Sometime Australian Prime Minister & MP for Cook, Scott Morrison, is the protector of religious freedom? Don't make me laugh

This was Australia’s most recent Liberal prime minister quoted in The Sydney Morning Herald on 17 September 2018:

Prime Minister Scott Morrison will enact "preventative regulation and legislation" to shield freedom of religion from future enemies, giving his strongest hints to date about the government's intentions regarding "religious freedom" laws.

What a load of codswallop, manure, dung, heifers dust, cowpats, meadow cocktails – what ABSOLUTE BULLSH*T!

The Liberal Member for Cook Scott Morrison already knows that the Australian Constitution without qualification guarantees religious freedom in this country at federal level:

COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA CONSTITUTION ACT - SECT 116

Commonwealth not to legislate in respect of religion

                   The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth. [my yellow highlighting]

As the Australian Constitution is the highest source in the land on this issue, one can only suspect that:

a) Scott Morrison has never read the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act (as amended up to 1977); or

b) Scott Morrison is shamelessly pandering to his far-right, ideologically blind & bigoted supporter base, in the hope of being re-elected in 2019.

He appears to forget that Australia has also ratified a number of UN resolutions which directly or indirectly protect religious freedom and these have been upheld by the courts.

While he ignores the fact that Tasmania has had a religious freedom provision written into its state constitution since 1934 and Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, the Northern Territory as well as the ACT have passed legislation prohibiting direct and indirect discrimination on the ground of religion. Only South Australia appears to have no legislation specifically covering religious freedom to date.

Morrison also forgets that whatever legislation he forces through this parliament, or whatever regulations he imposes, can all be undone in the first instance by subsequent federal parliaments and in the second instance by the minister of the day.

If he really wants to genuinely strengthen existing religious freedoms he would call a referendum to change the Australian Constitution.

Even a callow first-year-in-parliament politician knows that when state law is in conflict with federal law it is federal law which usually prevails and, if either is in conflict with the Constitution it will be the Constitution which prevails.

Having well and truly politicised his own faith Morrison may in fact be creating his own "future enemies" - he has all but guaranteed that someone will take his legislation and regulations to the High Court of Australia - where every word, phrase and punctuation mark will be studied closely.

The Morrison Government continues to internally haemorrhage

“On the local scene since the day of winning preselection in 2012, the local, self-determined senior Liberal has been leaking damaging material to the media and having publicity stunts that are completely against federal policy initiatives. And more recently he approached friends asking me to nominate my retirement date and then he'd call off his people.”  [Liberal MP for Gilmore Ann Sudmalis in House of Representatives Hansard, 17 September 2018, p.103]

As a Liberal Party candidate Ann Sudmalis was elected to the House of Representatives for Gilmore, New South Wales, in 2013 and 2016.

At 63 years of age with 5 years of parliamentary service behind her, it now appears the boys club has stack her home branch and attempting to squeeze her out as the Liberal Party’s preferred candidate at the next federal election in 2019.

The NSW boys club's preferred candidate is former Australian Federal Police sergeant, sometime public servant and now real estate agent Grant Schultz (left), son of the former member for Hume Abby Schultz.

This will be the son's second try to become the Liberal candidate for Gilmore and as not uncommon for male Liberal candidates he appears to have a bit of a past.

His mentor NSW Liberal MLC Gareth Ward appears to suffer from a similar image problem.

Ann Sudmalis told parliament on 17 September that; "I endeavoured to hold my decision in private until after the Wentworth byelection. Unfortunately, that is now not possible."

Prime Minister Scott Morrison endeavoured to do likewise.

A policy which was spectacularly unsuccessful....

Illawarra Mercury, 17 September 2018:

Federal Liberal MP Ann Sudmalis will not contest the next election after last ditch pleas by Prime Minister Scott Morrison for her to stay on, failed.

Ms Sudmalis, who holds the southern NSW coastal seat of Gilmore by just 0.7 per cent, has told The Australian Financial Review that she informed Mr Morrison at a meeting on Monday that she was withdrawing her nomination for preselection.

