Chapter 2Key issues
2.1The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) annual report for 2022–23 speaks positively about the agency’s performance, stating that the agency ‘continued to provide mission critical intelligence to combat the threats Australia faces from transnational serious and organised crime’.
2.2The ACIC’s Chief Executive Officer, Ms Heather Cook, also drew the committee’s attention to key recent achievements, including the successful transition from the ‘legacy’ National Automated Fingerprint Identification System to the NAFIS NextGen. This new system is ‘the national capability that provides Australian law enforcement agencies with the critical fingerprint‑matching capabilities to support their operations at all levels’.
2.3This chapter examines the following key issues related to the ACIC’s performance in 2022-23, and then presents the committee’s view:
Performance framework and results.
Financial performance.
National Firearms Register.
Fraud Fusion Centre.
Key recent legislation.
Offshore serious and organised crime.
Staffing matters.
Performance framework and results
2.4From 1 July 2023 the ACIC was part of the Attorney-General’s portfolio, having previously been part of the Home Affairs portfolio. Mr Matthew Rippon, Deputy Chief Executive Officer Intelligence, who was also acting Chief Executive Officer during much of 2022–23, told the committee that this move ‘didn't change our focus at all’:
[I]t was a reasonably seamless transition, and we continue to have outstanding relationships with the Department of Home Affairs because they are helping us on a number of fronts, as we are helping them. Specifically, they are helping us build the National Criminal Intelligence System. They're providing the technical know-how to build the National Criminal Intelligence System with us, and we are deploying it and overseeing it in an operational environment.
2.5Of its 13 performance criteria in 2022–23, the ACIC reported that it met seven, substantially met three, and partially met three. Further details on the ACIC’s targets and results are in the annual report (including a summary at p. iii).
2.6One of the partially met criteria relates to the timeliness of the National Police Checking Service (criterion 12). Ms Cook described some improvements to the checking process:
We've introduced a number of additional measures, including secondary checks, which improve the fidelity of the results that we are sending to police jurisdictions for additional manual checking. So, reducing the number that are making it to that extra step which can often delay the process. That secondary measure is resulting in a significant ability to turn around and resolve checks without having to go to those jurisdictions. We anticipate for the coming year that we'll be able to meet our service level agreements in terms of turnarounds of those checks.
2.7Ms Cook also reported that the ACIC is focused on ensuring that its intelligence products ‘better inform partners and stakeholder agencies in respect of their mandates and how they use our intelligence products’. She explained:
We continue to get very positive feedback on the unique intelligence that we provide. Generally speaking, there is a demand for more, and so our capacity to inquire into, resolve and support the range of requests that we do receive is challenging for an organisation of our size.
2.8A further two criteria that the ACIC did not fully meet are criterion 3 (‘[t]he ACIC produces intelligence products to better inform partners and stakeholder agencies’) and criterion 6 (‘[s]takeholders agree that ACIC intelligence is meaningful and useful’). Mr Rippon suggested that ‘there is a bit of a link between those two’ and gave some context to the ACIC’s results:
One of them [the criteria] reflects on the stakeholder feelings around requests for additional information and disseminations. We don't have a lot of control about whether or not partners are going to ask for further information. We do absolutely have control on what we disseminate. In terms of the requests for information from partner agencies that we're sharing intelligence with, it's not something that we can directly control from year to year except in having a better relationship with our partners, and also in explaining our suite of products that are available to them and how they then might be able to provide them to partners… partners with ACIC's authority to have an impact on serious and organised crime, particularly in their own jurisdiction. I wanted to reference that in particular because there is an indication of a decrease in the requests for information. It doesn't necessarily mean that our products aren't valued. In fact, we have strong feedback in the stakeholder survey that most of our products got an average rating of 15 out of 20. They're hard markers, the states and territories, the AFP, and our colleagues, and we expect them to be.
2.9Mr Rippon also advised that in 2024 the ACIC will change its approach to stakeholder surveys to include an interview process:
Back in 2020 and 2021, we issued and ran an interview process of all the stakeholders. We received some really strong, positive and quite detailed feedback from that. The following year, we went back to a survey approach and emailed a range of our clientele, and we got less of an uptake.
2.10Recognising that much of the ACIC’s work cannot be reported publicly, MsCook said that she intends ‘to look very closely at our performance measures for the coming year with a view to setting them in a manner that allows us to more effectively and accurately measure our performance’. She explained:
It's very difficult in an area where the feedback needs to be qualitative more than quantitative. There are some quantitative measures that are valid and provide that indication, but I believe we need to be able to set our qualitative measures more accurately and in a more targeted way. I think it needs to be nuanced as well.
