Criminal Assets Confiscation (Review Recommendations) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 18 March 2025.)

Mrs PEARCE (King) (16:16): It is a pleasure to be able to rise to speak on the Criminal Assets Confiscation (Review Recommendations) Amendment Bill today. This is a bill that keeps the act effective and efficient by supporting the aim of the scheme to both hit commercial drug offenders where it hurts the most, that being their hip pocket, of course, and then using these seized funds to be able to help address the social issues that their profiteering impacts.

I myself have been a victim of crime a couple of times now in my adult life, one of those being a home break-in many, many moons ago before I had children. It happened in the middle of the day. It was one of those things where someone came through the front door, grabbed what they could and left.

The second time had a bit more of an impact on myself and my family. It was when we were in the midst of moving and someone actually broke into my car and took what they could. Unfortunately, I had all my office works and gear in there at the time and a personal laptop was taken from that car. That laptop actually had a lot of personal photographs and videos of family members who are no longer with us, and also photos and videos that I cannot get back unfortunately.

I know firsthand how important it is not only to ensure that justice is sought but to also be comforted in the knowledge that the actions that have been taken act as a deterrent against future behaviours occurring and repeating themselves, and also so that others do not feel incentivised to take up such behaviours, knowing full well the impact they can have on an individual family and the community alike.

Community safety is something that I engage with my local community on quite regularly, as to what we need to be doing to make it as safe and comfortable as possible and for it to be one of the best places to live and raise a family. We have suggestions raised on a plethora of areas: from having more police presence out on the beat, which is something we are certainly working very hard towards, to ensuring that the laws we have in place are adequate and reflective of what is being experienced in communities, but just as importantly ensuring that they are acting as a deterrent and as a lesson for those who may be considering those behaviours in the first place.

Just as importantly, I have been really pleased to hear from local communities as to the piece around rehabilitation as well, addressing why these behaviours are occurring in the first place and looking to break down those systematic failures that are being experienced in local communities and the like.

When we come to think about crimes in the sense of what we are looking at today through the recommendations of this bill regarding commercial drug offenders, time and time again we hear that there needs to be a really clear message sent that there is not short-term pain and long-term gain for those entering into this behaviour. We want people to think twice about dabbling in the first place, and we certainly want to make it very clear that there are harsh penalties should they take this behaviour up.

If they are going in for a short period of time or are being penalised quite minimally, they are more likely to return later on, knowing full well that the benefits and the assets they have are waiting on the outside for them as well. So we are now working where we can to help to break that down and to make a very strong stance that you lose everything if you go down this avenue and that you do not get to benefit from other people's pain and misfortune through the actions and behaviours that you are undertaking. We have done some work in this space previously, having seen through a number of recommendations coming out of the review, which include amendments that:

provide that home detention is within the definition of government custody;

clarify that property can be under the effective control of a PDO, even if it is subject to a restraining order; and

clarify that forfeited property can also be destroyed.

Going back to where we are today, there are a number of procedural amendments in this bill, including the scope of freezing orders placed on banking accounts that belong to offenders, as well as a reduction in the timeframes that banks have to respond to notices from police with information as to the assets they hold in relation to PDOs. This comes in response to the fact that things happen instantaneously these days: funds and the like can move around very quickly, which makes it a lot harder to be able to achieve efficient processing in these cases and also for justice being sought as efficiently and promptly as possible.

It comes in response to the instant nature of banking, which has occurred since the beginning of this act in the mid 2000s. As I have stated, money can be transferred very quickly, both inside and outside of our country, and PDOs will do so to try to conceal their true assets and to avoid justice being sought.

Similarly, a new power to demand answers from offenders regarding legitimate third party interests in any confiscated assets forms part of this bill, to be able to ensure that the property of innocent parties is protected whilst not sending law enforcement on a wild goose chase in following up warrantless claims made by the PDOs. We certainly do not want to accidentally capture people who have had no involvement in the behaviours that have taken place and are being investigated, recognising full well that this can be quite a destructive process for those who are caught out in that process.

As I have said a couple of times, these amendments seek to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the scheme. That includes the delegation of certain powers from the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions to the Chief Recovery Officer of the Fines Enforcement and Recovery Unit, and an amendment that will allow the costs of administering the act to be taken from forfeited assets prior to the remainder being placed into the Justice Rehabilitation Fund.

