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Senate - Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee Senate - Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee Inquiry into the ability of Australian law enforcement authorities to eliminate gun related violence in the community Submission by Peter Bennett Past National President Customs Officers Association of Australia IMPORTANT Note –This submission is subject to a specific CAVEAT: See Caveat at the end of this submission. Credentials summary: Thirty six (36) years almost exclusively in the law enforcement operational areas of Customs. My last operational post was as the National Coordinator Cargo Control, Intelligence Branch, Canberra. Thirty five (35) years as an office holder in the Customs Officers Association of Australia (COA). Six (6) years as the President of Whistleblowers Australia. Principle Issues 1. At the outset this submission will not provide a panacea which will resolve the issue of gun possession and gun violence in Australia. The issue of violence will never be resolved completely. However by the application of a long-term strategic plan, it will be possible to dramatically limit unlawful gun possession and therefore gun violence in Australia. 2. The critical issue is that firearm possession and use within Australia are ‘administered’ by state governments. There is some cooperation between states as to licensing and possession rights but the lowest state standard is effectively the default standard for Australia as a whole. 3. The Commonwealth has persistently and totally abrogated any responsibility for any national control of firearms/weapons. I believe this abrogation has been forcefully driven primarily by Customs bureaucrats who have tirelessly and effectively eliminated almost all Commonwealth responsibility for national firearms controls. Customs Ministers were led, by misinformation from bureaucrats to the view that only state police were capable determining what weapons should be controlled and that Customs could not and should not attempt to initiate controls at the border. P.P.Bennett, Past National President – Customs Officers Association of Australia - Aug 2014 – Senate re Gun Violence P1 4. Rather than initiate or seek to promote/pursue federal legislation which would capture, hold and control the possession of imported goods which may cause harm to the public, Customs bureaucrats have persistently taken the soft option of backing away from any contentious or litigious obstacle (see attachments A by ??ray July 1985; B by Rilatt 1985 and C by Kelly 1993). Whereas State Police actively recommend and pursue legislation to their Ministers about banning goods which are harmful to the community, Customs bureaucrats have persistently pursued the line that controlling harmful imported weapons was always a state matter and relevant import control decisions should be made by state police. It never was a state matter. The control of imported weapons was always a federal jurisdictional matter and all that was needed was workable legislation, and a commitment by Customs to apply that legislation. Customs bureaucrats did not make the effort to pursue appropriate legislation because they held the view (particularly from 1970 till 1990’s) that the role of Customs was to collect revenue and facilitate trade, it was not to act as a border police force. 5. It is a fact that there is no federal record/register of the details of each the hundreds of thousands of weapons that have entered Australia. Customs has always had the capacity and generally, the resources to record the details of each and every firearm/weapon entering Australia. Yet this has never happened – despite considerable effort by various state authorities and organisations (including the COA) to get them to do so. 6. On 26 March 1996 I wrote to the new incoming Minister for Customs, Geoff Prosser (See attachment D – to Prosser 1996). I set out a list of problems facing Customs in a summarised form. The letter is 6 pages long. At numbered paragraph 11, I complained that the firearms and weapons controls were a shambles. I noted that Customs was not pursuing importations of prohibited firearm imports even when it was known that the importation had occurred. I made reference to the ‘Strathfield massacre’. Thirty days later was the Port Arthur massacre. 7. After the 1996 Port Arthur massacre in which a semi automatic rifle was used I sent the Prime Minister and State Premiers a comprehensive letter setting out the history of how Customs had abandoned controls over firearm imports – even when explicit prohibitions existed. The letter sets out a history of Customs bureaucratic incompetence and avoidance of responsibilities.(See attachment E – to PM and Premiers 17 May, 1996). In particular pages 5 and 6 of the letter highlight how Customs simply abandoned legislative requirements and foisted responsibilities on states and territories even when those states had no legislation in place to protect their citizens from dangerous imports. 