Financial performance
2.11The ACIC’s annual report states that its financial result for 2022–23 was an operating surplus of $10.241 million. This included revenue from the National Police Checking Service, which Ms Anne Brown, Deputy Chief Executive Officer Support, advised is ‘a revenue-raising activity for us’. She said:
We're currently on track this year for a record year in the number of checks, up 2.85 per cent up compared to that last year. The service is expected to exceed 7.3 million checks and $135 million in revenue.
2.12Ms Cook clarified that this revenue:
…goes into what we call the special account, and all revenue is used to support the maintenance and upgrading of the national policing information systems that the ACIC is responsible for managing. We do that in cooperation and consultation with the police jurisdictions and clients who use those systems.
2.13Mr Rippon added that these funds may also be used ‘for emerging capabilities that the government might want us to invest in’. For example, the ACIC has ‘been asked by government to utilise the special account to help to fund the build of the National Firearms Register’.
National Firearms Register
2.14On 6 December 2023 National Cabinet agreed to implement a National Firearms Register and ‘to work together to ensure that the Register is fully operational within four years’.
2.15Ms Cook explained that the Attorney-General’s Department is leading ‘a significant body of work…from a policy perspective’ in relation to the register. The role of the ACIC is ‘to actually provide the register itself—the system, the technical arm of the program’. Ms Cook said that ‘[w]ork is well underway’, including ‘a range of interdepartmental committees’.
2.16As well as Commonwealth efforts, Mr Rippon advised ‘there is considerable uplift that's going to be required from states and territories and there is a cost associated with that’. He reported that the ‘Attorney-General's Department and government have been speaking with the relevant treasuries from each of those states and territories to make sure that we find a way to get this done’.
2.17Both Ms Cook and Mr Rippon submitted that states and territories appreciate the importance of the forthcoming register. Mr Rippon said that he has ‘a high level of confidence’ that state and territory police commissioners ‘are sufficiently motivated to uplift their own systems’. Ms Cook cited ‘the value derived from integrated systems and national systems and the importance of data and real‑time data in the work that we do’. She also pointed to the uptake of the National Criminal Intelligence System since 2021 as ‘indicative of the appetite and willingness to participate in these sorts of national systems’.
2.18Regarding the four-year timeframe for the register, Mr Rippon expressed some confidence:
In terms of keeping things on track, we are confident that with the relationships we've built in building the National Criminal Intelligence System, the platform is there for us to capitalise on for the NFR [National Firearms Register]. We already have clear data-sharing arrangements with all of our state and territory counterparts and Commonwealth counterparts who will be interacting with the NFR as well. We're already on the front foot in terms of our ability to share data, build, and to have the NFR ultimately connect to the National Criminal Intelligence System over the four-year period.
2.19Mr Rippon also reported that in the meantime, data from the Australian Firearms Information Network has been successfully connected to the National Criminal Intelligence System. This means that:
…our frontline police officers out in the community in each of your states and territories are now receiving data they weren't necessarily receiving before in a more coordinated way through the National Criminal Intelligence System.
2.20Mr Rippon also highlighted that the ACIC is continuing with other work related to firearms, including:
…making sure that we update our assessments around firearms trafficking to make sure that we keep them [police partners] attuned to what the developments are and the way that serious and organised crime are utilising firearms.
Fraud Fusion Centre
2.21The Fraud Fusion Centre was established within the ACIC in November 2022, and it provides intelligence to the Fraud Fusion Taskforce led by the National Disability Insurance Agency and Services Australia.
2.22Mr Rippon reported that the ACIC has ‘written a number of assessments on the impact of serious and organised crime exploiting the vulnerabilities of a number of government programs including the NDIS [National Disability Insurance Scheme]’. While unable to discuss all details in public, Mr Rippon gave some description of the problem:
…serious and organised crime will look for any opportunity or vulnerability in any government program that is put forward that attracts investment. Time and time again, they've shown their agility to jump from program to program. Within the NDIS proper, the scale of the fraud is difficult to nail down, but we're talking millions and millions of dollars here on a regular basis. The alarming thing for the ACIC and our partners in recent times has been the deploying by serious and organised crime of violent tactics, standover tactics, on those that are entitled to these government funds. That impact on our most vulnerable is the thing that concerns all of us, I think, in terms of the assessments that we put forward.
2.23Regarding the ACIC’s work with the Fraud Fusion Taskforce, Mr Rippon said:
…our role there is to pool all of the intelligence sources that are available and to provide the best possible fusion of intelligence for our partners to build strategies and operational plans to interdict and disrupt serious and organised crime that is impacting on that program and a range of other programs. We don't just focus on the NDIS; it's on a whole range of government programs that are put forward.
2.24Mr Rippon confirmed those government programs also include aged care. He said serious and organised crime ‘will attack any program they can if there's a dollar in it—it's all profit motivated’.
