Law Enforcement in Australia an International Perspective
© Commonwealth of Australia 2002
ISBN 0 642 71541 6 |
Introduction
One of the Committee's statutory functions is to examine
trends and changes in criminal activities, practices and
methods and to report to Parliament any change which the
Committee thinks desirable to the functions, structure,
powers and procedures of the National Crime Authority
(paragraph 55(1)(d) of the National Crime Authority Act
1984).
It is widely acknowledged that one of the more substantial
changes in major criminal activity over recent decades has
been its internationalisation, assisted by rapid improvements
in transport and communications systems. The need for an
international law enforcement effort was recognised as early
as 1923 when the International Criminal Police Commission was
established in Vienna. Since 1956 the task has been
undertaken by the International Criminal Police Organisation,
otherwise known as Interpol.
Following Committee member, Mr Paul Filing's, visit to Interpol's headquarters
in Lyon, France last year the Committee was provided with an opportunity
to meet and hold discussions with Interpol's Secretary General, Mr Raymond
Kendall QPM, when he visited Australia in December 1996. Discussion with
Mr Kendall traversed various topics, some of which are summarised in this
report. He raised several issues which, if they are not already under
examination, the appropriate authorities are urged by the Committee to
now give priority consideration.
The International Criminal Police Organisation (Interpol)
Interpol is an intergovernmental organisation of 178
member countries, making it the second largest international
organisation after the United Nations. It has no operational
role, which is the responsibility of the relevant national
police forces. Mr Kendall emphasised that Interpol's role is
to 'provide the tools for international cooperation amongst
police services' (Evidence, p. 3).
The main function of the General Secretariat located in
Lyon, with a staff of 350 people, is to manage a secure
global telecommunications system for conveying information
about suspects, criminals and criminal activity. Each member
country determines what information it will place in the
Interpol system and which other member countries are able to
access that material.
Interpol also maintains a database of people who carry out
criminal activity of an international nature. The database
currently holds material on some 250,000 people, enabling
Interpol's officers to conduct analytical work on crime
trends, on the actions of certain groups and individuals, and
the links they might have with other individuals. An officer
of the Australian Federal Police currently heads Interpol's
drugs operation.
The President, Vice Presidents and the Secretary General
are elected by an annual General Assembly of member
countries. A broadly-based Executive Committee is also
elected to deal with the development of policy.
Representation on the Executive Committee is allocated by
continent, and Australia is part of the ASEAN 'continent'.
Australia's relations with Interpol
Australia coordinates with Interpol through the Australian
Federal Police (AFP) in Canberra. The positive benefits of
this relationship were demonstrated during January 1997 on
two notable occasions: with the arrest in South Africa of Mr
Phillip Bell, who was sought in relation to evidence given at
the NSW Police Royal Commission; and the tracing in Australia
of Mr Clifford Harris, a British murder suspect.
The National Crime Authority (NCA) also benefits from the
AFP's access to Interpol, channelling requests for overseas
information through its International Liaison Officer, based
in its Sydney office. The AFP also has Liaison Officers
stationed overseas who provide a conduit to local agencies
and who can help with NCA investigations. The AFP states that
'the efforts of the liaison officer network complements the
activities of the Interpol NCB (National Central Bureau)
which handles the more formal exchange of police information
and requests at the international level' (AFP Annual Report
1995-96, p. 24).
While Australia is represented at Interpol General
Assembly meetings, Australia has never had representation on
Interpol's Executive Committee. Mr Kendall expressed the view
that somebody from Australia would be 'most appropriate on
the executive committee' (Evidence, p.8).
Mr Kendall also stressed that the ASEAN continent is an
enormous area, and that cooperative action at a more regional
level in the south-east Pacific area would be desirable. The
NCA has also noted the need to develop a practical
methodology at the operational level with overseas agencies
to facilitate the coordination of information sharing and
investigations themselves if a significant impact is to be
made on South-East Asian organised crime in Australia,
especially narcotics trafficking (NCA Annual Report 1995-96,
p. 51).
