Mr HARDGRAVE(9.02 p.m.) —There are a number of reasons why I support the initiatives contained in the government's Proceeds of Crime Amendment Bill 1996. It deals with so many real issues—issues of crime, issues behind why I helped set up the Victims of Crime Association in Queensland and issues of importance to people in my electorate. Previous speakers have handled so many of the details associated with this bill extremely well, so I will not labour their points here.

Essentially, this bill will amend the Proceeds of Crime Act 1987 to enable the Commonwealth to go beyond its current boundaries in recovering the proceeds of crime from foreign countries, by establishing an international sharing program. We already have domestic cooperative arrangements in place between the Commonwealth, state and territory law enforcement agencies, but we also need to enhance this to include the international arena to simply help us catch more big-time crooks, particularly in the drug trade, and also to divest properly the proceeds of their crimes.

The successful passage of this legislation will enable the Commonwealth to receive the proceeds of crime from a foreign country, irrespective of whether or not a treaty or arrangement exists in relation to mutual assistance in criminal matters. It will also enable the Commonwealth to share the recovered proceeds of crime with a foreign country which has provided significant assistance in the recovery of the funds. Sharing the proceeds in this way will encourage greater cooperation between Australia and other countries in fighting crime. I suppose it could be likened to a spotter's fee as well as reward for efforts made on our behalf, as the honourable member for Bowman (Mrs West) said.

The bottom line is: we will be significantly better off than we have been, not only in recovering more of criminals' ill-gotten gains stashed away in other countries but also in increasing our own safety and security here in Australia. Simply put, the message is clear: crime will not pay; this government will not be soft on crime, as its predecessor was. Criminals will know they have been caught and justice will certainly be served.

As well as recovering more proceeds of crime from the international crime arena, this bill will achieve significant savings by transferring the net balance of the confiscated assets trust fund to the consolidated revenue fund. This will provide greater flexibility to the government. It will certainly continue to assist those affected and manipulated by crimes, particularly organised drug crimes. Those opposite have tried to paint a picture of the world coming to an end in this matter. It is quite simply not true, and I think the honourable member for Bowman put the case very well in her contribution.

It is calculated the savings to the budget as a result of this measure will be in the order of $7.246 million in 1996-97 and $1.875 million in each of the years thereafter to the year 2000. This is improved efficiency as well as improved effectiveness. The net balance of the confiscated assets trust fund is arrived at after deducting those payments which have been made for statutory purposes, such as payments under the equitable sharing program to the states and territories where the Commonwealth has recovered proceeds because of significant assistance from a state or territory law enforcement agency. It also includes payments made by way of restitution to innocent third parties. The effect of this bill will be twofold, and I expect both measures to produce positive results.

This bill also provides a federal-international arrangements version of what many of the victims of crime groups across Australia have sought for many years. I would like to broaden the debate to handle some of those matters. I do not think anybody in this place would dispute the fact it is fair enough to make criminals pay for their crimes and the hurt they have caused.

Criminals make a choice to commit a crime. I know some will suggest criminals are forced into crime by social pressures, and we have seen 13 years of such claims in this country. The fact of the matter is: criminals do ultimately make the choice to commit a crime and, as a result, they must be responsible for their action. Victims of crime do not have a choice. They are not going to choose to be a victim. It seems very fair to me: if criminals are caught they must pay for their crime both in prison sentences and fines—often these are suspended and commuted in such ways as to make the penalty structures imposed by the courts a joke—but they also must pay in many other ways. They should go on paying for crime by helping the victim because the victim ends up paying for the crime for the rest of their life.

I will not say, as others in this debate have said, the Labor government defeated on 2 March was especially soft on crime. But many people have said it already. There is certainly some basis to it, given the deteriorating social conditions in this country over the past 13 years.

My great concern is for victims of crimes especially those involving drugs, which this bill is directly addressing. I put the point simply—victims suffer for life. They suffer physical, emotional and societal scars. Victims, even those affected by crimes committed to pay for drug habits, such as break and enters, find it hard to trust their fellow man. Honourable members who talk to people in their electorates will be told, as a result of a break and enter into their home, victims have found it difficult to enter the home without all the lights being on first. They are always fearful of finding somebody on the premises.

Women say they rid themselves of all the underwear in their drawers as a result of a criminal rifling through their drawers looking for change, perhaps to buy drugs. I know of normal, very sane and rational people who have sought to buy guns in years past to try to defend themselves against crime, particularly drug related crimes. This very simple proposition can be supported: criminals get an early release out of the prison system while the victims go on suffering and do not get early relief from their part in the crime.

In 1988, I played a hand in helping to start the Victims of Crime Association in Queensland. Shari Davies and her father, Ian, were the main motivators behind this. Shari was the victim of a savage attack. She was left to die by a convicted rapist who had been released early from the Queensland prison system. This monster, Darren Osbourne, escaped Queensland authorities at the time. He went to Western Australia and killed a British tourist there in an attack similar to the one inflicted upon Shari. Osbourne is now in gaol, and I hope he never gets out.

Shari and I met in 1988 when she agreed to an interview with me about how victims' families are left high and dry by the system. Essentially, the victim has been regarded in Australian legal parlance as evidence only and not as a person. The effect of the crime on the victim's family does not even count. Police officers do a valiant job to try to help victims of crime and their families, but there were no established mechanisms 10 years ago in Queensland and no help groups.

