Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Amendment Bill 2026
Ms JARRETT (Brisbane) (18:07): I rise in support of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Amendment Bill 2026. Organised criminality is constantly evolving. It's exploiting weaknesses in our communities, our institutions and our financial systems, and all for the one purpose of generating illicit profits and concealing the proceeds of crime.
More recently, this has been facilitated by technological advances and digital assets such as cryptocurrency and crypto ATMs. Let's be clear, though, money laundering is not a victimless crime. Every year, billions of dollars generated through drug trafficking, cybercrime, child exploitation, tax evasion and other serious criminal offences are washed through financial systems to disguise the criminals' origins and to disguise their activities.
Money laundering fuels criminal enterprise. It enables organised crime groups to expand their operations, entrench their influence and profit from the exploitation of others. It also empowers authoritarian regimes to perpetrate corruption to weaken democratic institutions and undermine the rule of law across the globe.
This bill delivers on the reforms announced by the Minister for Home Affairs at the National Press Club almost a year ago. It provides the tools needed to tackle emerging money-laundering risks and to crack down on high-risk financial mechanisms, particularly crypto ATMs. For years, Australia's security and law enforcement agencies have warned of the growing convergence of the threats to our national security.
The days when terrorism, foreign interference, organised crime, money laundering, people smuggling and espionage operated in separate silos are over. Today these threats are increasingly interconnected. They reinforce one another, they share resources, they exploit similar vulnerabilities and they often rely on the same financial networks.
And at the centre of this convergence is the movement of illicit money. These crimes threaten Australia's physical security, economic security and social cohesion. They undermine public confidence, they damage our prosperity and they put Australians at risk.
And they're not confined by borders. Serious and organised crime now operates through sophisticated global networks, and the individuals behind these operations are often highly organised, well resourced and financially powerful. It's estimated that more than 70 per cent of Australia's serious and organised crime threats either originate overseas or have serious international links.
The Australian Federal Police has identified that among the key threats facing our nation are outlawed motorcycle gangs, organised crime syndicates controlling large parts of Australia's drug trade, money-laundering networks and other criminal enablers. Again, the common thread running through almost all of these events is money and, particularly, money laundering—the hiding of the true source, the true ownership and the destination of the money.
Without the ability to move, disguise and legitimise criminal profits, organised crime cannot operate on the scale that we see today. But criminal methodologies are constantly evolving, as is our world. As technology advances, organised crime groups adapt.
They exploit new platforms, they find new products and they find new vulnerabilities. If we are to stay ahead of these criminal networks, our laws must evolve as well. Money laundering serves two key purposes.
First, it disguises the criminal origin of the illegally obtained funds, giving them the appearance of legitimacy. Second, it enables money, whether illegal or legal, to be used for further criminal activity. It is the financial engine room of organised crime.
Money laundering allows criminals to reinvest in future offences. It deprives governments of vital revenue, distorts legitimate markets and undermines confidence in our financial institutions. It threatens the integrity of Australia's financial system and risks damaging the reputation of our regulatory and law enforcement agencies.
The process of money laundering typically follows three stages: placement, layering and integration. Placement occurs when illicit funds are introduced into the financial system. This could be by using cash to purchase assets and make deposits into bank accounts.
Layering involves moving those funds through complex transactions designed to obscure the true origin, multiple bank accounts or multiple transactions through various corporations and trusts. Usually it's quite a web of activity. Integration is the final stage, where the proceeds of the crime are reintroduced as legitimate money into our economy and made to appear lawful.
This could be the purchase, for instance, of assets or property. By this point, it's dirty money that's been transformed into seemingly legitimate wealth. You may recall Operation Taipan of 2021, one of Australia's most significant money-laundering operations of the time.
It saw an unusually high volume of cash deposits flowing into ATMs across Melbourne in the dead of night. This operation dismantled a criminal network. According to AUSTRAC, it 'reshaped Australia's approach to financial crime and cemented the role of the Fintel Alliance in modern intelligence sharing'.
That was only five years ago. Since then, organised crime networks have continued to search for new ways to move illicit funds, One such mechanism attracting increasing concern is the use of crypto ATMs. Cryptocurrency has become an increasingly common tool and payment method.