I want to focus on this a little bit further. As I mentioned earlier, one of the key priorities that has been reflected from my community is about what we do, not only in terms of penalising someone and making it as much of a disincentive as we possibly can but also in terms of making sure that we have an eye on rehabilitation to do what we can to help break the cycle of crime and the occurrences that are happening. To have these funds coming into such a fund is really going to help many within the community—victims and perpetrators alike—to help break the cycle that is being experienced, and it will lead to the road of recovery where it possibly can. This is identical to how assets are seized from other non-drug offenders and used to pay administration costs prior to being placed into the Victims of Crime Fund.

The Justice Rehabilitation Fund is a dedicated fund for the provision of programs and facilities for the benefit of offenders, victims and other persons that will help aid further crime prevention and rehabilitation strategies. There are a lot of great programs out there across our state, with a wide range of focus and support being provided. It is nice to know that there will now be funds going through to help support these causes all across our great state.

The bill does also clarify that simultaneous convictions will be taken into account for the purpose of the definition of a 'prescribed drug offender', which does echo the reasoning of the Supreme Court of South Australia in the matter of the Director of Public Prosecutions and Donnelly. Several noncompliance penalties under the act are increased in this bill. By doing so, we are recognising that often it is high-value assets that are being dealt with and penalties need to be able to reflect a punitive outcome.

Following feedback from SAPOL, it also extends the time for police to return property that is initially seized but does not become the subject of a forfeiture order and can be returned to the owner from 25 to 60 days. This is really important because we want to ensure there are thorough investigations that take place, that all i's are dotted and t's are crossed, but also ensure that we are taking on board the feedback we have heard from SAPOL. They are on the ground. They are the ones who have been working in this realm and are able to recognise where there are improvements that can be made and it has certainly been reflected in this bill that we have before us today.

As I mentioned earlier, this bill keeps the Criminal Assets Confiscation Act effective and efficient. It supports the aim of the scheme to both hit commercial drug offenders where it hurts the most and to use these seized funds to address the social issues that their profiteering impacts. I know firsthand that it is something the local community I represent is happy to see reflected in terms of the work that we are doing in this place and we thoroughly look forward to seeing the impact it has in local communities all across our state.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Premier, Minister for Climate, Environment and Water, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Minister for Workforce and Population Strategy) (16:26): I am pleased to close the debate on this and I will not speak for long, but I would like to add some thoughts about the way in which crime and drug taking are so inextricably linked in our society because that really is the context for this bill which is seeking to not only deter people from being engaged in the supply of drugs but remove the reward for so doing and also use the assets that have been amassed to be invested in rehabilitation work and several of the speakers have given some detail about that work.

I just had a look at some of the studies that have been done on the deadly relationship, the harmful relationship, between drugs and crime. There was a study done in the US some time ago that drew on a number of nations but had this to say about Australia. In 2004, a survey was done of arrested individuals in Australia. Eighty-two per cent of them had a drug abuse history, 69 per cent had abused drugs within six months of having been arrested and 62 per cent said they were frequent drug abusers. So, all too often, if you are involved in drugs, you are likely to end up in court and then in prison.

Of course, the majority of those criminal charges relate to drug use, but close behind are property crime, fraud and violence. These are crimes that affect people who have nothing to do with drugs and therefore it engages all our interest in reducing the amount of drug use in our community.

In more recent data, there is also in Australia an illicit drugs reporting system, which is intended to identify emerging trends of local and national concern in illicit drug markets. It consists of annual interviews across Australian jurisdictions with people who inject drugs and then it analyses the information that comes from the trends that emerge from those interviews.

But what struck me in reading about this was that for 2024, so just for last year, of those on that reporting system 44 per cent had engaged in criminal activity. So in an attempt to have a survey of people who are engaged in heavy drug use, in class A drug use, 44 per cent had engaged in criminal activity and 28 per cent of them had engaged in property crime. This just underscores that concern that it is not simply because drugs are illegal necessarily that people taking drugs are likely to get caught up in the criminal system but in fact it is because drugs require such a change in your lifestyle and so much money that often people fall into other forms of crime. With that I would like to underscore again the importance of this piece of legislation. It is a short bill but a very powerful one.

I would like to acknowledge and credit the work done by the Attorney-General, his office and the department, members of whom are here in order to offer guidance should that be necessary. The work that they do in trying to make our community safer and healthier is honoured and respected by this chamber and I therefore commend this bill to the house.

Bill read a second time.

Third Reading

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Premier, Minister for Climate, Environment and Water, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Minister for Workforce and Population Strategy) (16:30): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.