers of investigation, and the intergovernmental committee—made up of police and justice ministers—oversees the board's authorisations. This bill would, for instance, enable state and territory legislation to give the intergovernmental committee power to revoke a board determination to use those powers. Also in this area, the bill would repeal section 15 of the ACC Act which deals with the conferral of powers by state legislation on examiners who are independent statutory office holders responsible for exercising these coercive powers. The repeal of section 15 will leave this matter to be governed by section 55A of the act, which contains greater safeguards in fact than the former section on the kinds of functions, powers and duties that can be conferred on examiners.
The bill would also insert a definition of `relevant act' to include corresponding state and territory acts, which is relevant to several provisions of the ACC legislation—namely, the offence of recording, divulging or communicating information acquired in the course of ACC duties and the privilege against producing such information in court. Lastly in this area, the bill would allow information and documents to be passed by current and former employees of Australia Post to the ACC where this disclosure is required by corresponding state law.
In a different vein, the bill would give the minister the power to suspend the chief executive officer of the ACC while allegations of misbehaviour against the CEO were investigated. We understand the omission of this power was an oversight in the 2002 legislation rather than, of course, any reflection on the competence of the current CEO, who has the support both sides of the House. The power will complement the existing power of the minister to suspend the CEO for unsatisfactory performance should that arise in the future. The bill also includes a new transitional provision to address gaps in the existing transitional provisions identified since the establishment of the ACC.
Finally, the bill would amend the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act to clarify that there is no obligation to give reasons for a decision regarding intelligence operations carried out by the ACC or a decision in connection with investigations of state offences that have a federal aspect. Currently the exemption from this obligation only covers decisions linked to investigations of offences against a law of the Commonwealth or a territory. Clearly, it is appropriate to rectify this anomaly.
After more than a year of operation, the ACC has commenced special investigations or operations which may involve the use of coercive powers in a range of areas, including firearms, trafficking, amphetamines, money laundering and identity crime. The opposition certainly welcomes these activities and the cooperation between the federal and state authorities that they involve. I am pleased to have had the opportunity to meet with the CEO, Mr Alastair Milroy, late last year to discuss the work of the commission. As I indicate, Mr Milroy certainly has the full support of both sides of the House in the important work undertaken by the ACC.
We live in a dangerous neighbourhood—that is unquestionably the case—and it is vitally important that Australia has a strong criminal intelligence capacity to fight organised criminal networks that extend not only within Australia but also beyond our shores. I should observe that the integration of policing and intelligence in the ACC makes a nonsense of the Prime Minister's recent attempts to argue that these functions are discrete, in the context of his attacks on Commissioner Keelty. As the chairman of the ACC board, Commissioner Keelty has a key role in determining criminal intelligence priorities and the dissemination of criminal intelligence assessments. The criminal intelligence assessments may include, at the most grievous end of criminal conduct, terrorism activities. To pretend, as the Prime Minister did, that Commissioner Keelty has no competence in intelligence matters is, quite frankly, insulting not only to the commissioner but to all Australians who understand the value of intelligence led policing and, indeed, the valuable role undertaken by the ACC. Having made that point, I can reaffirm that the opposition's support of this noncontroversial piece of legislation is straightforward. Again we congratulate and underline the importance of the work being undertaken by the ACC in making Australians safer from organised crime of all descriptions.