She did so after she lost control of her local federal electoral conference (FEC) when it was stacked by forces aligned to local state Liberal MP Gareth Ward.

While Ms Sudmalis believed she was still likely to win her preselection against challenger Grant Schultz, she said she would have been unable to work with the people stacked into her FEC, many of whom had no campaign experience.

"I can't work with the team there anymore, they don't know the electorate well, they don't know how to campaign."

SBS News, 17 September 2018:

In a statement to her electorate, Ms Sudmalis blamed one of her "state liberal colleagues" for her decision.

"The [Liberal] has been leaking damaging material to the media .. and has been unfair and unethical," she said.

"My decision has been made after six and a half years of holding my pledge to be a team player in the face of NSW Liberal Party bullying, intimidation, leaking and undermining."

ABC News, 18 September 2018:

"I've been contending with undermining and leaks at the local level for five-and-a-half years and it's been a slow, steady, aggravating, annoying process," she said.

In a statement, Ms Sudmalis went even further.

"My decision has been made in the face of NSW Liberal Party bullying, intimidation, leaking and undermining at a local level," she said.

Party insiders say Ms Sudmalis has a "toxic relationship" with New South Wales Liberal MP and party powerbroker Gareth Ward, and believe he has been behind the campaign to unseat her.

She makes reference to an unnamed "local self-determined senior Liberal" who she claims has been "leaking damaging material to the media and holding publicity stunts" that are "unfair and unethical".

But in a statement, Mr Ward said he had "enjoyed" working with Ms Sudmalis on local projects.

"I wish her and her family all the best for their retirement and look forward to working with her successor," he said….

Ms Sudmalis said she wrote to Mr Morrison last week telling him she wanted to withdraw her nomination, but that he refused to open the letter until yesterday.

"When he did open it, he was pretty disappointed," she said….

The Liberal MP said the final straw came when she lost her campaign team the weekend after the change in Liberal leadership.

"My fundraising committee, my campaign committee, my friends were all outvoted at the AGM," she said.

"It means my core group of people who've been my support for six years have been replaced."

Ms Sudmalis was facing a preselection challenge from local real estate agent Grant Schulz and while she believed she could still win, she said she simply "can't work with the team that's there currently".

"It's just ludicrous that these people have been put in this position," she said….

Ms Sudmalis's announcement will not only affect the Coalition's chances at the next election, it will also further reduce the number of women in Liberal Party ranks.

Victorian MP Julia Banks is not recontesting the next election, Queensland MP Jane Prentice lost preselection, South Australian senator Lucy Gichuhi has been relegated to an unwinnable spot on the state's ticket and there is an expectation former foreign minister Julie Bishop may also be stepping down from her blue ribbon seat in Perth.

* Photograph from the South Coast Register.

A sign of increasing desperation on Australian Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton's part?

After threatening to bring into the House of Representatives files he kept on members of parliament when he Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Minister for Home Affairs and Liberal MP for Dickson Peter Dutton made sure two particular files were very visible on 11 September 2018.

Images found on Twitter

After he quoted from these files the Opposition requested that they be tabled. A request Dutton refused.

The SPEAKER: The memberfor McMahon on a point of order? Mr Bowen: The minister appeared to be quoting from documents in two folders. Could I ask him to table both folders? TheSPEAKER: Does the minister have confidential material with him? Mr DUTTON: Yes.

Watching these files deployed prior to and during Question Time, in what looked suspiciously like a form of visual intimidation, did little to enhance Dutton's defence of his own actions as immigration minister in 2015.

Dutton doubles down in a very public fight

“Grooming is when someone builds an emotional connection with a child to gain their trust for the purposes of sexual abuse, sexual exploitation or trafficking. Children and young people can be groomed online or face-to-face, by a stranger or by someone they know - for example a family member, friend or professional.”  [National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, 2018]

The Canberra Times, 11 September 2018:

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has dramatically escalated his attack on Roman Quaedvlieg, claiming the former Border Force commissioner "groomed" a woman 30 years his junior.

