Ports and organised crime under the Senate microscope
The Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia
The Senate
19 October 2009
Australian Crime Commission
Acting Chair: Welcome, Mr Lawler. Do you have any opening remarks you would like to make to the committee before we go to questions?
Mr Lawler: No, I do not.
Acting Chair: Thank you.
Senator Xenophon: Mr Lawler, one of the 17 recommendations made in the 2005 report by Sir John Wheeler into Australia’s airports was that the ACC establish:…a unit on aviation and airport criminality to collect, collate, and analyse relevant information on criminal behaviour, and to produce regular reports, including Criminality Assessments at least quarterly. You are obviously familiar with Sir John Wheeler’s report, Mr Lawler.
Mr Lawler: Yes, I am.
Senator Xenophon: Can you advise the committee of when a criminality assessment was last conducted latest report. The nature of the ACAT is to work with other agencies within the aviation context and provide strategic intelligence assessments, which are done on a regular basis. But I will have to take on notice the date of the last report.
Senator Xenophon: You say these are done on a regular basis. Does that mean they are quarterly, as recommended by Sir John Wheeler?
Mr Lawler: I understand the reports are regular. I will need to take on notice whether there is a report each quarter and the date that the last report was made.
Senator Xenophon: But you agree with the recommendation? If Sir John Wheeler says they ought to be quarterly, that makes sense in terms of having that follow-through and that ongoing monitoring?
Mr Lawler: There are a range of intelligence capabilities within the aviation environment. The ACC’s ACAT role is one of strategic intelligence, which is in a way part of the picture at a strategic level. With strategic documents, the regularity of those is not as important, because they are dealing with a long-term strategic issue, so I do not know that I would altogether agree with that, but I am aware that the ACAT has provided regular reports. As I said, I will need to take on notice the timing of those.
Senator Xenophon: Sir John Wheeler also commented on the lack of an ongoing mechanism to regularly collate and assess the threat of crime and criminality at major airports. It was recommended that Customs, the AFP and state and territory police consistently input timely data into the ACC’s Criminal Intelligence Database. Is this occurring?
Mr Lawler: The answer to the question is yes, it is -
Senator Xenophon: How regularly?
Mr Lawler: The reports are updated regularly into the ACID/ALEIN system. This is done by those agencies you identified and also by other agencies. I do have details of uploads to ACID/ALEIN that I could provide to you, but they are not broken down specifically by aviation type; albeit it would be possible, with some effort, to identify those within the many, many thousands of uploads to the ACID/ALEIN system. If I can aid you in the quantum of that: in 2008-09 there were over 700,000 uploads of information to that system by 3500 ACID users, there were over 650,000 data searches conducted, and over 3.2 million new entity records were created by users. So we have very significant amounts of intelligence being contributed by a wide array of agencies that the ACC works in partnership with, but it would be quite a task to identify, by agency and by type, which of those relate to specific aviation events.
Senator Xenophon: Can you just clarify, would these uploads also include information on our ports in terms of security issues?
Mr Lawler: Yes, they would. The information that is uploaded - those 700,000 uploads of information - relate to the full spectrum of serious and organised crime and criminality within Australia.
Senator Xenophon: Further to the issue of our ports, it has been claimed in a report by GHD consultants into the maritime security identity card scheme that the reason Australia’s ports remain exposed to organised crime elements is because the existing security regime ignores the criminal intelligence held by the ACC. Would you agree with that assessment by GHD?
Mr Lawler: I have not seen the GHD report. All I can say in response to that is that the ACC did undertake a significant piece of work looking at crime in the transport sector, which was approved by the ACC board. That work was undertaken between November 2005 and June 2008. As a result of that work, we produced 349 maritime intelligence products and 86 formal aviation intelligence products. That information, at both a tactical level and a strategic level, was provided to those agencies that it was relevant to, including law enforcement agencies and the relevant Commonwealth policy agencies.
Senator Xenophon: So you have not seen the GHD report, which was prepared for the Office of Transport Security. Is that right?
Mr Lawler: I have not seen the report, but I understand that the agency has seen a draft of that report.
Senator Xenophon: You do not think that a report referring to quite serious security issues and organised crime issues in our ports is something that is worthy of your direct attention?
Mr Lawler: The reality is that security and serious and organised crime is a very important issue and worthy of my attention and receives my attention. What I did say was that that particular report, the GHD report, I have not personally seen. Indeed, the work of the ACC, both in producing its crime in the transport sector determination and report and the work of the department through a number of working groups which are looking to advance that particular report, I am satisfied is providing the ACC attention and input into what is a serious issue, yes.
