2004 Homeland Security Conference Dinner
Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty APM
Transcript of address to the 2004 Homeland Security Conference Dinner
National Convention Centre
Canberra
Tuesday 24 August 2004
Thank you.
I would like to acknowledge that we are on the land of the Ngunnawal people and that we respect the elders of the Ngunnawal, and the work that they do with us in the Canberra community.
I would also like to acknowledge tonight Major General Maurie McNarn. Good to see you again, Maurie. Frank Lewincamp, Dr Brendon Hammer, who is here as Deputy Director of ONA, Air Vice Marshal Christopher Spence, Head of Strategic Operation, Major General Frank Roberts, who is sitting opposite me. Sorry, Frank, I didn't get a chance to say hello. Peter Jennings, who is Director of Programs at ASPI.
It is a pleasure to be here with you tonight. This is the third Homeland Security Conference. Indeed, I spoke at the conference last year, not as the after dinner speaker but as a presenter.
No doubt you will all be aware that a lot has happened in that time. Dare I say it, we have had the Madrid train bombings and we have had the sentencing of key Bali bombers. And we have had in Australia the first person to be sentenced for terrorism related offences - a person who happened to have the very unusual name of Roche. We've also had new measures to promote security in aviation, border protection, intelligence gathering - not only here in Australia but also overseas.
I think it is very good to have a forum attracting people across a range of industries to discuss contemporary Homeland security issues to enhance our strategic response.
And I think the title for this year's conference, "Evaluations and Directions", is a fitting one at this point in time, because there are a lot of questions coming to people's minds now that really need to start to be answered.
And I think whilst we might have had a very tactical and immediate response to a lot of things that have happened over the last three years, I think it is time for us to start thinking about how we can be more strategic over the long term.
A snapshot of law enforcement progress to date shows that since international terrorist cells were disrupted in our region and key terrorist figures arrested. There have been over 36 arrests directly related to the Bali bombings and over 15 directly related to the Marriott bombings, which was in fact only 12 months ago. The bombing of the Marriott was in August last year.
We have gained new information about how terrorist cells are operating, including a solid appreciation of Jemaah Islamiyah - its goals, structures, organisation, and regional linkages with such other groups as the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the Abu Sayyaf Group, obviously both working out of southern Philippines.
There has also been a strong spirit of co operation amongst Australian and overseas agencies to tackle the security related issues in front of us, and many new and strategic partnerships forged in the fight against terrorism. But the threat of terrorism still looms large, and security remains a key issue around the world.
You only have to look at the Athens Olympics. Greece has reportedly spent more than US$1.5 billion on security measures for the Games. This is a five fold increase from the Sydney 2000 Olympics. And there are more than 70,000 security guards employed at the Olympics in Athens, as I speak tonight. This outnumbers the athletes by about seven to one.
Anyone who has been watching the Olympics will know that security has rivalled sporting performances as one of the biggest stories, particularly in the lead up to the Games.
I have just come back from Thailand in the last 48 hours, and I can tell you that one great thing that we have got in this country is that we are focused on all sports. It was very hard to get any news out of Thailand on what was happening in the Olympics, apart from weightlifting for the Thais. So there is a definite cultural difference there that you appreciate when you are not at home.
Here at home the Australian Government has committed more than $3 billion to security initiatives in recent years. Also the Australian Security Industry Association estimates spending - at a conservative sum - to be about $4 billion annually on private security measures to protect our homes, our businesses and our belongings.
And when we think about lessons learned from the security environment to date, for us in the Australian Federal Police, one of the biggest has been the importance of investing in partnerships. And this is the theme I would like to explore a little bit tonight.
One of the realities of fighting most forms of crime in today's world is that it simply can't be done alone. Borders are often rendered meaningless when it comes to crime.
And, as some of you may be aware, the work of the Australian Federal Police obviously has attracted a lot of attention in partnership with the Indonesian National Police and has now even attracted the attention of movie makers.
Kennedy Miller Productions, who are the makers of films like Mad Max, Babe, Dead Calm and Bangkok Hilton, have now become interested in making a mini television series on the Bali bombings investigation, which will go to air probably in 2006.
But there is another side to the Bali story that probably won't make it to the screen. It's the story about the long term relationship that was developed between the Australian Federal Police and the Indonesian National Police dating back almost 20 years.
It begins back in the late 1970s when the AFP established a presence in Indonesia to step up the fight against illicit drugs. The aim was to prevent offshore drugs from coming to our country.
On the issue of drugs…interestingly, New South Wales yesterday released their crime statistics. In all areas the crime statistics have shown marked reduction. Some academics, including Dr Weatherburn from the Crime Statistics Unit, says it is because of the heroin drought. When you talk about a heroin drought in Australia, we are the only western nation to have experienced a heroin drought. That is identified by the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime.
I put that down to our offshore activities, some of which are remarkably successful - 1.5 tonnes of amphetamines taken out in the Philippines en route from China to Australia; 1.3 tonnes of amphetamines from an amphetamine manufacture factory taken out of Fiji just a month ago - in July - amphetamines that were destined for Australia.
Extraordinarily high rates of seizures in drugs are having a local impact here at home.
As I say...we established this relationship with Indonesia many, many years ago based upon drug crimes. But it has given us an opportunity to develop a deep understanding and appreciation of the people of Indonesia, of their culture and the conditions under which they work.
And whilst we in Australia might think that our system of government works for us here, there is no way known our system of government will work in a country like Indonesia, or indeed many other countries in the world.
To have a country which is an archipelago of many thousands of islands some people counted up to 15,000 islands to not have a strong centralist government would just simply not work. To have our system of democracy in a country like that simply wouldn't work.
