Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee, , 6:14:02 to 6:20:10
Discussion on the Fair Work Commission's engagement with the AFP regarding referrals, corrupting benefits, and the progress of construction industry investigations.
Topics: AFP, Integrity, National security
Speakers: Murray Furlong, Senator Jane Hume, Patrick Coyle, Unknown Speaker
Thank you, Chair. Uh Mr. Furlong, you uh on the 21st of May you wrote to the AFP command warning of limited tangible progress on the um uh on their pursuit of the CFMU and called for a well resourced response. Um I would like to ask you some questions about your engagement with the AFP on this. Um before that letter, had you raised these concerns with the AFP at all, formally or informally.
My concerns sorry to can I just clarify the question, please.
Sorry, yes, sorry. The letter that you wrote to the AFP was about their limited tangible progress on their work dealing with the CFMU and the industry more broadly. Had you raised those concerns with the AFP formally informally before that letter?
I had asked for so we've made and Mr. Court will be able to give you some information on the quantity of referrals allegations, but also just information reports that were provided to the AFP.
Yeah.
Um what prompted that letter is I attended a uh a meeting and there was um several meetings with AFP officers and I attended a joint agency working group meeting uh and from that meeting I wanted to ask further questions around the the progress and I wanted to be satisfied from my perspective as the regulator of registered organisations that there had been operational activity that had been undertaken to deal with these issues of alleged non-compliance.
So had any any um industry participants told you that they'd tried to report matters to the AFP and been turned away.
None are coming to mind. I'll I can take that on on notice, please.
The letter was sent 12 days before the Commission last appeared before the committee. No, that wasn't my question. My question was whether you considered proactively telling the committee that this was something that you'd done.
I hadn't received information of response from the AFP, I believe, at that point in time, and I obviously wanted to give them the opportunity to consider the that my request and to respond, which is uh So they did reply,
or they did reply on the 10th of June. Can you ref confirm to this committee that the reply informed you that the agency would not brief beyond what is shared in the joint agency working group and task force hawk meetings?
That's accurate, yes.
Were you satisfied with that response?
Satisfied probably not, but I understand from an operation from a regulatory sort of perspective and a law enforcement perspective that the information that they could disclose they they would reasonably disclose. We I maintain a strong working relationship with the officers at the AFP who are responsible for these operations. Um I continue to engage with them and so do my offices from uh from the organisation as well.
Okay. So you say you continue to engage. Have you you've written to them again or have you met with them again on this particular issue?
I've met with them about these particular operations, yes, and I received a verbal update within the constraints of what could be provided about sensitive operational matters that are active before the AFP.
So do you feel that you've seen the tangible progress and operations that you were looking for in the letter?
I think as a as a very proactive regulator, I don't think I'm ever going to be satisfied with the amount of activity that's um, but I understand that they're still active matters and they're complex matters that they're dealing with, corrupting benefits and things of that nature. So I I'm not in a position. I'm certainly not in a position to comment on AFP operations.
Your letter formally restated the Commission's offer for assistance to the AFP. When was the first offer to assist made?
Mr. Cool might be able to assist.
Um good afternoon, Senator Patrick Quill, Executive Director of the Registered Organisation Services Branch. Um Senator, the corrupting benefits legislation was first enacted in 2017, and there has been an ongoing engagement, I think, with the AFP across the period of time as subject matter experts in relation to registered organisations. We have provided previous assistance to the AFP in relation to those types of matters and to New South Wales police in relation to the Greenfields, for instance. Michael and Darren Greenfield, who were convicted of uh corrupting benefits legislation uh contraventions. Uh so we have provided that level of subject matter expertise. We have provided educational materials about corrupting benefits to registered organizations so that they can understand those provisions better. So from that perspective, um the standing offer has been there with relation to law enforcement agencies for a number of years, and we've had engagements from time to time over that period of time. Um it would probably now be difficult for us to even identify the number of engagements over that period, but there has been in respect of a range of corrupting benefits matters that have been alleged over the last nearly 10 years.
It's uh it's been reported since that in July the AFP declined a request. Request from Victoria Police to investigate alleged Commonwealth corrupting benefits offences. Is that something that you were aware of that the Commission was aware of?