Mr Dutton also said Mr Quaedvlieg – who has emerged as a key figure in the high-profile saga surrounding the Minister's interventions in visa matters – was Labor's Godwin Grech, a reference to the former Treasury official whose misleading evidence in the "Utegate" scandal helped destroy Malcolm Turnbull's first stint as Liberal leader.

On Tuesday, amid ongoing scrutiny of Mr Dutton's conduct, Fairfax Media reported he pressed Mr Quaedvlieg in 2014 to help two Queensland policemen get jobs in the newly formed Border Force.

In response to questions from Labor in question time, the Home Affairs Minister said Mr Quaedvlieg was spreading lies.

"This smear is coming from the former Australian Border Force commissioner, a man who was, as commissioner, sacked from his position. He was a man who had groomed a girl 30 years younger than himself. He is discredited and disgraced," Mr Dutton said.

Mr Quaedvlieg, 53, was sacked from Border Force earlier this year after he was found to have helped his younger girlfriend, Sarah Rogers, reportedly 22 years old, get a job within the agency.

"He is somebody that the Labor Party should not rely on. A lot has been promised to the Labor Party  but it's clear to me that Roman Quaedvlieg is your Godwin Grech."

Mr Quaedvlieg immediately responded to the attack, saying they were "curious, stuttering, rambling comments". He noted Mr Dutton was making the comments under parliamentary privilege, protecting him from legal action.

"Grooming? Are you serious? That has a legislative meaning. Is that what he meant?" he said on Twitter.

Quaedvlieg has since written to the Speaker of the House of Representatives complaining that Dutton has abused parliamentary privilege.

The Dutton allegations......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhPorZ3tWoo

Kevin Hogan's political backflip

On Thursday 23 August 2018 Kevin Hogan MP for Page announced that; “This constant rotation of Prime Ministers by both the Labor Party and the Liberal party, I cannot condone. I am announcing today, that if there is another leadership spill for the position of Prime Minister prior to the next Federal election, I will remove myself from the government benches and sit on the cross benches.”

A second leadership spill occurred on Friday 24 August 2018 and parliament went into recess.

Kevin Hogan was nowhere near the cross benches when the Australian Parliament resumed on Monday 10 September 2018.

He is still a fully-fledged member of the Parliamentary National Party.

Still a National Party Whip.

Still Deputy Speaker in the House of Representatives.

This was Kevin Hogan on the morning of 10 September firmly ensconced in the Speaker’s Chair.

At 12:15 on the same day Hansard shows that Kevin Hogan voted as a Nationals MP against a motion by the Labor Opposition.

Hogan's official statement included an undertaking that  he was going to be an independent in a similar style to former MP for O'Connor Tony Crook*.

However Tony Crook's parliamentary entry looks like this....

and Hogan's looks like this.....

Not even a pretence of the announced independence on Hogan's part.

NOTE

* Tony Crook was elected as a WA National Party candidate in August 2010 but sat as an Independent MP for less than three years before retiring prior to the September 2013 federal election. He never sat in the Coalition party room and apparently only attended the Nationals party room for a brief period towards the end of his parliamentary career.
Crook voted with the Gillard minority government on numerous occasions.

Berejiklian Government accused of timber fraud on NSW North Coast

North East Forest Alliance (NEFA), 27 August 2018:

 The North East Forest Alliance has accused the NSW Government of fraudulently claiming a shortfall in high quality logs available from State Forests in north-east NSW to justify their wind-back of environmental protections and intention to log oldgrowth forest and rainforest.

NEFA today released a review of timber yields and modelling for north-east NSW over the past 20 years that has identified a number of serious problems with yield estimations and allocations from the region that will be referred to the Auditor General.

"The most significant issue revealed is that the Government has removed hardwood plantations from yield calculations to concoct a yield shortfall to justify removing environmental protections, while apparently intending to reallocate plantation timber to low value products for export" says report author Dailan Pugh.

"According to the Government's data there is absolutely no need to log oldgrowth forests, or to remove other existing environmental protections to satisfy current timber commitments.

