COMMITTEES
Senator POLLEY (Tasmania) (16:47): I move: That the Senate take note of the report on the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission annual report 2024-25. I rise as Chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement to present the committee's report examining the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, ACIC, annual report for 2024-25. I am pleased to report that the committee is satisfied with the performance of the ACIC.
No major issues of concern were identified in this annual report examination. The ACIC fully met nine of its 11 targets and substantially met its two remaining targets. Detailed explanations for the ACIC's results were provided in the annual report.
As Australia's national criminal intelligence agency, the ACIC's purpose is to protect Australia from serious criminal threats by collecting, assessing and disseminating intelligence and policing information. Its key achievements in 2024-25 included the generation of 2,002 new products and dissemination of intelligence products 12,500 times to 291 agencies; the delivery of reliable and effective national policing information systems; the processing of over 7.26 million police checks—the highest volume since this system was established; the introduction of a new national automated fingerprint identification system; and the continued expansion of the National Criminal Intelligence System.
The committee recognises the work of the ACIC in continuing to upgrade the information systems relied on by policing agencies around the country. The committee is pleased that the National Continuous Checking Capability for working-with-children and police checks will introduce a real-time checking capability as opposed to the point-in-time checks. The committee looks forward to seeing this capability becoming operational.
The committee acknowledges the continued progress and uptake of the National Criminal Intelligence System. The committee notes that every state and territory is consuming information from the system and that some jurisdictions are working to address quality issues before feeding information into the system. The committee understands that the platform is assisting law enforcement agencies in their frontline operations.
The next phase will be to integrate historical data into the NCIS and expand access to this information. The committee will continue to monitor progress of this project. Since 2024, the ACIC has been developing the National Firearms Register.
The project is expected to take four years and will streamline information between jurisdictions to help make Australia safer. The committee understands that the ACIC is accelerating the delivery of the register by the end of 2026 so that jurisdictions can integrate into the central component as a matter of priority. The committee commends the ACIC for its efforts in relation to staff wellbeing, retention and recruitment.
The committee is pleased to report that the ACIC is attracting high volumes of high-calibre applications through its recruitment processes. Staff wellbeing has also increased from the year prior, and the agency saw a significant improvement in its attrition rate from December 2024 to December 2025. Overall, the committee is pleased with the performance of the ACIC.
The committee has monitored and reviewed the performance of the ACIC since 2010. From 4 June 2026, this oversight role will transfer to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. While we are a little sad about losing the oversight role, there needed to be a change in this parliamentary oversight, and it will still be appropriate for ACIC to provide written submissions or appear before the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement at public hearings for inquiries relating to serious and organised crime.
As such, the committee looks forward to continued engagement with the ACIC. I commend, along with the committee members, their work and thank the officers of the ACIC for their important contribution to reducing the harm to Australia from transnational serious and organised crime. I commend the committee's report to the Senate.
I appreciate, as I said, both the AFP and the ACIC, who do their job every day to keep Australians safe. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Scarr ): Thank you, Senator Polley. I also note your longstanding service on that committee and the important work of that committee.
Question agreed to.