Westin Hotel, Sydney

16 November 2009, 8:35am

First, may I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land we meet on, the Cadigal people, and pay my respects to their elders, both past and present.

[Introduction]

Today I want to share with you the Australian Government’s approach to border security and organised crime.

In December last year, the Prime Minister presented Australia’s inaugural National Security Statement.

The Prime Minister outlined what Government would do to improve national security policy advice, coordination and governance.

Critically, he recognised that the National Security Environment is changing. The list of non-traditional security threats is growing.

Border management issues and serious and organised crime are now key national security concerns. 

Trafficking in people, weapons and drugs. The vile people-smuggling trade. The illegal exploitation of resources, like our fish stocks. These are the challenges we face.

Border security and organised crime are taken extremely seriously by the Australian Government.

And we understand that they are problems that require a highly coordinated response.

Today I will outline for you what the Australian Government is doing to respond to these challenges.

[Border Security]

The Australian Government’s approach to border protection is based on four key strategic principles.

[First Principle]

First, Government has recognised that we need to better coordinate the deployment of our border protection resources.

The National Security Statement recognised that the work of our border protection agencies could be strengthened by creating a single point of accountability.

This is why the Australian Customs Service was strengthened and fundamentally recast as the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service.

It now provides a central hub for the coordination of Australia’s border protection response.

Working in partnership with the Department of Defence, the Australian Federal Police (AFP), Department of Immigration and Citizenship and a range of other Australian Government agencies, the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service manages the Australian border and has ensured a coordinated operational response to maritime people smuggling.  

It has responsibility for 11 boats and 15 aircraft, as well as access to Australian Maritime Safety Authority aircraft and Defence aircraft and boats, surveilling 4 million square nautical miles of water and 37,000 km of coastline .

[Second Principle]

The second principle involves knowing and understanding our country and our values.

In Australia, we value the benefits that trade and travel offer for our economic and personal prosperity.

Therefore we need to be able to facilitate that legitimate trade and travel whilst maintaining the security of our border.

It is neither reasonable nor practicable to search every container or traveller that enters or leaves our shores.

And so, we are committed to a risk-based approach in the border environment.

This means that we dedicate more attention to people and goods assessed as high risk rather than those at low risk.

It makes sense for border agencies to focus their resources where they will have the greatest impact.

I know it is not news to any of you that the Australian border is massive and largely unpopulated.

And our border management agencies operate in extreme natural environments, from the Northern tropics to the Southern Ocean.

An approach which only focused on intervention at the physical border to prevent illegal movements would clearly fail.

That is why our border management agencies work in the domestic sphere to establish a working environment that enables them to also look to the maritime zone and work overseas ahead of the physical border

Risks are identified, and people and cargo prevented from entering or leaving Australia at the border.

In the maritime zone risks are identified en route to Australia, and people and cargo prevented from reaching our border.

Our agencies also work overseas, ahead of the physical border, to identify risks and stop movements into and out of Australia.

This last point in particular appreciates that the strength of our border depends on our own intervention AND the strength of our neighbours’ responses to the threats posed by transnational crime.

Officers in the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service, Department of Defence, the AFP, and the Department of Immigration and Citizenship are working closely with their regional counterparts to build response capacities and share information so that a cohesive response across the region is achieved.

[Third Principle]

The third strategic principle we rely upon is developing understanding of the threats that we face.

We know transnational organised criminals are increasingly sophisticated, readily adapting to new and emerging technologies in their quest for illicit profits. 

The illicit cross border trade in intellectual property rights, counterfeit goods and money, and hazardous waste, are the new frontier.

And all of these activities pose potential safety concerns for Australia.

Consequently we are improving our intelligence gathering capacity and information sharing arrangements to ensure we stay ahead of transnational crime. 

[Fourth Principle]

Some wags might like to call the fourth principle, the “Donald Rumsfeld” principle because it’s about the “unknown unknowns”. 

A sensible and measured border management response attends to the possibility of events which are genuinely unpredictable.

For example, we could never have predicted events such as the Boxing Day Tsunami in 2004 or the terrorist attacks of September 11. 

However, they are examples of events that have shaped the future of our border management needs.

Therefore it is vital that we have a border management system with sufficient flexibility that resources and policies can be quickly switched to accommodate the changes in constraints and incentives which catastrophe creates.

The issues to which border control must attend are always serious and complex.

The Australian Government is working hard to pursue a border management strategy which is intelligent, flexible and imaginative.

