Page 1900 - Week 06 - Thursday, 9 June 2016
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The government has consistently responded to serious and organised crime by pursuing considered and targeted responses to the threats posed by this type of crime. These have traditionally focused on using specific criminal offences to target the behaviour of individuals within organised criminal groups, developing ACT and cross-border criminal investigation laws, as well as relying on the cooperation between ACT and federal law enforcement agencies.
Madam Assistant Speaker, constructive dialogue with ACT Policing and our national counterparts has assisted the government to identify legislative amendments that will strengthen our responses and frustrate the efforts of organised criminal gangs. This is no easy task. Organised criminal groups are characterised by their disregard for the rule of law. As noted by the Queensland task force on organised crime legislation in March this year, these groups embody a deliberate, considered and persistent defiance of the authority of the law.
In December 2015 the Australian Crime Commission reported that serious and organised crime costs the Australian economy at least $36 billion annually. This equates to a massive $1,500 per year for every person in Australia. The reason that some serious and organised crime groups are so successful is that they have the ability to adapt quickly to changing legislative and law enforcement responses and they have the capacity to keep pace with and exploit new technologies and other opportunities. This is the reason why it would be unwise in the ACT to simply introduce a cookie-cutter legislative scheme solely based on laws in other jurisdictions.
Our local picture of OMCG and other criminal group activity is not the same as it is in other Australian jurisdictions and responding to this kind of activity is not simply a matter of adopting organised criminal group declaration legislation. The Australian Crime Commission’s 2013 profile of OMCGs stated that chapters do not usually engage in organised crime as a collective unit but generally the threat in these circumstances arises from small numbers of members leveraging off the OMCG and conspiring with other criminals for a common purpose.
This is further supported by the findings of the Queensland task force that reviewed the extensive suite of laws which was introduced by the former conservative government in 2013 as well as the experience from other Australian and international jurisdictions. The evidence from these reviews strongly suggests that traditional, assertive investigations of alleged criminal activities, combined with proactive targeting of OMCG members, are key elements to disrupting their activities. Essentially, the key proposition of the criminal law, that a person’s criminality should be determined by their individual conduct, is central when dealing with this type of crime.
This is why this bill includes amendments which will give ACT Policing and the justice system enhanced capabilities to prevent and target crime at an individual level, where it has been proven most effective and disruptive to criminal OMCG activity. Importantly, the bill will expand the categories of offence which are subject to non-association and place restriction orders, otherwise known as NAPROs, under part 3.4 of the Crimes (Sentencing) Act. A NAPRO can be made by a court when a good
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