Approximately 150,000 transactions are conducted through crypto ATMs each year, and that totals around $275 million. What is notable is that unlike traditional ATMs, where customers primarily withdraw cash, crypto ATMs are overwhelmingly used for deposits. In fact, deposits account for—wait for it—99 per cent of all transactions.
And with that growth comes risk. A recent case involved a 77-year-old Australian widow who was targeted through an online romance scam. Over eight months, a man she met through a dating app convinced her that he had amassed significant wealth through cryptocurrency investments.
Under his direction, she repeatedly deposited cash into crypto ATMs, often withdrawing money in small amounts from multiple locations to avoid attracting attention. At one point, she was carrying $20,000 in cash. But because these transactions were small, they didn't trigger the same safeguards and alerts that apply elsewhere in the banking system.
The activity went undetected until she had lost almost $430,000. The financial loss was devastating. The emotional impact was profound.
That case demonstrates exactly why these machines have become attractive to criminals. They provide a pathway to convert cash into digital assets in ways that are often more difficult to trace and to detect. Just a few months ago, international authorities shut down a major cryptolaundering infrastructure, arresting administrators and seizing domains tied to a service that allegedly laundered over $389 million in unlawful digital assets.
There was also very recently a report in the US of one of the largest cryptocurrency thefts in US history. A stranger was deceived out of bitcoin worth over $240 million, and the perpetrators tried to hide their digital fingerprints, carrying out a sophisticated scheme to launder the proceeds. Australia now ranks third in the world for the number of crypto ATMs deployed, and the growth has been extraordinary.
Just six years ago, there were 23 machines. Three years ago, there were around 200. Today there are approximately 2,000.
AUSTRAC has identified these machines as being linked to a range of criminal activity, including money laundering, scams, frauds, illicit drug trafficking and child exploitation. When AUSTRAC examined the 90 most prolific users of crypto ATMs in 2024, it found that 85 per cent were either scam victims or money mules who had been manipulated, deceived or coerced into giving money on behalf of criminals.
Not everyone who uses crypto ATMs is involved in unlawful activity. Let's be clear about that. But the evidence is clear that a significant proportion of transactions are being exploited for criminal processes.
And that's why this action is necessary. The Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Amendment Bill 2026 responds to these emerging threats and strengthens Australia's ability to combat modern financial crime. Schedule 1 establishes a new framework empowering the CEO of AUSTRAC to restrict or prohibit the use of products, services, delivery channels or other mechanisms that present an unacceptable money-laundering or terrorism-financing risk.
This is important reform. Serious and organised crime cost Australia an estimated $82.3 billion back in 2023-24, and these costs are borne by everyday people—victims, families, communities and the taxpayer. Criminal groups re-invest illicit profits into further offending.
They create this cycle of harm that extends across Australia, across our cities and across the region. While technological innovation has delivered enormous economic and social benefits, it has also created these new opportunities for exploitation. Criminal organisations are increasingly using high-risk mechanisms to recruit, manipulate and coerce ordinary Australians into laundering the proceeds of scams, drug trafficking and other serious criminal activity.
These mechanisms are attractive to criminals precisely because they obscure the movement of the money, and they make the detection more difficult. The powers contained in this bill are designed to enable Australia to respond quickly and decisively to those threats. Importantly, safeguards are built into this framework.
The AUSTRAC CEO has to be satisfied that a particular mechanism presents a significant risk, and that any restriction or prohibition is necessary and in the public interest. This provides AUSTRAC with a flexible, risk based approach that protects the community while still allowing legitimate businesses to innovate and grow. Schedules 2 and 3 make a series of important technical amendments to strengthen Australia's anti-money laundering and counterterrorism financing framework so that our laws remain effective, practical and aligned with international standards.
Together, these measures reinforce Australia's obligations as a member of the Financial Action Task Force, and they strengthen our ability to combat both domestic and transnational criminal threats. The Albanese Labor government is committed to protecting the integrity of our economy and preventing criminal organisations from exploiting Australians for profit.
We're about protecting Australians against corruption, terrorist funding, and the ripping off of vulnerable Australians. To those who believe crypto ATMs provide a new avenue to hide criminal proceeds from law enforcement, let this message be clear. We are closing the gap, we are strengthening the system and we are giving agencies the powers they need to stop illicit activity and bring an end to money laundering.
If you seek to exploit these technologies, to launder criminal profits, to evade detection or to prey on Australians, you are not beyond reach. I commend this bill to the House.