8. As a further example of Customs foisting controls onto states I have attached a 1998 email exchange between myself and a senior officer about the way Customs was dealing with the importation of Khat (narcotic substance) from Somalia. That email again points out that Customs abandons control of dangerous imported goods to the states – it allows importation into one state though other states prohibit possession - and Customs even allows imports into some states before those states are aware that Customs is permitting the drug to be imported. 9. As a consequence of Customs management successful efforts to foist border controls onto states the following outcomes were inevitable. August 9, 1987 - Julian Knight opened fire at random on Hoddle Street in inner Melbourne, killing seven people. He was jailed for life. December 8, 1987 - Frank Vitkovic shot dead eight people and injured four more at the Australia Post building in Queen Street, Melbourne. He then threw himself out of the 11th floor window. August 30, 1990 - Unemployed Paul Anthony Evers, 35, killed five people with a 12-gauge shotgun in the inner-Sydney Surry Hills, after one of his neighbours called him a "dole bludger". August 17, 1991 - Wade Frankum fatally shot six people with a semi-automatic rifle and hacked a 15-year-old girl to death with a knife, at the Strathfield Shopping Mall in western Sydney. He then shot himself. P.P.Bennett, Past National President – Customs Officers Association of Australia - Aug 2014 – Senate re Gun Violence P2 April 28, 1996 - In one of the world's worst mass shootings, Martin Bryant shot dead 35 people at Port Arthur in Tasmania. He was jailed for life. October 21, 2002 - Two people shot dead and five injured in shooting during a tutorial at the Clayton campus of Melbourne's Monash University. Man arrested. Many more murders have occurred since 2002 involving firearms which should have been controlled by Customs but which Customs did nothing about. 10. Customs would have no details of any of the weapons used in these murders. There would be no record of where the weapons came from, how they entered Australia, who imported them, how they were moved in Australia, who granted permission to possess and what restriction were imposed on their use. So if there was any information which would help control the importation, possession and use of these weapons, that information was not and is not held by Customs. 11. Only by analysis of intelligence about imported weapons it is possible to identify a range of critical factors as to how unlawfully used weapons entered Australia. This information is essential to establishing control measures at the border. The means to target import controls can only come from intelligence about weapons that are unlawfully in Australia, or which became unlawfully held after arrival in Australia. 12. Making matters worse is the long held policy of Customs to limit their activities and control measures to the narrowest physical area at the border. The second goods have left that narrow border area, Customs has wiped its hands of any consequences. And the consequences have often been catastrophic – as is evidenced above. 13. It is my view that the Commonwealth has an ongoing responsibility for a range of goods, particularly firearms, which it allows to be imported – not into states - but into Australia as a whole. The Federal parliament as the power and the legislative right to control the conditions and restrictions under which all goods can be imported. And it is my contention that those conditions and restrictions can be ongoing, particularly if the legislation is constructed to ensure that those restrictions are maintained in the national interest. 14. Rather than create legislation which provides ongoing national controls over dangerous imported goods (such as firearms, weapons, radioactive material, child pornography, harmful toys and a plethora of other items) the Commonwealth literally dumps the responsibility and the subsequent enormous costs on the States and Territories . 15. RECOMMENDATION: Create national Customs/Border control legislation that; a. Applies to all prohibited imports b. Sets import conditions and restrictions which must be applied nationally. c. Federal Databases should exist for all prohibited imports (but initially for firearms). d. In the case of firearms/weapons, the conditions and restrictions include the recording of all such items and import details in a federal data base accessible by state authorities. The conditions include; i. The import details including who, what, where, why, when, how and origin, numbering, production date and source of the imported goods. ii. In the absence of that specific information a firearm must not be imported. iii. The primary condition of import is that the firearms/weapons are federally registered to the importer (commercial or private). iv. That the goods cannot be sold or otherwise moved or changed ownership without the change being recorded in the registration and that any change of ownership must be approved by federal and relevant state authorities. v. The possession of any imported firearm is to be conditionally controlled as to storage, use or access.
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