"The Natural Resources Commission (NRC) turned an identified surplus of 37,000 cubic metres per annum of high quality sawlogs from State Forests in north-east NSW over the next hundred years into a claimed deficit of 8,600 cubic metres per annum by simply excluding hardwood plantations from their calculations.

"The NRC's claim that 'it is not possible to meet the Government’s commitments around both environmental values and wood supply' is based on a lie. Nowhere do they identify that they excluded plantations. They did this to create the pretence of a shortfall.

"Plantations already provide some 30,000 cubic metres(14%) of high quality hardwood log commitments per annum, with yields projected to increase up to 75,000 cubic meters of high quality logs per annum into the future.

"NSW Taxpayers have spent $27 million just since 2000 establishing hardwood plantations explicitly to provide high quality logs to take the pressure off native forests.

"It is outrageous that the Government has excluded plantations to concoct a shortfall in timber from State Forests in order to justify increasing logging intensity, reducing retention of habitat trees, removing protections for numerous threatened species, halving buffers on headwater streams, as well as now opening up oldgrowth forest and rainforest protected in the Comprehensive Adequate and Representative (CAR) reserve system for logging.

"The Government recently issued an Expression of Interest for 416,851 tonnes per annum of low quality logs from north-east NSW, of which 219,000 tonnes (53%) is apparently to be obtained by downgrading all timber from the 35,000 ha of north-east NSW's hardwood plantations to low quality logs and committing them in new Wood Supply Agreements aimed at the export market.

"Three NSW Environment Ministers (Parker, Stokes and Speakman), along with the Environment Protection Authority, repeatedly promised that the new logging rules (Integrated Forestry Operations Approval) would result in no net change to wood supply, no erosion of environmental values, and no reductions in the CAR reserve system.

"Instead of honouring their promises, in a blatant ploy the Government has changed the wood supply, by surreptitiously excluding plantations, to justify erosion of environmental values and reductions in the reserve system.

"NEFA calls upon the NSW Government to honour their promises by reinstating the intended role of plantations in providing high quality sawlogs to take the pressure off native forests, and to use the resultant timber surplus to reinstate the environmental protections they are intending to remove", Mr. Pugh said.

Port News, 28 August 2018:

I noticed in the report by the NSW Government DPI’s principal research scientist, Dr Brad Law, which was published in the Port News on August 1that he claims recent audio recordings of male koalas in the hinterland of our state forests revealed evidence of up to 10 times the previously estimated occupancy.

Well obviously if this was the first time audio study of male koalas in the breeding season had been carried surely finding any koalas at all would be an increase in findings. The Australia Koala Foundation showed that one male koala 'Arnie' a dominant male occupied a home range of 43 hectares in area so no doubt the study took precautions to not record the same koala in other of the 171 sites.

Each site however did not always record even one or two scats. The evidence proves only 65% of the 171 sites tested held one koala and the scats do not prove in any way a home colony had even once existed at these sites.

Dr Law rejoices that in his study that heavily logged, lightly logged and old growth forest areas showed similar results which seemed to suggest that logging of our NSW State Forests has no effect on koala numbers.

Really?

In a study by the recognised koala expert, Dr Steve Phillips, commissioned by our own PMHC he found that most of the suitably sized koala food trees have already been logged out.

So WTF do they eat?

This no harm heavily logged forest claim by Dr Law will get a real test soon when the NSW Government introduces intensive logging in “Regrowth B” area. A map obtained under GIPA by the North Coast Environment Centre indicates 142,818 ha. of our north coast state forests between Taree and Grafton will be clear-felled.

Any small trees left will be hauled away to the soon be established Biomass Plants at Taree, Kempsey and Grafton and now it seems a new “renewable energy” diesel manufacturing plant at Heron’s Creek. “Renewable” meaning over the next 100 years.

Any regrowth in the intensively logged forests will likely be sprayed and Blackbutt monocultures planted.

Oh, and so no damage is done to the forest populations of koalas and protected animals and plants small clumps of forest will be left.

How a male koala will roam to the next paradise island of the living dead to breed without being attacked by wild dogs or run over by logging trucks is not discussed in the literature.