Key recent legislation
2.25A major legislative change to the ACIC’s powers, the Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Act 2021 (SLAID Act), commenced in September 2021. The Act introduced three new types of warrant for the ACIC and Australian Federal Police: data disruption warrants, network activity warrants and account takeover warrants.
2.26When asked about how the ACIC was using these powers to counter the deliberate spread of misinformation online, Mr Rippon said the SLAID Act is ‘an important piece of legislation and one that we are still learning to apply operational effects [to]’. He elaborated:
Predominantly the ACIC has been using the network activity warrant power. It's not something I can necessarily speak about in this public hearing. However, we are absolutely utilising the power that was provided to us by the parliament to learn around serious and organised crime and their networks. I don't want to go into any more detail on that front.
In terms of data disruption and account takeover powers, your point around social media and misinformation is a really strong point, because it is a part of the business model of many criminal networks. It's not necessarily something, again, that I can talk specifically about, and those two powers are not powers that we have found an opportunity to apply that sort of application to just yet. However, we are constantly scanning the opportunities that might be there to call upon all three of the powers. As I say, network activity warrants is certainly the one that we have been applying with real vigour. On the other two powers, we're speaking regularly with the AFP around how they are applying those powers and making sure that we're not duplicating their effort on that front also.
2.27Other legislation—the Crimes and Other Legislation Amendment (Omnibus No. 2) Bill 2023—was passed by both Houses of Parliament in November2023. Ms Nicole Mayo, Chief Operating Officer, advised the committee:
The passing of that particular bill was seen as vital for the ACIC to provide us with certainty and clarify the ability for us to continue to deliver on the powers that we have. The benefits have been the removal of the uncertainty that was created prior to the passage of that bill.
Offshore serious and organised crime
2.28The committee sought to understand how the ACIC is responding to serious and organised crime that affects Australia but is conducted overseas.
2.29Ms Cook reported that as at 30 June 2023, the ACIC ‘was tracking 15 Australian priority organisation targets’, known as APOTs, which ‘represent the serious and organised crime entities and networks of the highest threat to Australia's interests’. She said ‘the vast majority of those networks and entities are overseas based’, and so ‘working offshore and working with our overseas partners and working with our Australian agency partners that are also operational overseas is an increasing area of focus for us’.
2.30Mr Rippon explained that ‘one of the unintended consequences of having success with serious and organised crime is that you do tend to displace them’. He said there is evidence of ‘significant investment’ by serious and organised crime located overseas:
…to secure political connections, corrupt connections, both with police and government institutions, and to secure visa arrangements and citizenship arrangements in a way that they would perceive creates a safe haven for them to operate in with impunity.
2.31The ACIC’s annual report states that it has staff permanently based in the United States, United Kingdom, and United Arab Emirates, as well as staff deployed to Fiji on short term missions during 2022–23. Mr Rippon advised that the ACIC is working ‘hand-in-glove’ with the Australian Federal Police, which has ‘an extensive offshore network of liaison officers’, in addition to the ACIC’s ‘small network’. He elaborated:
We don't choose to replicate what our partners are doing. We are looking to position the agency strategically offshore to be able to complement what our partners are doing. We would also bring together all of the agencies, both international and domestic, that have equities in these targets and then build strategy together to ensure that we can have as much impact as possible. The relationships that the AFP [Australian Federal Police] have with our offshore partners are second to none, and we do leverage off those and work absolutely in partnership with the AFP in an offshore environment.
2.32Regarding the ACIC’s work offshore more broadly, Mr Rippon said it is important that the ACIC adopts ‘the right mindset’ when working with international partners:
We are not there to instruct them what to do. Certainly, wherever they have potential capability shortcomings that they have asked us to assist them with then we would be very happy to, and we have on a number of occasions provided uplift in their capability and know-how on the intelligence fronts. That is a really important part of our role and other agencies' role offshore, to build capability to make the region a stronger region to fight against serious and organised crime.
Staffing matters
2.33The Australian Public Service employee census was conducted in May and June2023. The ACIC’s response rate was 72 per cent. Regarding the results, MsCook said that ‘[f]or the most part we were pleased that our ratings or levels were an improvement on the previous year, but that still doesn't make us complacent, and there continue to be some challenging areas that we want to focus on’. One issue identified by Ms Cook was ‘more effective communications across the organisation’.
2.34Ms Mayo elaborated on the ACIC’s work in this area, including the publication of a census improvement plan:
We've engaged post the census with each of our offices, noting we have presence in most of the capital cities, with the staff in those offices to receive feedback from them on the results of the census, and we have just published our census improvement plan.
As our chief executive officer referred to, communication is one of those key areas where we are going to continue to focus this year. It will be around how we communicate, consult and manage change, so that's an area of development for us, or focus for our improvement plan.
