Senator FERRIS (2:56 PM) —My question is to the Minister for Justice and Customs. Will the minister advise the Senate of the implications of the recent agreement between the Commonwealth and the states and territories to establish the Australian Crime Commission? Can the minister please tell the Senate how this new body will enhance the fight against organised and serious crime in Australia?

Senator ELLISON (Minister for Justice and Customs) —That is a very good question from Senator Ferris, who has had a longstanding involvement with the parliamentary Joint Committee on the National Crime Authority. This is a very important question in relation to fighting organised crime in Australia today. At the last election, it was part of the Howard government's platform to have a leaders summit and to carry out a review of the NCA. This was done and, in April this year, the Prime Minister agreed with premiers and chief ministers that there should be a new Australian Crime Commission and that it should replace the current NCA.

On 9 August we agreed with the states and territories to have a new national crime-fighting body that for the first time will bring together law enforcement agencies at the Commonwealth level, such as ASIO, ASIC, Customs, the AFP and the Attorney-General's Department, and all the police commissioners from the states and territories. This is a very important initiative because it brings together for the first time those major law enforcement stakeholders in the nation to fight organised and transnational crime. As well as that, this new body will have the same coercive powers as the NCA. We will ensure, though, that those same safeguards are in the legislation to protect the exercise of those coercive powers and that they will not be exercised by policemen. The commission will also have a chief executive officer, something the NCA did not have. This new body will be more streamlined and will not have the cumbersome reference system that the NCA had.

As a first initiative, this new body will have a task force set up to look into the supply of illegal hand guns in Australia. That is of great concern particularly in New South Wales and the Commonwealth government will play its part in relation to that very important issue. We are seeing a new federal approach to law enforcement at the national level. We have a more streamlined body that will be devoted to intelligence gathering and intelligence analysis and that will have its own in-house task force capability of investigations. As well as that the Commonwealth, in partnership with the states and territories, will agree to having task forces for any new references that this body deems appropriate.

This body will determine those national priorities for intelligence gathering and investigation because we will have on that board the police commissioners from all the states and territories, and the Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police will chair the board. We will have ASIC there to deal with corporate governance, which we hear the opposition talking about so much. We will have the Australian Customs Service, which does a very good job looking after Australia's borders, and we will also have security interests being looked after by ASIO. We have learned the lessons from last year, where in America the left hand needed to know more about what the right hand was doing. We will have that in place with this new body.

As a result of the leaders summit that was called by the Prime Minister, laws will be agreed to within a year in relation to police powers. We will have a mutual recognition so that, when police are investigating a matter in another state, it will not be a case of the sheriff getting to the border and waving the baddie goodbye. We will have mutual recognition of police powers. We will also have model laws in relation to money laundering and DNA. This will lead to a truly national approach to fighting organised crime and transnational crime. This new Australian Crime Commission will be the body to lead that fight. It is a result of the initiative of the Howard government.

Senator Hill —Mr President, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.