Even Dr Law did not bother to defend his government’s offset scheme which will according to evidence presented at the PMHC Koala Roundtable result in local extinction of koalas in the Port Macquarie local government area…..

Peter Dutton and the French au pair

On 17 June 2015 then Australian Minister for Immigration and Border Protection & Liberal MP for Dickson Peter Dutton overturned a departmental decision to classify the holder of an e-Visa as “an unlawful non-citizen” - allowing Alexandra Deuwel entry into Australia and supplying her with a tourist visa despite her declaration that she intended to work during her stay.

Linkedin entry retrieved 28 August 2018. It has since been removed from public view

The Australian Government has unsuccessfully attempted to hide details of the minister’s decision.

The Guardian, 3 August 2018:

The Australian government spent more than $10,000 in taxpayer cash fighting a legal battle to keep documents secret about the home affairs minister Peter Dutton’s decision to save two foreign au pairs from deportation.

The visa status of the two unknown young women has been in the spotlight since March, when it was revealed that Dutton used his powers of ministerial discretion to grant them visas on public interest grounds.

In the first case, an au pair whose visa was cancelled at Brisbane’s international airport in June 2015 was able to make a phone call and within a couple of hours the minister approved a new visa.

In November the same year, Dutton defied written warnings from his own department that granting a visa to a second au pair was of “high risk” because she had been previously counselled about work restrictions.

Dutton insists he doesn’t know the two individuals involved and that they didn’t work for his family.

The Guardian, 28 August 2018:

The home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, saved an au pair from deportation, intervening after the AFL’s chief executive officer, Gillon McLachlan, raised the young woman’s case.

Guardian Australia understands that a French woman named Alexandra Deuwel was detained at Adelaide’s international airport late on 31 October 2015.

Her tourist visa was cancelled at the border because there were suspicions she intended to work and she had previously been counselled over visa conditions during an earlier stay in Australia.

Deuwel had previously worked for McLachlan’s relatives Callum and Skye MacLachlan in South Australia and was returning to visit them. Callum MacLachlan is joint managing director of the cattle and sheep company Jumbuck Pastoral.

An AFL official, who works for Gillon McLachlan, is understood to have contacted Dutton’s chief of staff, Craig Maclachlan, on behalf of Callum regarding the former au pair’s situation. Although related to Gillon McLachlan, Callum’s side of the family spells its name differently. Craig Maclachlan is not related to either Callum or Gillon.

On the eve of a ministerial visit to Zaatari, a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan, Dutton was alerted to the case, by Craig Maclachlan. He used his discretion powers under the Migration Act to grant the young woman a tourist visa on public interest grounds within 24 hours of her arrival. The visa was granted on the condition she undertake no paid work.

In freedom of information documents released on Tuesday to the ABC, Dutton gives his reason for Deuwel’s visa allowance.

“Having regard to this person’s particular circumstances and personal characteristics, I have decided to exercise my discretionary powers under section 195A of the (migration) act as it would be in the public interest to grant this person a visa.

“In the circumstances, I have decided, that as a discretionary and humanitarian act to an individual, with ongoing needs it is in the interests of Australia as a humane and generous society to grant this person a visitor visa (subclass 600) for a period of three months.”….

A former department official said what horrified frontline airport personnel most about the au pair cases was that their decisions were being “overruled so quickly and at such a senior level for such a trivial matter”….

On 28 August 2018 this article was amended. A previous version said it was not known whether Craig Maclachlan was related to relatives of Gillon McLachlan. Peter Dutton’s office has since said they are not related.

Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton issued a somewhat choleric response to media reports on 28 August 2018:

On 23 August 2018, the Senate referred the allegations concerning the inappropriate exercise of ministerial powers, with respect to the visa status of au pairs, and related matters to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee for inquiry and report by 11 September 2018.

Who do we blame as matters go from bad to worse over the next eight months in Australia?

The country is being crippled by the effects of drought and basic food prices will soon begin to rise, while at the same time wages growth remains stagnant. Cost cutting by successive Coalition federal governments is impacting service delivery on everything from health and welfare through to national broadband connectivity.

