Making our Community Safer
Tuesday 18 March
Second Reading Debate - Criminal Assets Confiscation (Review Recommendations) Amendment Bill 2025
Ms CLANCY (Elder) (16:50): I rise today in support of the Criminal Assets Confiscation (Review Recommendations) Amendment Bill 2025. The bill implements the remaining recommendations of the statutory review into the prescribed drug offender provisions of the Criminal Assets Confiscation Act 2005—those that were not included in the Criminal Assets Confiscation (Miscellaneous) Amendment Act 2024 that we passed last year.
We all want our communities to be safe communities and I am proud of the steps our government has made towards that goal. Our Malinauskas Labor government has maintained our strong focus on community safety, including in just these first few weeks of the parliamentary year, with more police on the frontline; a new youth crime task force; outlawing posting and boasting to deter people from promoting or glorifying criminal conduct on social media; cracking down on stalking and harassment; reforms to validate victims in mental incompetence verdicts; making it easier for prosecutors to convict drug traffickers, importers and couriers; and the toughest knife laws in the nation.
Understandably, community members are growing increasingly concerned by what they see on the news both here and overseas. When we watched or listened in horror at what occurred in Bondi, it was nearly impossible for us to not feel fear ourselves. Closer to home, we had last year's scare at Westfield Marion and the horrific stabbings in Plympton.
Following these events and suggested reforms raised with some victims of these incidents, the government prepared a discussion paper for public consultation to ensure our knife laws are as tough and effective as possible. SA was already leading the nation with strong knife laws. The 2012 Labor government introduced a suite of reforms, such as prohibiting the sale of knives to minors under 16 and banning the marketing of knives in a way that suggests the knife is suitable for combat. Further changes were also made in 2017 regarding police ability to conduct metal detector searches when reasonably suspecting a person of carrying a weapon.
As a result of that consultation feedback—including with the public, targeted stakeholders and SAPOL—the bill we spoke about last sitting week made the following changes: expanding police metal detector search powers on declared public transport vehicles and at public transport hubs, shopping centres and all licensed premises; expanding police metal detector search powers at any public place where there is a likelihood of violence or disorder; and expanding police metal detector search powers on any person with a relevant history of weapon-related violence or who is a member of a declared criminal organisation.
Fortunately, we do live in a historically ever-safer society and generally do not have to worry about gun violence or terror threats, especially here in South Australia. I can only imagine how scary it must be for people in the United States who drop their children to school knowing that there is a real possibility that their child might not come home.
In my electorate, we are very lucky to have very little variation year to year on reported crime statistics, with the majority of reported offences being theft and property damage. While this is of course a concern, we should feel safe in our suburbs knowing that aggravated robbery, assaults, extortion and homicide are very rare occurrences in Elder and across all electorates in South Australia.
Since becoming elected, I have noticed community members have become more vigilant in observing the behaviour of those around their businesses and homes, which I think is enabled by the increasing popularity of Ring cameras and other devices. I have had reports to my office of neighbours noticing people walking by their properties in the early hours of the morning and people looking into their cars and testing whether those car doors are locked and looking over fences and into windows, and while this is not illegal behaviour I understand why people find it disconcerting to know that individuals are walking around neighbourhoods at night.
In order to address these community concerns, I organised a community safety forum at the Clarence Gardens Bowling Club last year to give people an opportunity to hear from Southern District Police Superintendent Les Buckley and learn how to better protect their homes and personal property. Les talked about SAPOL's recommendations for securing both the inside and outside of a property and reiterated that it is important homeowners take all steps necessary to keep themselves safe.
Residents are encouraged to keep all their items of value somewhere safe and less visible, store keys and garage door remotes out of sight within both the house and vehicle—advice I should really take on board—install a security door with a peephole, ensure house numbers can be easily seen by emergency services in the event of a call-out and ensure—and I know this may seem obvious—that all windows and doors are locked. Think about what can be seen from the street. Do you have overgrown bushes and trees that would hide a person? Do you have tools lying around or ladders that can be used to potentially break into your house?
Les also suggested to make sure to break down the packaging of items you have purchased and put in the recycle bin because these boxes can become a potential information source for what is inside your house. These may seem like simple steps that we have heard before, but it is surprising to know how many people do not lock their cars at night, leave their sunglasses or laptops, in my case, visible or the windows open when they leave the house.
At a street-corner meeting last year in Mitchell Park that I hosted, Superintendent Les Buckley came back and he addressed a specific incident that was of community concern in our electorate, specifically an assault that was heavily reported on in the media as an example of a growing crime wave, which, unsurprisingly, stirred up a lot of worry and anxiety amongst members of the public, particularly my community. Superintendent Buckley was able to confirm for us that the assault was not indicative of an increasing violent crime trend, rather a one-off incident that could occur anywhere, and encouraged residents to be proactive, to report incidences as they occur on 131 444 and, of course, to call 000 if there is an emergency.
I am pleased to say that as a result of my community safety forum and street-corner meetings and a very active community member, we have a new Neighbourhood Watch group forming in my electorate. I would like to thank my constituent Jack, the very active community member of Mitchell Park, for taking on the task of organising his community. It does not take much to complain about crime on Facebook, but it does take a lot of time and effort to actually meet up with your neighbours and work out how positive change can be made.
Whilst statistically we rarely experience assaults in Elder, I do understand that these events do occasionally happen and when they do they are not only terrifying for our community but devastating for the victim and their loved ones. It is therefore necessary to ensure we do everything we can to keep weapons out of the wrong hands, so I am very proud of our knife laws that we introduced last sitting week.
