Page 4081 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 22 October 1991
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these people? I include politicians in that category. Are they also in that bag? If they are, in my strong view they should be the subject of proper reviews, and I will come back to that in a moment.
At this juncture, I want to mention specifically the manner in which the authority can conduct itself publicly, pursuant to section 60 of the parent Act, that is, the National Crime Authority Act 1984. I would encourage the authority to use every opportunity, not just in a defensive context such as occurred on 22 March 1990, when the authority faced a pretty tough bunch of South Australians at the Adelaide Town Hall to explain a number of issues that had arisen in that State. I am not going to traverse those concerns again; but the authority gave a glimpse of its operations, and it was not a flattering picture one received of the National Crime Authority at that public meeting on 22 March 1990.
I note, however, that the authority has advertised in the ethnic press, particularly the Chinese press. It advertises its trades, in effect. Of course, that is not widely known to all of us. The authority participates in seminars and public discussion issues, and I believe that it will do more of that under the competent and respectable chairmanship of Mr Justice Phillips, who is the current chair. I was pleased to be consulted as Attorney prior to his appointment, and I can say that his appointment was warmly welcomed by all States and Territories. It was welcomed in the afterlight - perhaps I should say the backlash - of the earlier days of the NCA.
I draw members' attention to the swift move that Mr Justice Phillips made to move the NCA's investigations into money laundering, serious white collar crime and corporate crime. I am pleased personally to see the NCA move away from what I regard as an overfocus on drug-related crime. Like the X-rated porn videos, drug money has well and truly poisoned the waterhole in this country. Much of the money has moved laterally into cleaner, laundered activities, and a respectable class has built itself on these foundations of slime. That is regrettable; but there is not much to achieve now, given the gross failure of policing in the 1960s and 1970s to deal with the issue when it arose. There is very little we can do now about historical oversights of our new respectable class who moved out of slimy laundered money 10 or 15 years ago.
I also believe that there has been an overfocus on ethnic concerns to do with drug-related crime. An issue that was well illustrated in my time, and I feel free to speak about it, was the most unfortunate way, the almost improper way, in which the South Australian Attorney, Chris Sumner, was dealt with during a National Crime Authority investigation into his alleged links with a brothel and with the Italians allegedly concerned. One of the NCA documents I saw
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