The federal government is still a policy-free zone with regard to energy and climate change due to toxic infighting between members of the Liberal Party of Australia which, along with its coalition partner the National Party, has an ideological inability to drag itself into the 21st century to face the consequences of ongoing land degradation and water insecurity.

Australia now has a new prime minister, but this situation is unlikely to change as the hard right remains holding the reins of government.

The next federal election is still over eight months away. 

So who do we blame for the situation the country finds itself in between now and the election?

Take your pick.......

According to News.com.au this is the list of federal parliamentary members of the Liberal Party of Australia who voted to bring on the leadership spill of 24 August 2018:

1. Andrew Hastie

2. Tony Pasin

3. Craig Kelly

4. Michael Sukkar

5. Kevin Andrews

6. Tony Abbott

7. Ian Goodenough

8. Nicolle Flint

9. Peter Dutton

10. Jason Wood

11. Ross Vasta

12. Luke Howarth

13. Rick Wilson

14. Ted O’Brien

15. Zed Seselja

16 Greg Hunt

17 Steven Ciobo

18 Angus Taylor

19 Alan Tudge

20. Michael Keenan

21 Andrew Wallace

22 Scott Buchholz

23 Jim Molan

24 Slade Brockman

25 Dean Smith

26 Jane Hume

27 Mitch Fifield

28. John McVeigh

29. David Fawcett

30. Amanda Stoker

31. Jonathon Duniam

32. David Bushby

33. James Paterson

34 Eric Abetz

35. Concetta Fierravanti-Wells

36. James McGrath

37. Mathias Cormann

38. Michaelia Cash

39. Karen Andrews

40. Andrew Laming

41 Ben Morton

42. Sussan Ley

43. Warren Entsch

Nationals MP for Page Kevin Hogan tries to straddle the Coalition fence by becoming a Faux Independent after the new Morrison Government is sworn-in

The political situation in Australia thus far this week..............

You can't get any more blunt than @murpharoo's assessment of #libspill -

"The Government is killing itself in plain view ... It doesn't matter who wins because they're stuffed" pic.twitter.com/1HazIUyd06

— News Breakfast (@BreakfastNews) August 22, 2018

Thinking to hedge his bets in a toxic political environment and remain in the federal parliament beyond the forthcoming federal election, Kevin Hogan sent out this media release on 23 August 2018: 

STATEMENT FROM KEVIN HOGAN

This constant rotation of Prime Ministers by both the Labor Party and the Liberal party, I cannot condone.

 I am announcing today, that if there is another leadership spill for the position of Prime Minister prior to the next federal election, I will remove myself from the government benches and sit on the cross benches.

 I have made this decision because my community is fed up. What we have been seeing in Canberra with leadership changes over the last 10 years, is letting our great country down.

This is not about Peter Dutton, Malcolm Turnbull or Kevin Hogan, it is about the Office of Prime Minister.

I remain 100 per cent committed to delivering for my community. I remain committed to the National Party.

If this occurs, I will still attend National Party meetings if invited. I will not attend Coalition Party Room meetings.

 I will support the Government in No Confidence Motions and Supply.  Any other legislation I will take on a case by case basis.

The model I intend to follow is similar to what the Western Australian National, Tony Crook did.

I will continue to focus on what my community has sent me here to do. I thank them for their overwhelming support. [my yellow hightlighting]

Hogan has been in the federal parliament and a member of the Abbott & Turnbull Coalition governments for almost five years and in that time has never voted against Liberal-Nationals party policy.

What Hogan is doing with this media release is taking a hollow stance.

He fully intends to support the new Liberal Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Nationals Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack.

An arrogant new prime minister with a history since 2013 of human rights abuses as Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, of welfare recipient bashing as Minister for Social Services, of relentless cost cutting as Treasurer and as a strong supporter of propping up the rich at the expense of low income families.

“Sneaky laws which declare you as guilty in the eyes of the law the minute the police say you are guilty” - Turnbull Government legislative overreach continues in 2018?