The Committee suggests that any initiatives which increase
Australia's readiness and capacity to confront the
ever-increasing threat of international criminal activity,
especially from within the immediate region, should be given
serious consideration. Australia can demonstrate its
successful use at a domestic level of interagency cooperation
in achieving positive outcomes and the expansion of this
framework to overseas agencies can only be beneficial. The
Committee recommends:
Recommendation 1: That the
Australian Government promote the appointment of an
Australian representative to the Executive Committee
of the International Criminal Police Organisation;
and |
Recommendation 2: That the
Australian Government take a leading role in the
development of cooperative arrangements between law
enforcement bodies in the south-east Pacific region. |
Law enforcement and security
With the passing of the east-west threat to international
security, the distinction between the activities of the
security agencies and the law enforcement activities is now
somewhat blurred. This is most clearly demonstrated in the
case of terrorism, where both police and security services
tend to be involved. This issue is of particular concern in
the lead-up to the Sydney Olympic Games.
Mr Kendall noted that the essential issue is interagency
cooperation. He said:
We have allowed ourselves to get into some
difficulty...in terms of cooperation between the
interests of the security service, on the one hand,
[which] may not necessarily be the same as, and very
often are different from, those that would be normal
for...the criminal police side of things. So...it can
be part of the problem.
We all recognise that if you want to deal
with the problem of international terrorism you must
exchange as much information as you possibly can
relating to the activity of terrorists. The security
services have a tendency to want to develop their
intelligence and to keep it to themselves, so you
have a contradiction in terms of interest, in my
opinion. We have to work very hard at getting across
that contradiction (Evidence, p. 9).
Mr Kendall stressed that the key issue in the lead-up to
the Olympics is prevention and that every effort should be
made to ensure that information of a preventative nature is
freely distributed between relevant agencies, even to the
point of removing legislative barriers to such free exchange.
This Committee is not well placed to comment on the levels
of cooperation between Australia's law enforcement agencies
and its security agencies, largely because of the constraints
of its statutory duties. It is possible that Mr Kendall's
concerns about agencies protecting their 'patches' may apply
in Australia, however. The Committee simply notes that there
is no mention of the NCA or the AFP in the annual report of
the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), nor
is ASIO mentioned in either of the NCA or AFP annual reports.
On the face of it, this is not an encouraging sign of
interagency cooperation. On a more positive note, however,
the Committee is reassured to observe that policy advice on
national and protective security and law enforcement matters
is undertaken from within the same division of the Federal
Attorney-General's Department.
This is an issue which the Committee will take up with the
NCA at the earliest opportunity. The issue will similarly be
raised with ASIO by a Committee member who is also a member
of the Joint Committee on ASIO. The Committee sees the need
for priority attention to be given to this issue by all
Australian governments.
Recommendation 3: That the
Australian Government take steps to ensure that there
are no legislative barriers which would inhibit the
free flow of information and intelligence between
security and law enforcement agencies. |
Electronic commerce
An area of increasing concern is the opportunities
provided by modern systems of electronic commerce, such as
smart cards, and telecommunications systems, such as the
Internet, for money laundering and fraud to be successfully
conducted beyond the reach of traditional national laws.
Mr Kendall noted that such issues were often addressed by
the passage of national laws when, essentially, only an
international approach can address such international
problems. In this respect he noted that international
conventions, such as the United Nations adoption in 1988 in
Vienna of the Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic
Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, laid the basis for a level
of international cooperation. Problems have still arisen,
however, with the practical implementation of such
conventions when countries do not act promptly to adapt their
national legislation to meet the requirements of the
convention.
Mr Kendall was somewhat sceptical of the pursuit of money
laundering in isolation, which he suggested was of the order
of $450 billion per annum worldwide. He described money
laundering investigations as 'time consuming, manpower
consuming and extremely difficult' (Evidence, p. 16). Part of
the problem is that money launderers use the same methods
that are used by the legitimate business community, such as
the use of tax havens, and the long term solution to money
laundering rests in the somewhat unrealistic notion of
changing the way business is done.
In fact, Australia had already fulfilled the majority of
its obligations under the Vienna Convention when it became a
signatory in February 1989. The Commonwealth and the States
had enacted legislation to criminalise money laundering and
to provide for the confiscation of the proceeds of crime.
Extradition and Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters
legislation had been enacted by the Commonwealth. The Crimes
(Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances) Act 1990
was passed by the Commonwealth to fulfil obligations under
the Convention in relation to extraterritorial offences.
A subsequent report of the Financial Action Task Force
(FATF) in 1990, which had been established by the G7 in 1989
to address the abuse of the financial system by those
involved in the drug trade, led to further remedial measures
being taken by Australia. The then Chairman of the NCA, Mr
Tom Sherman, served a term as Chairman of the FATF.
Whether more needs to be done in Australia to address the
law enforcement considerations in the new era of electronic
commerce has been the subject of a recent study by the
Electronic Commerce Task Force, chaired by the Director of
the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre.