2.35Another focus area identified by Ms Mayo was ‘our tools and technology, and administrative processes’. This includes:
…looking at how we do things, what we use to facilitate that, are there workflows we can improve, is there technology we could leverage off et cetera, to make everybody's ability to perform their jobs more streamlined and easier.
2.36A further focus area highlighted by Ms Mayo was ‘continuing to reinforce the improvements that we've made around culture and wellbeing’:
…last year we had over 40 graduates come in with the graduate program. That was a year-long program. They were offered assistance to relocate, incentives for them to stay and remain with the ACIC, as well as a number of broad, other initiatives. For example, next week we have heart checks happening for our staff, re‑introduction of wellbeing allowances and payments, focus on accessing things that are available through the workplaces and the tenancies that we have as well. So, to continue to build on that work by listening to the staff about what it is that will continue to make the ACIC a great place to work for them.
2.37Regarding the ACIC’s attrition rate, Ms Mayo advised that it was 15.8 per cent. This is ‘down considerably from the previous two years, which were sitting in the low 20s’. Ms Mayo observed that there is a higher turnover in Canberra, ‘which is obviously because of the market forces here, the majority of our workforce are here, [and] there’s more competition’.
2.38Ms Cook added, in relation to staff retention, that the ACIC’s flexible working arrangements ‘have gone a long way too’ in comparison to:
…other members of the National Intelligence Community, where the restrictions in regard to the systems they have to work on and the sensitivity overall mean they don't have that flexibility. That's certainly something that we can build on and offer as a differentiator and that's appreciated by staff.
2.39Mr Rippon elaborated on the ACIC’s approach to its workforce and that of intelligence and law enforcement agencies more broadly:
We're having to think strategically about how we might build a different workforce plan for the future to target the right people, and also to understand that there's a different generation that are appearing in our workplaces. And that generation, lifers if I could call it, like myself, are more inclined to move from role to role and agency to agency. So it's really important that our relationships with our partner agencies are strong, and they are, and we are talking to other agencies about how we can help each other with that transition across the Commonwealth so that we don't lose talent to the private sector et cetera. It's really, really important that, if we grow that talent from within, we don't prevent them from going to other agencies. We make sure, when they do choose to go to other agencies, that they go as a good at advocate for the ACIC and a good advocate for the Commonwealth so we can work together on the shared mission.
2.40Regarding the workforce’s gender composition, the ACIC’s annual report shows that it is 45.1 per cent men, 53.5 per cent women, and 1.4 per cent non-binary. Ms Mayo also advised that the ACIC’s ‘executive leadership group, which are the most senior executives in the organisation, is actually dominated by women at this particular point in time’.
Committee view
2.41The committee is pleased to report that it has not identified any major areas of concern in relation to the ACIC’s 2022–23 annual report. It takes this opportunity to thank the ACIC’s officers for their contribution to the agency’s valuable work.
2.42The ACIC’s annual report, and the evidence gathered by the committee, reflect several notable achievements during 2022–23. This includes the establishment of the Fraud Fusion Centre, which is countering attempts by serious and organised crime to exploit government programs. The completed transition to NAFIS NextGen is also an important milestone, considering that it follows years of efforts to improve the database.
2.43A particular area of interest for the committee is the National Firearms Register. The register is an important measure that will benefit law enforcement and improve community safety. It is vital that the ACIC maintains its concerted effort to provide the register successfully and on schedule. The committee appreciates that the success of the project also relies on other Commonwealth agencies as well as states and territories, but it will nonetheless closely monitor the ACIC’s progress in delivering this reform.
2.44The committee is also interested in ensuring that the legislative framework governing the ACIC is appropriate. This includes the three types of warrant introduced by the SLAID Act. Recognising that much of the ACIC’s work cannot be discussed publicly, the committee appreciates the ACIC’s willingness to provide private briefings. This supports the parliamentary oversight that the committee is charged with providing under the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement Act 2010.
2.45While the ACIC fully met seven of its performance targets, it did not fully meet six others. The committee acknowledges the rationales that officials provided in relation to the targets that were not met. It is positive that the ACIC is already implementing measures to address some of the shortcomings, such as a secondary clearing capability in relation to the National Police Checking Service. The committee looks forward to the work foreshadowed by the incoming Chief Executive Officer to look closely at the ACIC’s performance framework, including its qualitative targets.
2.46The results of the recent employee census, though improved on the previous year, suggest there is room for improvement. The committee is pleased that the ACIC has prepared a census improvement plan and will take an interest in the future survey results.
2.47The committee thanks Mr Michael Phelan APM for his contribution to the ACIC over five years, as well as Mr Rippon who led the organisation while a selection process was undertaken and remains with the agency. The committee welcomes MsCook and looks forward to the contribution she will make.
2.48The committee thanks the ACIC for providing a satisfactory annual report and commends the organisation for its work during 2022–23.
Senator Helen Polley
Chair