Cat Barker
The 2019–20 Budget contains several new expense measures
relating to law enforcement, crime prevention and national security.
Additional funding for national
security agencies
The most significant expense measure is additional national
security funding for the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and the Australian
Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), the bulk of which will go to the AFP.
The AFP
will receive an additional $512.8 million over five years from 2018–19
(including $50.8 million in capital funding) to ‘enhance critical
capabilities and operations, including counter-terrorism activities’. Announcing
the additional funding ahead of the Budget, the Minister for Home Affairs
noted that the agency was ‘conducting seven times more counter terrorism
operations and monitoring eight times the number of people of interest’
compared to five years ago. The additional funding is intended
to support the management and monitoring of persons of interest, help the
agency address the risks posed by returning foreign fighters and terrorist prisoners
due for release, enhance its ability to operate offshore to combat the threat
of foreign fighters attempting to return to Australia, and fund new and
enhanced technology, including anti-drone systems.
ASIO
will receive an additional $58.6 million in 2019–20 (including
$17.7 million in capital funding, most of which had already been provided
for) to ‘sustain current operations and undertake preliminary work to further
enhance its future operations’.
Countering foreign interference
In recent years, ASIO has warned of increasing threats from
espionage and foreign interference in Australia, stating in January 2018 that the
volume and scale of these threats is unprecedented, owing to ‘the
exponential rise of cyber as a vector’ and Australia’s increasing
interconnectedness with the rest of the world. The National Security
Legislation Amendment (Espionage and Foreign Interference) Act 2018 (EFI
Act) updated Australian espionage offences and introduced new foreign interference
offences intended
to capture certain conduct that ‘falls short of espionage but is intended
to harm Australia’s national security or influence Australia’s political or
governmental processes’. The
Budget includes $34.8 million over four years for work by the AFP,
ASIO, the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, the Attorney-General’s
Department and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to counter foreign
interference, including through investigation and prosecution of offences under
the EFI Act and establishment of a joint AFP–ASIO Foreign
Interference Threat Assessment Centre.
Safer Communities Fund
The Safer Communities Fund was first
established in 2016, implementing an election
commitment to ‘boost the efforts of identified local councils and community
organisations to address crime and anti-social behaviour by funding crime
prevention initiatives’; and to protect organisations ‘facing security risks
associated with racial or religious intolerance’. Funding of $31.9 million
for round four grants was included in the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal
Outlook 2018–19. The Budget
includes additional funding of $23.1 million in 2019–20 for round four
grants, announced
in the wake of the Christchurch terror attacks, and $35.1 million over
four years for round five.
Confiscated Assets Account funding
The Budget allocates $21.6 million
over four years from 2018-19 from the Confiscated Assets Account
(established under the Proceeds of Crime
Act 2002) to the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC), the
AFP and the Department of Home Affairs ‘to fund crime prevention and law
enforcement initiatives’. This follows the provision of $24.8 million
from that account in the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook 2018–19
to those agencies and the Australian Institute of Criminology, Australian
Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) and the Department of Foreign
Affairs and Trade for the same purpose. The Budget papers, however, did not
include detail about the distribution of funding across agencies and
departments, or the specific initiatives being funded, for either allocation
from the Confiscated Assets Account.
Other measures
The Budget also includes:
- funding for the Home Affairs portfolio as part of a
$337.2 million whole-of-government package to support the National Drug
Strategy 2017–2026 (establishment
of a Commonwealth Illicit Drugs Joint Agency Taskforce was announced in the
Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook 2018–19, with the cost of the
measure to be met from within the existing resources of participating agencies
and departments), specifically:
- $130.8 million
for the AFP (including $7.1 million in capital funding)
- $11.5 million
for ACIC (including $4.8 million to continue the National
Wastewater Drug Monitoring Program) and
- $9.7 million
for the Department of Home Affairs
-
funding to ‘enhance cyber security arrangements for
whole-of-government systems’ ahead of the upcoming election and ‘mitigate
potential cyber threats through enhanced monitoring and response capabilities’
(Neither the agencies nor the funding amount are disclosed, but the Australian Cyber Security Centre is part of
the Australian Signals Directorate and also includes staff from ACIC, the
AFP, ASIO and the Defence Intelligence Organisation.)
- $28.4 million for AUSTRAC to expand the Fintel Alliance, a
public-private partnership launched
in March 2017 that brings together 19 government and private sector
partners, including the major banks, Western Union and Paypal to identify and
disrupt money laundering and terrorism financing and
- $7.8 million for ACIC to establish and host a publicly
available National Public Register of Child Sex offenders (the Government
announced in January 2019 that it had commenced consultation
with state and territory governments on such a register).
Budget position of key agencies
Excluding unfunded depreciation of $84 million, the
AFP recorded a deficit of $45 million in 2017–18, due partly to
‘higher operational costs in response to a heightened threat and response level
and higher investigative activity’, despite additional funding of
$321.4 million over four years in the 2017–18 Budget to support high-priority
operations. The AFP’s
total resourcing was estimated to decline by around 2.6 per cent year-on-year
in the 2018–19 Budget. Additional funding provided in the Mid-Year
Economic and Fiscal Outlook 2018–19
(including under a significant cross-portfolio funding package to increase
Australia’s engagement in the Indo-Pacific) and 2018–19
Portfolio Additional Estimate Statements mean that the AFP’s total
resourcing is now
estimated to have increased by around 3.5 per cent from 2017–18
to 2018–19.
The AFP’s total resourcing is estimated
to increase slightly year-on-year to 2019–20 (by $6 million or 0.3 per cent),
as is the AFP’s average staffing level (by 312 or 4.8 per cent). In
total, budgeted expenses for the federal policing components of the AFP are estimated
to increase slightly over the forward estimates (with Federal Policing and
National Security increasing, and International Policing Assistance
decreasing). However, they will both decline in real terms once forecast
changes to the CPI are taken into account (see figures 1 and 2).
Figure 1: budgeted expenses
for Federal Policing and National Security, raw and adjusted figures
Source: Australian Government,
Portfolio budget statements 2019–20: budget-related
paper no. 1.10: Home Affairs portfolio, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, 2019. CPI
adjusted figures are based on the 2019–20 Budget forecasts, expressed in
2018–19 equivalent dollars.
Figure 2: budgeted expenses
for International Policing Assistance, raw and adjusted figures
Source: Australian Government,
Portfolio budget statements 2019–20: budget-related
paper no. 1.10: Home Affairs portfolio, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, 2019. CPI
adjusted figures are based on the 2019–20 Budget forecasts, expressed in
2018–19 equivalent dollars.
ASIO’s
total resourcing was estimated to decline by around 1.4 per cent year-on-year
in the 2018–19 Budget; but is now
estimated to have remained stable from 2017–18 to 2018–19. Its total resourcing
is estimated
to increase slightly year-on-year to 2019–20 (by $8.9 million or
1.6 per cent), as is ASIO’s average staffing level (by 107 or
5.8 per cent). As with the AFP, ASIO’s budgeted expenses are estimated
to increase slightly over the forward estimates, but to decline in real terms once
forecast changes to the CPI are taken into account (see Figure 3).
Figure 3: budgeted expenses for
Security Intelligence, raw and adjusted figures
Source: Australian Government,
Portfolio budget statements 2019–20: budget-related
paper no. 1.10: Home Affairs portfolio, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, 2019. CPI
adjusted figures are based on the 2019–20 Budget forecasts, expressed in
2018–19 equivalent dollars.
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