And we will continue to exercise a strong response to border protection to protect our national security. 

[Serious and Organised Crime]

In addition to a strong border protection framework, the Australian Government has committed significant effort and resources to dealing with serious and organised crime.

The Australian Crime Commission estimates that organised crime costs the Australian economy between $10-15 billion each year.

It also generates significant social costs that undermine the safety, security and prosperity of our nation.

Organised crime undermines trust in Government and democratic institutions as organised criminals seek to infiltrate and corrupt law enforcement and public sector agencies.

That’s why, for the first time, organised crime has been recognised as a genuine threat to national security. 

The Australian Government is tackling organised crime at the international and national levels.

And we are working closely with State and Territory governments to find ways to dismantle serious crime threats.

The nature of organised criminal networks is complex.

They are generally characterised as flexible and dynamic; innovative and resilient. Detecting them can be complicated, particularly because they can use legitimate enterprises to disguise their criminal acts.

And because they change their behaviour as soon as they become aware their methods have been detected by law enforcement.

[Organised Crime Strategic Framework]

Governments also need to be flexible and dynamic; innovative and resilient – something governments are not always good at. 

Paradoxically, we need to institutionalise flexibility to respond to the threat of serious and organised crime by developing an Organised Crime Strategic Framework. 

The details of that Framework are due to be announced shortly.

The Framework will not only draw together combined criminal intelligence and law enforcement capacity. It will prioritise operation target areas and ensure that those priorities can adapt as the more sophisticated criminals do. 

[The legislative framework]

During 2009, the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General also agreed to a range of legislative measures to provide a comprehensive national response to organised crime.

To implement the Commonwealth’s commitment as part of this agreement, the Government has introduced Serious and Organised Crime legislation which is presently before the Federal Parliament.

This legislation will introduce new association and criminal organisation offences. It will enhance police powers to investigate organised crime by implementing model laws for controlled operations, assumed identities and witness identity protection. It will introduce a new joint commission provision which is targeted at offenders who commit crimes in organised groups. 

[Removing the Rewards]

A particular focus of the legislation is to remove the financial incentive to engage in organised criminal activity by targeting the profits of crime.

The new laws will allow the confiscation of unexplained wealth. Prosecution agencies will be able to target people who derive profit from crime and whose wealth exceeds the value of their lawful earnings.

[International Cooperation]

But organised crime does not recognise borders. As with the border protection sphere, acting domestically is not enough.

In addition to our domestic efforts, the Australian Government is committed to increasing our international engagement to combat organised crime, particularly in the Asia Pacific region.

The globalisation of financial systems and advances in communication and technology has made it easier for criminal networks to conduct their activities across jurisdictions and to seek safe haven for the proceeds of their crimes.

International cooperation is vitally important if we are to successfully disable criminal networks and halt their activities. 

Organised crime is primarily profit driven. And as all of you know, having a strong anti-money laundering regime in place is essential in tackling organised crime.

In Australia we are in the fortunate position to be able to invest significant resources in the fight against money laundering and terrorism financing.

We have implemented a strong anti-money laundering regime to break the circuit between money laundering and a wide range of illegal and criminal activities, including organised crime.

I’m sure we have all seen first-hand how the money trail can lead to the downfall of significant criminal enterprises. 

In recent times information gleaned by AUSTRAC from AML/CTF reports has assisted in the disruption of international people smuggling rings, and numerous drug importations have been stymied.

A suspicious international funds transfer instruction can result in the detection of a large Eastern European organised crime syndicate, discovery of an Australian drug lab, and the seizure of more than one hundred thousand ecstasy pills.

Suspect transaction reports can lead to the discovery of remittances to a Middle Eastern organised crime group, raids across Sydney and Melbourne, and 10 arrests related to trafficking a quarter of  a million dollars worth of cocaine, ice and cannabis from New South Wales to Victoria. 

Many ongoing investigations are vitally dependent upon ongoing reporting of transactions through AUSTRAC

[Conclusion]

Responding to security threats such as border management issues and serious and organised crime is a key priority of this government. 

But there is always more that can be done.

I am confident that this forum will provide an excellent opportunity for you all to discuss your ideas and share information.

That’s why events such as this are so important.

The knowledge and the information we all gain over the next two days will enhance our understanding of some of the most important issues facing Australia and its institutions today.

Most crucially, however, it will improve our ability to combat serious, pervasive, organised criminal activity, and the crimes such as money laundering which help facilitate it. 

I wish you all the very best for the next two days, and would now like to declare this conference officially open.