Mr Jordan: The GHD report, as I understand it - and my colleagues might correct me if I am wrong here - is a report that has gone to the department of infrastructure. That department is organising the response to that report and is responsible for consultations with both industry and other government agencies. So I suspect the ACC might not be the central focal point here. The handling of that report and aspects of the report might be questions best directed at that department.
Senator Xenophon: As I understand it, a three-year intelligence operation by the ACC which has been recently released revealed that organised crime figures had infiltrated Australia’s docks and airports. An example given was associates of outlaw motorcycle gangs and other crime groups working at major airports, including the vice-president of the Outcasts motorcycle gang having a Commonwealth security pass and working as an airport baggage screener. In terms of the ACC’s role with respect to other agencies, what role do you see it playing to ensure that people who pose a risk to security at our docks and airports are not working at them? That is one of the issues that were raised by Mr Kessing in his report to customs a number of years ago.
Mr Lawler: I again reinforce what the role of the ACC is. Following authorisation by its board of particular determinations under the ACC Act, the ACC then investigates those determinations. One of those was the crime in the transport sector determination, which is the document you are referring to and relates to the findings you are referring to. That particular determination, as I have said, ran for three years. It involved significant intelligence collection. Our role was to collect intelligence, to factually understand what crime there was in the transport sector and, indeed, to disseminate that intelligence to relevant agencies at a state level, where tactical interventions in relation to known criminals could be undertaken. That work has been completed and those determinations have been made. Indeed, it provided the final crime in the transport sector report to the relevant policy agencies - namely, as the Deputy Secretary of the Attorney-General’s Department has indicated, the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government and also the Attorney-General’s Department. The ACC in its intelligence role has since been working with both the department of infrastructure and the Attorney-General’s Department in relation to the policy responses.
Senator Xenophon: The maritime security identification card, or MSIC, scheme, is something that the ACC has had input into in terms of the integrity of that scheme. Is that correct? What role has the ACC played in relation to the formulation of that scheme?
Mr Lawler: As part of the crime in the transport sector determination, issues around the maritime security identification card and the aviation security identification card of course came up, but the work of the ACC was not focused on those particular cards or those systems or processes. They were the subject of, as I understand it, a review by the department of infrastructure, as I indicated earlier.
Mr Wilkins: It might be useful if I indicate how the system works. The architecture for the scheme and the criteria that are applied for the issuing of such certificates are a matter for the department of transport and infrastructure. So the policy is set by the department of infrastructure.
Senator Xenophon: But don’t the input into the bricks and mortar for that architecture rely in part on various other agencies, including the ACCC?
Mr Wilkins: I am just coming to that. AusCheck, in my department, actually carry out the checks and issue certificates based on the criteria that are set by the department of transport, and they draw on criminal intelligence from places like CrimTrac - and I think there are now reports also coming from ASIO. That is where the criminal intelligence comes in. Someone who failed to get one of those certificates, they would need to be judged against criteria that are set by the department of transport. That is why I think the critical issue in some ways is the design of the scheme and then the implementation of the scheme is partly a matter for my department and partly a matter for drawing on the intelligence that we have from various criminal sources.
Senator Xenophon: Given the quite damning OTS report prepared by GHD about a number of fundamental flaws with the current maritime security identity card, including ‘a range of offences and behaviours that are known to have linkages with terrorist activity and the unlawful interferences with maritime transport and offshore facilities’, is there a problem with the design or in the implementation?
Mr Wilkins: I think it is partly a problem about what criteria you use - in other words, what offences you include in the list. You need to understand that this grew out of what was essentially an antiterrorism measure and now it is becoming something which we would contemplate using for other purposes. So it is sort of expanding its remit. And the government of course has a wider concept of wider security than simply counterterrorism. So it is in the set of criteria that you set for the sorts of offences that would disqualify you from getting a certificate which is the key question. I do not know whether the deputy secretary wants to add something.
Mr Jordana: No, that is perfectly right. Following on from that, I just want to note that the infrastructure minister has announced a review of those very criteria. The criminal history criteria - the criteria that determine whether or not someone gets a maritime security identity card - are being reviewed as we speak, and the results of that review are expected relatively shortly.
Mr Wilkins: And we are having input into that review. Input from bodies such as the ACCC into that review come via this department into that process.
Mr Lawler: I would like to provide a little more detail, Senator, to your question about the aviation criminal assessment team and just advise that it was formed in February 2006 and to date has disseminated 33 formal intelligence products to partner agencies.
Senator Xenophon: Thank you.
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