To return to the bill before us, proceeds of crime legislation is part of our work to improve community safety and address crime. This bill helps to provide the legislative tools needed to combat against organised and serious crimes. It aims to deprive people of the financial benefits of engaging in criminal behaviour, with the deprivation of profits seen as an important part of criminal punishment, as well as a deterrent.
In order to deter criminal activity, it is necessary for the state to remove the advantages of crime by confiscating the proceeds, thereby making the option of continuing to commit offences in the future less attractive. By confiscating the economic proceeds of crime, criminal activity is further incapacitated by removing the monetary base from which further crime may be committed or expanded upon.
Just this morning as I was driving into the car park, I was listening to an old episode of the Naked City podcast by John Silvester, a very well known crime journalist who does a column for The Age. The episode was called Inside the Hells Angels, if anyone is interested and would like to look it up. I know the Deputy Premier is quite interested in crime podcasts and does not mind one and I am sure the member for Elizabeth, given his previous occupation, is also quite interested.
This story was about a drug case from the 1980s. Over a 15-month period, four men sold around $1.8 million worth of speed. More than 40 years later, the amount of money that can be involved in these crimes can be even more than $1.8 million, in fact a lot more. Last year, the AFP seized drugs with an estimated street value of $760 million, money that in the hands of organised crime would have likely been used to expand criminal operations.
Whether the criminal operations are of a huge magnitude or substantially smaller, no criminal should be able to benefit financially from their crimes. It is critical that law enforcement have the tools necessary to allow them to adequately investigate and follow where the money trail leads. In addition to punishment, deterrence, incapacitation and enforcement, there are wider social benefits crucial to maintaining the public's perception of, and confidence in, law enforcement strategies.
The police must be seen to be able to remove the benefits of crime from those who choose to participate in illegal activity, and they must be able to do so in a reasonable timeframe. Our community needs to be compensated for the pain and suffering inflicted by drug-related crime on individuals, families and entire communities.
It is also important that the community not be left with the bill for administering, implementing and enforcing confiscations, particularly related to prescribed drug offenders. This amendment will bring the treatment and confiscation of property from prescribed drug offender confiscations into line with those from non-prescribed drug offenders by allowing the costs of administering the Criminal Assets Confiscation Act to be taken from forfeited assets prior to the remainder going to the Justice Rehabilitation Fund. This amendment ensures it is not the taxpayer who will fund the operation of the act. Rather, it is the assets of the criminals that will fund it.
For background, the Justice Rehabilitation Fund has paid into it proceeds of any confiscated assets forfeited to the Crown upon the conviction of a prescribed drug offender. This fund sits separately from the Victims of Crime Fund and supports programs and facilities that aim to prevent crime and rehabilitate offenders, with programs including educational services, employment skills, training, housing assistance, and programs for Aboriginal prisoners and offenders.
As the number of prescribed drug offenders grows, the cost burden has continued to fall on South Australia Police and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions to manage. These amendments will allow for the delegation of certain powers from the Director of Public Prosecutions to the Chief Recovery Officer of the Fines Enforcement and Recovery Unit. This will offer efficiencies in dealing with forfeited assets by allowing the most experienced agency to undertake processes in relation to confiscation and free up resources within the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Drug offender confiscations have now grown to become the majority of all confiscations, with the issue becoming particularly acute with the large numbers of prosecutions associated with Operation Ironside. Three years ago, the AFP led the largest organised crime investigation in the Southern Hemisphere, with more than 4,000 Australian law enforcement officers executing hundreds of search warrants across Australia.
More than 6.6 tonnes of illicit drugs, $55.6 million in illicit cash and 149 weapons and firearms were seized across Australia. There have been 392 alleged offenders charged with 2,355 offences, including the trafficking of illicit drugs, money laundering and dealing in the proceeds of crime. Sixty-three of these offenders have already pleaded guilty or been convicted, resulting in a collective 307 years of imprisonment. Nineteen offenders in South Australia have been sentenced to a collective 100 years of imprisonment. This is on average around five years of time in prison each.
It is so important that we get the proposed procedural amendments in place, because we need to give our law enforcement officers the necessary tools to freeze bank accounts and get the required information quickly from financial institutions in order to prevent prescribed drug offenders from moving their assets out of reach.
Section 160—Giving notices to financial institutions will reduce the timeframe within which a financial institution must provide information or documents pursuant to a notice under section 160, and that will be changed from 14 days to a period of between three and seven business days. This change comes in response to the online nature of banking available today, which allows for the instant transfer of money overseas and out of reach, and the reality that, if given the opportunity, prescribed drug offenders will try to conceal their true assets from police. That was also covered in the podcast I referred to earlier.
By reducing the time banks have to respond to police requests for information, we aim to increase the ability of officers to quickly obtain information regarding criminal assets because our government understands the expectation of the community, which is that convicted criminals should not emerge from prison and have access to the economic proceeds of their crimes.
The AFP-led Criminal Assets Confiscation Taskforce, related to Operation Ironside, has so far restrained the assets of some of those charged to the tune of $64.6 million. This includes homes, jewellery, vehicles and cash. One alleged offender told the AFP, 'I can take going to jail, but don't take my house.' This really indicates the importance of the economic proceeds of criminal activity even over the prospect of prison time.
Criminal assets confiscation legislation will always be subject to ongoing reform due to the changing nature of criminal activity and its resulting economic advantages. It is an important addition to conviction-based legislative devices and provides another lever to tackle serious crime in our community, something that the Malinauskas Labor government takes very seriously. I commend this bill to the house.
