Page 5276 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 29 November 2017
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however, that there are differences between what Mr Hanson is proposing in the ACT and the existing laws in New South Wales. Under the bill the Chief Police Officer can apply to the Supreme Court to have an organisation declared a criminal organisation. If this application is successful the Chief Police Officer can then apply to the Supreme Court to have control orders issued on members of the declared organisation.
A person subject to a control order would be committing an offence if that person associated with another controlled member of the organisation. The bill lists a range of exceptions, including allowing family members to associate and allowing controlled members to associate in the course of lawful occupation and training or education.
The bill also seeks to adopt the New South Wales model for the Supreme Court to make a determination about whether information is criminal intelligence. It also appoints a criminal intelligence monitor to assist the court in making that determination. The bill seeks to provide the recognition and enforcement in the ACT of comparable declarations and orders made in other states and territories in relation to criminal organisations.
The Greens will not be supporting this bill because we simply do not think this will be effective in combating OMCG activity. This was a view put by the Chief Police Officer in an interview on ABC Radio on 8 November in which said she saw some challenges with Mr Hanson’s bill, including that practically these laws could be quite difficult to implement. She further said that similar laws in Victoria had been unworkable and New South Wales has had its own challenge with its laws.
Further undermining the effectiveness of the bill are the extensive exceptions for controlled members of declared organisations regarding whom they can associate with. Due to these broad exceptions, including allowing family members to associate and allowing association during employment or education, it seems likely that controlled members will still be able to plan a criminal activity together. As has been seen in New South Wales, the police are then unlikely to commit resources to doing the necessary paperwork and going through a court process when they believe that will have little impact on disrupting OMCG activity.
The New South Wales Ombudsman has also been highly critical of the effectiveness of that jurisdiction’s criminal organisation control regime, on which Mr Hanson’s bill is based. In November 2016 the New South Wales Ombudsman published its report into the review of the criminal control organisations legislation. Whilst I acknowledge that there are differences between the New South Wales law and Mr Hanson’s bill, many of the findings of the New South Wales Ombudsman are relevant to today’s debate.
The Ombudsman’s report ultimately recommended that the criminal organisation laws be repealed. The Ombudsman found that the laws were ineffective and not a good use of police resources. The following passage from the Ombudsman’s report demonstrates the significant problem with these laws:
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