The Victims of Crime Association in Queensland grew from this interview, much to the credit of my then boss, John Miller, who is still a highly regarded Brisbane radio journalist. John and I talked about Shari's concerns and rang the Davies's legal representatives the next day. We said we at Channel 7 would help to promote a victims of crime self-help group. John and I met further with Shari and her father, Ian, who is still the President of the Victims of Crime Association in Queensland.

I pay tribute to the work of the Victims of Crime Association in Queensland. They help victims and lobby governments. They have brought about changes to state laws. They would like some assistance from this place in bringing about a fairer deal for victims of crime. VOCA were awfully frustrated under the `promise everything but deliver not much' Goss government in the six years from 1989 to 1995. Some changes occurred, but it was like pulling teeth. The Queensland Attorney-General in the current government, my friend and colleague the Hon. Denver Beanland, is proceeding down the right path now.

Ian Davies works on the board of the Corrective Services Commission in Queensland. Despite the fact he has been so badly touched by crime himself in a personal sense, Ian is very generous with his time. He helps prisoners who have committed all sorts of horrendous crimes to understand the impact of their crime on victims, and Ian and VOCA give practical assistance to victims and their families. Shari is now married and is planning a life through the natural stages, as you would expect, but she has had a horrible time over the past decade. The physical scars are still there. Because of the strong family support and the focus on helping others, her emotional wounds are healing.

I raise this because I believe the Commonwealth needs to strengthen the principles of this bill further to ensure criminals within Australia contribute financially to helping victims. Whilst elements of this bill are based on domestic arrangements and we are dealing with international drug matters in the main, we as a federal government need to coordinate the various states far better by revisiting some of the domestic laws relating to financial penalties imposed on criminals to help authorities meet the cost of compensating and servicing the victims.

You have only to look at the inconsistencies inherent throughout the system. Every state seems to have a different statute, rule or regulation regarding the role of victims in crime and the recognition of victims. Look at the maximum punishment for manslaughter out of the Laws of Australia journal. It varies among the jurisdictions. In Queensland, the maximum punishment is life imprisonment with hard labour. This is under the Queensland criminal code. In the Northern Territory and South Australia, it is life imprisonment. In New South Wales, it is 25 years. In Tasmania, it is 20 years. It is 20 years in the Australian Capital Territory and Western Australia, and 15 years in Victoria.

The rules of this country are all over the place. The laws and penalties, and the impact on victims and the assistance offered to them are all over the place. While we are doing the right thing in looking at our international arrangements with countries we may or may not have treaties with, we have to look in our own backyard and consider we are not doing a sufficiently good job as a collection of governments in this country. States and territories need to be coordinated by the federal government, if necessary, to start bringing about some consistency in laws and the treatment of all Australians.

We do not need a central government law to bring about such matters. We do not need to pass a bill in this House to prescribe the penalty for manslaughter or drug trafficking as such. We need the federal government to bring the states together to nut out an agreement on penalties and proceeds from crime just as we gained agreement a few months ago on uniform national gun laws. The fact we were able to coordinate all the various egos and interests in different state and territory governments to come up with some universal law on this front suggests to me we are capable of achieving great things on other fronts and not just on a government only basis.

Criminals know very well they can commit a crime in one state with less risk and less penalty than in another. Victims are shocked when they find out what they thought was the case in their state did not apply in another state. They find they are left a little higher and drier, depending on in which particular state they have a crime committed against them. All of this must change.

While this bill goes down the correct road of addressing big ticket crime proceeds from crimes like international drug smuggling, which is a good thing, domestic crime matters cannot be allowed to continue in such an ad hoc way. As I said, if we are prepared as a federal government to restrict law-abiding gun owners with uniform national gun laws, as we did some months ago, then surely all of us in this place must agree the time is now right to put all of the states together and get some uniform punishment in place for the criminals.

The matters in this bill will go a long way towards making it tough on those who have committed crimes from one international country to this country. Matters in this bill will ensure we get good cooperation between other nation states which have an interest in ensuring they get some proceeds from certain crimes. This bill is all about international agreements and coordination. This is the right role of the federal government.

I think the concept of this bill needs to be extended further. I am glad the Attorney-General (Mr Williams) is in the chamber at the moment. I know he is listening to my words. I am sure we can talk about it as the next few months go by. It would be one of the better legacies of this Howard government to actually recognise decent Australians are being hurt by crime on an hourly basis. In fact, in the course of my speech, probably 10 or 15 crimes against innocent Australians have been committed. This is a frightening thought.

It is a frightening thought to think there is such poor coordination in this country, after almost 100 years of federation, individual states maintain laws which are inconsistent with other states. I am by no means a centralist, but I think the time has come for us to sponsor, in the true spirit of federation, the best practice from each of the states into the other states. If I can help contribute to this, then people like Ian and Shari Davies and members of the Victims of Crime Association in Queensland, which I am proud to be a member of and proud to have played a small role in starting, will be able to stand up and say, `We have got the sort of federal government we want.'

VOCA may lobby the state government more often than not, but I can promise the Attorney he will get a few letters from them as well, because they see the opportunity with the change of government to bring about a fresh look at some of the inconsistencies in laws across this country not just for victims of crime in Queensland but for the whole of Australia. In a federal parliament, we must be prepared to make laws which benefit all Australians and which treat all Australians equally. I believe the proposition I have put forward in the course of this debate on this Proceeds of Crime Amendment Bill is worth looking at. I commend the bill to the House.