Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Amendment Bill 2026

Ms ALDRED (Monash—Opposition Whip) (18:49): The coalition supports the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Amendment Bill 2026. We support the intent of this bill because the financial threats facing Australians are changing rapidly and our legislative framework needs to be able to keep pace. Money-laundering scams, organised crime and terrorism financing are becoming increasingly sophisticated.

I know there are people on all sides of this chamber that recognise those threats and are keen in their intent to adequately address them. Criminals are adapting. They are exploiting new technologies, new financial products and new ways of doing business and moving money.

The government cannot afford to be standing still while they do this. One of the clearest examples of this is the rapid growth of cryptocurrency ATMs in Australia. Australia now has more than 2,000 crypto ATMs.

By contrast, in 2019 there were just 23. So this is an extraordinary increase in a pretty short amount of time. While there are legitimate uses for these machines, the evidence about their exploitation by criminals and scammers and the illegal market is deeply concerning.

AUSTRAC, for example, has found that 85 per cent of frequent crypto ATM transactions are linked to scams or money mule activity. We know that banks closed some 22,000 mule accounts in a single year. What these numbers show is the scale, pace and change of the challenge that we are facing and that our current system is struggling to keep pace.

That is why reform is necessary. That is why the content of these reforms is important. Organised crime does not operate in silos.

That is a broader point we cannot ignore when discussing organised crime and the movement of criminal money. These criminal networks do not operate neatly, confined within one industry or type of crime or sector of business. We're seeing that very clearly with the illicit tobacco trade.

Illicit tobacco is no longer simply a question of someone selling some cheap cigarettes under a counter. It has become a more lucrative market for serious and organised crime. I've made the point a number of times that the billions of dollars in profits from the illicit tobacco market in Australia don't just evaporate into thin air; they're not victimless crimes.

The proceeds of these crimes domestically within Australia and internationally fund things like the illegal arms trade and sex trafficking. We've had Kaz Hamad, the AFP's No. 1 national security target, linked to, on behalf of Iran, the fire bombing of a synagogue in Melbourne in my home state of Victoria. They are funding bikie gangs and criminals.

These people are clever and stealth-like and technology-savvy when it comes to moving the proceeds of these crimes around. Indeed, even within the illicit tobacco trade, these criminals are getting smarter about the way they seek to infiltrate other businesses to launder money and move those proceeds around. They adapt quickly.

They exploit weaknesses in regulation and enforcement, and they move money through different channels to conceal the proceeds of their activities. That is why there is a clear connection between what this bill seeks to address and what Australians are seeing in the illicit tobacco market on every street corner, in every city, in every suburb and in every regional town across Australia.

No community, it seems, remains untouched by this illegal activity, the people that operate in it and the money that is moved back and forth and around. The government tells us our laws must keep pace with a rapidly evolving financial crime sector, and we agree. But that same urgency also needs to be applied to illicit tobacco.

You cannot acknowledge the sophistication of organised crime in this bill while continuing to see criminal tobacco networks operate in communities across Australia. We in this place all know that this is not a victimless crime. Just this week there have been arson attacks in my home state of Victoria and in South Australia.

There have been victims who have been maimed and killed, and there are families who still live with the consequences. My thoughts go to Katie Tangey, the young woman who was housesitting for her brother in Melbourne. He had gone away, and that house was attacked, in a case of mistaken identity, by operators in the illicit tobacco trade.

Ms Tangey lost her life, and her family are still living with that consequence every single day. We've seen some absolutely shockingly violent crimes linked to this just over the last week in New South Wales. People are in burns units in hospitals, retail workers have been terrorised and abused and people are living with the consequences well beyond the date of those crimes committed.

When criminal organisations can make enormous profits from illicit tobacco, that money doesn't just disappear, as I said. It can also strengthen those criminal networks and provide them with more resources to expand their activities. Over the summer in Inverloch, a coastal town in my electorate—beautiful Inverloch—there was a shipping container that was selling illegal vapes.

The TGA seized about 150 vapes from that shipping container. Three weeks later, it was still operating, still selling vapes to children. I had a lot of parents contact me deeply concerned about that.

