Senate Inquiry into Financial Related Crime: Public Hearing Submissions Made
Thursday 23 October 2014 @ 1.58 p.m. | Crime | Trade & Commerce
After recent public hearings in Canberra (8-10 September 2014), the Senate Inquiry in Financial Related Crime has released further documents relating to additional questions raised in the hearings.
Terms of Reference of Inquiry
The Joint Committee's terms of reference is that it will examine the effectiveness of current Commonwealth law enforcement legislation and administrative arrangements that target serious and organised financial related crime including money laundering and identity fraud.
The committee will more specifically examine:
- the character, prevalence and impact of financial related crime in Australia;
- the methods and practices used by the perpetrators of financial related crime (including the impact of new technologies);
- the involvement of organised crime;
- in relation to money laundering—the large number of high denomination banknotes in circulation;
- in relation to identity fraud—credit card fraud in particular
- the operation and effectiveness of Commonwealth legislation, administrative arrangements and law enforcement strategies;
- the role of the Australian Crime Commission and the Australian Federal Police in detecting financial related crime;
- the interaction of Commonwealth, state and territory legislation and law enforcement activity;
- the extent and effectiveness of relevant international agreements and arrangements; and
- the need for any legislative or administrative reform; and
- any related matters.
Once submissions closed on 9 May 2014, there were 22 submissions received to the inquiry.
Role of the Committee and Preliminary Results
The role of this committee is to monitor and review the performance of the ACC and the AFP as well as undertake parliamentary supervision of Part 2-6 and section 20A of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (relating to unexplained wealth provisions).
The Australian Crime Commission provided an unclassified submission and will appear before the Committee during the 2014/2015 public hearings. Their submission focused on the impact serious financial crimes have on Australia and the essential role of information sharing between government agencies to combat the most pervasive financial crimes.
The Attorney General also provided a submission indicating that financial crime represents a broad range of activity including money laundering, tax crime, foreign bribery, corporate crime, fraud, scams and corruption and their focus was on Australia’s anti-money laundering regime. Their submission also made special mention of issues of identity security and crime and terrorism financing.
Finally, the submission from the ASIC, the primary law enforcement agency for financial crime in Australia, focused on their regulatory role and the types of criminal case studies and examples for which they have been responsible.
Submissions are closed but the remaining public hearings are taking place into 2015.
TimeBase is an independent, privately owned Australian legal publisher specialising in the online delivery of accurate, comprehensive and innovative legislation research tools including LawOne and unique Point-in-Time Products.
