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

Mr HILL (Bruce—Assistant Minister for Citizenship, Customs and Multicultural Affairs and Assistant Minister for International Education) (09:29): I'll just sum up very briefly. I do thank honourable members for their contribution to the debate on the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Amendment Bill 2026. The bill responds to the continuously changing financial crime environment and the threat of serious and organised crime to Australia's financial sector and to the Australian community.

Importantly, the bill will empower the minister responsible for the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 to restrict or prohibit high-risk mechanisms from being exploited by criminal actors to move money around. The most obvious example that may well be the target of action is crypto ATMs, as has been reported in the media, overwhelmingly being used to scam vulnerable Australians from their life savings or by organised criminals who seek to move and disguise the profits of their crimes.

The bill will also make several technical amendments to the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 to ensure reporting entities have clarity when implementing their AML and CTF obligations. The reforms in this bill signify the Australian government's commitment to preventing the criminal abuse of our economy and addressing the harms and suffering this causes to Australians.

The benefit to the Australian community over time is significant because it is the goal of policy to continuously harden the environment, to make it harder for criminals to operate by raising the stakes, raising the consequences and raising the risk and therefore lowering the profits from their crimes. One example is illicit tobacco. For too long, criminals have seen this as a high-profit, low-risk venture.

The government is hardening the environment through the criminal law, through the Proceeds of Crime Act and so on. Importantly, part of disrupting criminal networks—who are commodity agnostic and don't care whether it's Gucci handbags or guns or drugs or tobacco; they just want to make money—and their trade is to make it harder and harder for them to move money around.

The anti-money-laundering and counterterrorism financing laws are a really important part of that. I foreshadow that, in a moment, when we get to the next stage of the bill's passage through the parliament, I will be moving government amendments reflecting the recommendations of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. I commend the bill to the House.

Question agreed to. Bill read a second time.