But the other feedback attached to that is interesting to note in the context of my contribution to this debate: there were bikies riding into town every day to open up that illegal shop. They weren't locals. They were coming in from out of town.

I want to pay tribute to the local Victoria Police officers in Bass Coast for doing everything they possibly could, but it was observed that there were illegal bikies coming in and out of town to operate that illegal business on a daily basis. So, if we're serious about following the money, disrupting organised crime and closing financial channels criminals exploit, illicit tobacco needs to be front and centre of this conversation.

There are important measures in this bill that the coalition support. This bill will give AUSTRAC greater capacity to act quickly against high-risk financial mechanisms. That is important.

Michael Outram, the former head of Australian Border Force—and I want to acknowledge Mr Outram's service to our country. But I also want to acknowledge his thoughtful, evidence based and experienced contributions in a number of speeches recently. The illicit tobacco trade is something about which he's provided some really important contributions.

In the context of this bill, some of the activities that it's seeking to address show that some of Mr Outram's comments and contributions to this broader national debate have been important. The bill seeks to strengthen Australia's laws around terrorism financing and better align our frameworks with various international obligations as well. It seeks to make a number of technical and operational upgrades to Australia's broader anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorism-financing framework.

These are important objectives. They're necessary objectives. Often, legislation and regulation can lag behind technology and business trends, including business trends in the illegal market, but these are important objectives that seek to keep pace with technology and other trends that criminals are adapting to quite smartly.

Australians rightly expect their government and law enforcement agencies to have the tools that they need to disrupt organised crime. That includes seeking to stop money laundering and protect Australians from increasingly sophisticated scams. Prior to my time in this place, I worked in the cybersecurity and technology field.

I was really impressed looking at a number of really innovative businesses across Australia that work in those sectors and the way that they have innovated to provide consumers and also national security agencies with the best cover possible. Their work in seeking to constantly upgrade and innovate very clever ways of protecting consumers against scams is to be commended.

Many of the Australian based businesses, indeed, are small-to-medium enterprises that invest a huge amount of work in that area to try and keep people safe. I recently met—just a week ago—with Sam from IT Solutions. He's based in Leongatha.

He's an IT expert. We sat down to discuss some of my work on the House of Representatives Select Committee on Cyber Security for Small to Medium Sized Businesses and Organisations. Sam does amazing work trying to assist small businesses to protect themselves from scams.

So, to all those Australian small businesses that have a very important role to play, we value your expertise and your immense efforts in that regard. But supporting stronger action does not mean giving the government a blank cheque. This bill gives significant new powers to the AUSTRAC CEO.

These powers come with what should be regarded as considerable discretion, and that makes it particularly important that the parliament carefully consider how these powers will operate, how decisions will be made and what safeguards will surround them. There are a number of key thresholds contained within the legislation, including concepts such as significant harm and public interest, which are loosely defined.

There are also legitimate questions around the consultation requirements contained within the bill. There are circumstances in which consultation can be bypassed and failures in consultation may not necessarily invalidate a decision. These are not insignificant matters.

They go directly to questions of oversight, accountability and proportionality. The coalition supports strong powers where strong powers are needed, but these powers must be targeted, proportionate and accompanied by appropriate safeguards and regular reviews. That is why the coalition referred this bill to a committee inquiry, which was ultimately conducted by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security.

It was an important process. It was an important opportunity for review, and for checks and balances. It allowed concerns to be raised, aired and tested and potential improvements to be examined.

Most importantly, it allowed stakeholders, including industry and consumer groups, to put their views directly before the parliament for due consideration. The inquiry reinforced the coalition's view that there are areas of this bill that can and should be improved. In particular, the inquiry reinforced our view that at least two key sets of amendments are required.

The first relates to the new powers proposed for the AUSTRAC CEO. We believe there needs to be a refinement of these powers and stronger oversight of how they are exercised. That is an important question of accountability.

The second issue relates to commencement dates. Numerous stakeholders told the committee that the start date for some of the measures contained within this legislation should be delayed. That is not about delaying necessary reform, but it is about making sure that the people and organisations affected by these changes have a reasonable period of time to understand their obligations, change their systems and ensure they can comply with the new requirements.

Good legislation should not simply impose new obligations; it should provide a workable pathway for those expected to comply with them.