Release of the Task Force report is imminent and the
Committee will examine it with interest.
Immigration issues
Interpol has naturally always had an interest in
monitoring the movements of known or suspected criminals.
Somewhat surprisingly, however, Mr Kendall informed the
Committee that his organisation had only started to examine
the issue of immigration in the past two or three years. The
major issue that has come to its attention has been the
involvement of organised crime in the movement of people
between countries, with large sums of money being made by the
provision of false papers or corruption of officials to
obtain genuine papers, and related activities.
Mr Kendall noted that increasingly his organisation is
being asked to provide information on applicants for
political asylum, because of criminals seeking to use that as
an excuse to gain status in a preferred country. He noted
that Australia is receiving considerable immigration from
Asia and, while noting that only 10% of crime is
international, suggested that we should not neglect the
potential for growth of this international aspect of crime in
association with increased immigration.
The operation of ethnically-based organised crime is well
recognised in Australia, as is its role in the immigration
program. For example, the February 1994 Report of the
Review of Commonwealth Law Enforcement Arrangements
recommended that the NCA have a strategic and/or coordination
role in respect of 11 matters, all but three of which were
ethnically based. The Committee collated a summary of the
state of knowledge in its February 1995 discussion paper
Asian Organised Crime. In particular, it noted that the
Australian Federal Police had raised in September 1994 its
'considerable concerns about the possibility of organised
crime interests in Japan extending into Australia' in its
submission to the Joint Standing Committee on Migration's
Inquiry into Australia's visa system for visitors.
This is another matter which falls outside the Committee's
statutory terms of reference. It is certainly an issue to
which considerable attention has been paid by the Joint
Standing Committee on Migration and by the Parliament itself
in performing its legislative role. The Committee shares Mr
Kendall's concerns that this issue should not be neglected
and that Australia should not be complacent about the
potential risks that accompany large scale immigration
programs. The message, once again, is that the maximum
international cooperation on information exchange is one of
the best defences against misuse and corruption of
Australia's important immigration program.
Paedophile activity
The Committee's continuing interest in and concern about this topic follows
the publication of its report in November 1995 entitled Organised
Criminal Paedophile Activity. Mr Kendall was asked whether
Interpol was active in this area. In fact, Interpol has had a special
international working group looking at organised paedophile activity since
1992. The establishment of the working group preceded the more recent
events in Belgium that highlighted the nature of the problem and raised
the level of public interest.
Mr Kendall stated that 'it has now been recognised,
because of those (Belgian) cases, that this is a serious
international problem' (Evidence, p.20). The Committee was
reassured that the issue is now receiving the close attention
it deserves and that Interpol is taking a leading role in
helping member countries to deal with the elimination of
organised paedophile activity.
Mutual assistance
The final matter raised with Mr Kendall was one of
particular interest to one member of the Committee, Mr Paul
Filing MP. Mr Kendall was asked for his reaction to the
measures adopted by the Australian Government generally to
refuse (unless the Attorney-General determines that special
circumstances otherwise apply) to provide assistance to
another country where it relates to the prosecution or
punishment of a person charged with or convicted of an
offence in respect of which the death penalty may be imposed.
This has been Government policy following the carriage of the
Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights at the UN General Assembly in
December 1989, a protocol which was aimed at the abolition of
the death penalty.
Mutual assistance is, of course, one of the most effective
ways by which countries can cooperate to counter
transnational crime, especially drug trafficking and other
forms of organised crime. Because of his concerns about its
capacity to constrain the fight against international drug
trafficking particularly in relation to several South-East
Asian countries where the death penalty applies to
drug-related offences, Mr Filing moved an amendment to
aspects of the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters
Legislation Amendment Bill 1996, the intention of which was
to put beyond doubt Australia's policy in this respect. This
matter was debated at length in both the Main Committee and
the House of Representatives on 21 August 1996. Mr Filing's
amendment was negatived.
Mr Kendall noted that, while he could understand a refusal
to extradite in a case where the requesting country might
apply the death penalty, he found the application of the
policy to the exchange of information less easy to
understand. As is apparent from the discussion above, it is
clear that Mr Kendall believes in the principle of the
maximum exchange of information between law enforcement
agencies. Had Mr Kendall been fully apprised on the
Australian situation, his comments suggest that he would have
given support to Australia's policy on mutual assistance,
which provides a greater discretion for assistance to be
provided in circumstances where charges have not been laid in
a foreign country.
John Bradford MP
Chairman
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