Sydney Criminal Lawyers, 16 August 2018:

A Senate committee has just given the Turnbull government the green light to nationalise a scheme that allows government to seize citizens’ assets unless their legitimate origins can be explained, even if the owner of the wealth hasn’t been charged with let alone convicted of an offence.

On 6 August, the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee recommended that the federal government pass the Unexplained Wealth Legislation Amendment Bill 2018 without any changes.

Unexplained wealth laws currently exist in every Australian jurisdiction, but the new scheme provides a broader model allowing for federal and state authorities to work in collaboration across jurisdictional borders to target serious and organised crime.

“The scale and complexity of this criminal threat has necessitated an enhanced focus on cooperative, cross-jurisdictional responses by Australian governments,” home affairs minister Peter Dutton said in the second reading speech of the bill.

However, critics of the scheme warn that existing unexplained wealth laws undermine the rule of law and broadening their scope will lead to a further erosion of civil liberties. And while these laws are meant to target untouchable crime bosses, they’re actually being used against petty criminals.

Presumption of guilt

“These beefed-up laws bring down all the secret surveillance and the swapping of scuttlebutt masquerading as intelligence on everyone in Australia,” Civil Liberties Australia CEO Bill Rowlings told Sydney Criminal Lawyers.

“The unexplained wealth laws completely overturn the presumption of innocence, which is part of our rule of law in Australia,” he continued. “They are sneaky laws which declare you as guilty in the eyes of the law the minute the police say you are guilty.”

Unexplained wealth laws are a recent development in Australia. But, unlike other proceeds of crime laws that allow for the confiscation of assets derived from prosecuted criminal acts, unexplained wealth places the onus upon the individual to prove their wealth was legally acquired.

“People don’t understand, under these laws the government can confiscate your assets even if you haven’t been found guilty of anything,” Mr Rowlings stressed.

Broadening the reach

The current Commonwealth unexplained wealth laws were introduced in 2010 via amendments made to the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Cth) (the Act).

These laws apply where there are “reasonable grounds to suspect” an individual’s assets have been derived from a committed federal offence, “a foreign indictable offence or a state offence that has a federal aspect.”

There are three sorts of orders that can be sought in relation to unexplained wealth. Section 20A of the Act provides that a court can issue an unexplained wealth restraining order, which is an interim order that restricts an individual’s ability to dispose of property.

Section 179B of the Act allows for the issuance of a preliminary order, which requires a person to appear in court to prove their wealth is legitimate. And under section 179E, an order can be issued requiring that the payment of an amount of wealth deemed unlawful be made to the government.

The new legislation amends sections 20A and 179E, so that these orders can be issued in respect to relevant offences of participating states, as well as in relation to territory offences. Relevant state offences will be outlined in state legislation that enables participation in the national scheme.

Sharing it around

The legislation broadens the access authorities have to an individual’s banking information in relation to an unexplained wealth investigation.

Section 213 of the Act allows certain authorised Commonwealth officers to issue access notices to financial institutions. This provision will now be extended to states and territory law enforcement agencies.

Proposed section 297C of the Act outlines how federal, state and territory governments will divvy up the seized wealth. A subcommittee will be established to distribute the money. And while any state that opts out of the scheme will be eligible for a share, it will be a less favourable amount.

The legislation also makes amendments to the sharing of information provisions contained in the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979.…..

Backdoor revenue raising

The NSW government has already introduced legislation into parliament, which enables that state to participate in the national scheme. The legislation sets out that the relevant offences the laws apply to are set out in section 6(2) of the Criminal Assets Recovery Act 1990.

NSW police minister Troy Grant told parliament that the legislation allows the state to refer matters to the Commonwealth, which then authorises the Australian federal police to use certain NSW offences as a basis for the confiscation of unexplained wealth.

But, Mr Rowlings states that the nationalising of the scheme will actually streamline a process that sees the unwarranted confiscation of wealth to prop up government coffers.

“The cash seized is paying for extra government lawyers to help seize more cash,” Mr Rowlings made clear, “so it’s a devious upward spiral where more and more unconvicted people will have their assets taken, and then have to prove their innocence or the government gets their assets.”

Read the full article here.