Crimes and Other Legislation Amendment (Omnibus No. 1) Bill 2026

Senator GREEN (Queensland—Assistant Minister for Tourism, Assistant Minister for Pacific Island Affairs and Assistant Minister for Northern Australia) (12:52): Thank you, Senator McKim. For completeness, I might just respond to a few comments that you've made so you have the government's view on record. I just want to begin with the issue you raised around purity of substances.

The government doesn't accept the characterisation that you've put forward that this is somehow targeting what I would characterise as the personal use of illicit substances. Commonwealth drug offences are concerned with the importation, trafficking, cultivation or manufacture of commercial, marketable and trafficable quantities of illicit substances. Commercial, marketable and trafficable quantities of illicit substances are expressed to reflect the potency, form and scale of trafficking associated with those particular substances.

These offences don't relate to someone who accidentally trafficked drugs. We're talking about serious organised criminal gangs. These are the types of drug offences that we are referring to and that this will apply to.

There are a few very good reasons we are doing this. One of the reasons the Greens political party is perhaps not aware of or you're personally not aware of is that we know that serious, organised criminal gangs are responsive to the laws that we put in place and, because of that, we are seeing those cutting agents being used on purpose to get substances under a particular threshold.

The government's view is that that should not be a reason why particular thresholds should not be met when the harm to the public is the same. Under the current regime, the prosecution must establish the purity level of the drug to determine which category of offence applies. There are a number of issues with this current model—one that I've taken you to.

Practically, this means the AFP forensic examiners are required to break apart compressed powders, use toxic chemicals and extract drug material from concealed forms. This process is hazardous, resource intensive and contributes to investigation and prosecution delays given forensic examiners are required to undertake this work. The testing also fails to reflect the practical reality that illicit drugs are typically imported or trafficked in a mixed form.

Mixtures often contain undisclosed hazardous components that pose serious risks to users and essential to the commercial model of organised crime. I note your concerns for people who are not traffickers of drugs but users of drugs. We seek to protect those people too.

In any event, nothing in this bill changes the ability for an offender to raise matters relating to purity of an illicit substance as a mitigation matter during sentencing. That maintains through this process. That is why the government has introduced this new scheme of considering the purity of drugs in relation to the size of the entire material that is trafficked, imported and of commercial value.

Those are the reasons that the government is putting forward. You dealt with evidence certificates, and I just wanted to put on the record some of the measures that are being put in place. Obviously, under the current arrangements, each individual officer who is engaged in the seizure, movement, tagging, cataloguing and transferring of substances may be required to provide a written statement setting out each step taken in relation to that seized substance.

Additionally, each of those witnesses may have to be called to give oral evidence in a trial as to their interaction with the seized substance in order to prove every single step that was taken while the item was in custody or law enforcement. The new certificate regime that's proposed in this bill, of which you've raised concerns, allows for one person to make a certificate and cover the actions of many.

In most matters, information contained in these certificates is most likely to be a shared fact that is uncontroversial or unchallenged. But, to be clear, if there are any issues from a defence point of view, the new regime does not remove the ability for the accused to challenge chain-of-custody evidence. It also doesn't prevent the accused from being able to call each and every police officer involved in the chain of custody of said exhibit.

The certificate provides efficiencies in circumstances where chain of custody is not in dispute. This new measure does not alter the burden of proof. The prosecution maintains the responsibility for proving each and every element beyond reasonable doubt.

What this measure seeks to do is ensure that our hard-working police officers and law enforcement agencies are focused on protecting people, keeping Australians safe and prosecuting the people who are accused of serious crimes. We think that is a reasonable step to take. It is not uncommon in the justice system across the country for this type of certificate to exist, but our proposal does not alter the ability of defendants to question that evidence in court.