Portfolio — 25 March 2026

The Assistant Minister for Citizenship, Customs and Multicultural Affairs, Mr Julian Hill, moved three bills for second reading on 25 March 2026, delivering a concentrated legislative push across national security intelligence and border enforcement. The centrepiece is the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission Bill 2026, which replaces the Australian Crime Commission Act 2002 and repositions the ACIC as an intelligence-focused national agency with enhanced coercive powers — including compelled examinations, search warrants, controlled intelligence operations, and expanded intelligence-sharing with law enforcement [TA-260325-house-8e0b2c08f739:s011].

The bill implements recommendations from the Independent Review of the ACIC, which found the existing statutory framework no longer fit-for-purpose against the contemporary threat environment. The Assistant Minister framed serious and organised crime as a converging threat, characterising it as blending characteristics historically associated with terrorism, foreign interference and child exploitation [TA-260325-house-8e0b2c08f739:s011].

He anchored the case for reform in an Australian Institute of Criminology estimate that serious and organised crime cost the economy $82.3 billion in 2023–24, a figure more than $13 billion higher than the prior year [TA-260325-house-8e0b2c08f739:s011].

The companion National Policing Information (Charges) Bill 2026 addresses the funding architecture that sustains national policing systems. It preserves the ACIC's authority to charge for nationally coordinated criminal history check services — used for employment screening, child safety checks, and licensing schemes — and directs that revenue to the National Criminal Intelligence System and related infrastructure [TA-260325-house-8e0b2c08f739:s012].

Charge-setting will operate via ministerial legislative instrument, with amounts informed by recommendations from the National Policing Information Committee, a body to be established under the primary ACIC bill [TA-260325-house-8e0b2c08f739:s012]. The bill also extends the charging model's scope beyond current point-in-time checks to future continuous checking services, and provides for differential rates — including reduced charges for volunteers.

The third bill, the Customs Legislation Amendment (False Trade Marks Infringement Notices) Bill 2026, operates across the customs and border enforcement portfolio. It creates a strict liability offence for importing counterfeit goods and empowers the Australian Border Force to issue infringement notices as an alternative to criminal prosecution [TA-260325-house-8e0b2c08f739:s013].

The measure responds directly to the seizure of over 700,000 counterfeit items at the border in 2024–25, with genuine value exceeding $35 million; seized goods included phone chargers, beauty products, pharmaceuticals and vehicle parts posing direct consumer safety risks [TA-260325-house-8e0b2c08f739:s013]. The government frames the infringement-notice mechanism as a tool to disrupt profits flowing to criminal enterprises, reduce litigation costs for small and medium businesses enforcing trademarks, and protect consumer confidence in Australian retailers.

Across all three bills, the Assistant Minister's parliamentary activity on 25 March projects a coherent portfolio signal: the government is modernising the legal and operational infrastructure of national law enforcement, from intelligence collection at the ACIC level through to compliance enforcement at the border. The counterfeit goods bill explicitly connects border enforcement to organised crime finance — the same threat framing the Assistant Minister applied to the ACIC reform — linking the two streams of his parliamentary activity into a single anti-organised-crime narrative.