You wouldn't know that, if you were sitting here trying to understand it from our perspective. You must live offshore and get an understanding of what life is like in some of these countries, and get away from finger pointing and try and understand more about the issues confronting these countries. And sometimes they are not the issues that we think are the highest priority. Sometimes there are many other priorities in those countries, particularly in developing nations.
And in this part of the world, in my view, it is not so much the business that you do, it is how you do your business that is critically important to your organisation.
We had to work hard to distinguish ourselves from other countries working in the region to eliminate duplication and try to find a niche, which we did over a period of time.
Our deep sense of mutual trust and understanding was built up long before the Bali bombings.
Even when we were invited to participate with the United Nations as part of the East Timor ballot, one of the things that I did I wasn't head of the organisation at the time but I always made sure that every time I went to East Timor I had a stop-over in Jakarta on the way in to Dili and again on the way out of Dili. And that is recognition of the sovereignty. I think if there is any single thing I did correctly, it was probably that, because it gave me some sort of insight into what was valuable, in a value sense, to the Indonesians.
And I think another of the key lessons we learned about doing business in Indonesia is that you have to do some other things that are very much part of the Indonesian culture, and indeed the culture of Asia.
I have just returned from my second invitation to ASEAN or ASEANAPOL. The first time anyone from Australia was invited to ASEANAPOL was last year; so this year was the second time. It was hosted by Thailand. A critical thing you have to do is learn how to play golf and learn how to sing Karaoke. And I am not going to do the Karaoke tonight!
But fairways and putting greens are very much where high level negotiation takes place. If you can get an opportunity to spend four-and-a-half hours of quality time with someone, without officials around, it can actually deliver enormous benefits to you.
One of the things that was very much in the forefront of Australia's mind, going back just before the Bali bombings, was the issue of people smuggling. The arrangement that we had with the Indonesian National Police was in fact set aside at the time during our focus on that.
We worked hard to get that arrangement back together.
Some six months before the Bali bombings, I invited the head of the Indonesian National Police, General Dai Bachtiar to play golf. Just to give you some perspective…I head up an organisation that has an annual budget of about $900 million and only about 5,000 staff. We are in every capital city of the country and we are in 26 countries overseas and 33 cities, which doesn't include the numbers we have got in the Solomon Islands and the numbers we are about to deploy in Papua New Guinea.
My counterpart in Indonesia is in fact a Cabinet Minister. He has at the moment 270,000 police. It is about to increase to 300,000!
And so to compare the two of us is just extraordinarily wrong. We both work in very different ways.
So it is important that relationships are built up on a personal level. And whilst MOUs or arrangements can be very symbolic, to make them more meaningful you have to really build up that relationship.
…And as I say, six months before the Bali bombings, General Dai Bachtiar and I were playing a game of golf and he raised with me the problems he was having in Aceh and Ambon.
He is a very devout Muslim. He knew that I was a Christian. We talked about how you would get Christians and Muslims together. And he was very sincere about it. Very sincere about the capacity of his own Police Force to deal with the problems in Aceh and Ambon. And we talked about our capacity building in terms of post blast analysis, and some of the other forensic examinations that we might be able to do.
In fact, on the 13th of October 2002 we were due to start the first post blast analysis forensic course in Jakarta. Our forensic police were on their way from Singapore down to Jakarta on the night of the Bali bombings. And when the Bali bombings happened General Dai Bachtiar rang me and he said: "Do you remember the golf game we had?" And I said: "Yes, I do". He said: "Remember terrorism? This is what has happened to me. I need your help".
As I say, you can do business in the region but you really must develop the relationships before the business, to make a difference.
There is another side to the Bali bombings that is very difficult to talk about publicly, but in this environment I think it is important to mention, particularly given the background of the people here and the professions that you represent.
We commissioned a study by the Centre of International Economics on the economic cost of the Bali bombings. I have a real interest in this because, obviously, I have been trying to develop partnerships with private enterprise here in Australia and overseas. Particularly many of the countries that we operate in, there is a large investment by Australian companies who are trying to develop their business in these regions, and they are calling upon us more often than not now to talk about what the local environment is like.
But the Centre for International Economics tell us that the cost of the Bali bombings at an economic level is about $3 billion. That involved the short and long term cost, including the emergency response of about $200 million, property destruction of more than $6 million, and investigation and flow on costs to industries.
And whilst those costs might seem large, they could have been much worse had there not been early intervention and early arrests, and a recognition that something was in fact happening and work done by the Indonesian National Police to actually get through the investigation at quite an impressive pace.
It also demonstrated the enormous value of bilateral and multi lateral arrangements. When the Marriott bombing happened, that phone call happened again from General Dai Bachtiar to ask for assistance from the Australian Federal Police up in Indonesia.
The other thing that this relationship has done for us, is moved the AFP to work closer with other countries in the region. We have now established memoranda of understanding in the Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, East Timor and Fiji. And in the Philippines, for example, the day that we signed the MOU a very infamous terrorist, Al Ghozi, escaped from jail. Whilst there was some criticism of that, it actually highlights the reason why we are there, to provide capacity building to some of these developing police organisations in the region.
We have also done some other things in Indonesia in recent times. We have opened up the Jakarta Centre for Law Enforcement Operations, a $38 million project over four years. That centre will enhance the law enforcement capacity in the region. It is a regional centre. It is not only for Indonesia and Australia, it is also for other countries in the region. That will help them in investigations, criminal intelligence, forensics, financial investigations, prosecutions, as well as counter terrorism drafting skills in the legislation area.
And it has attracted significant attention from the European Union. The European Union is a major donor in the region but doesn't often have the facility through which to donate. So we are finding a lot of interest in the centre from the European Union and other donor nations.
We are also trying to set the centre up to deal with training in countering maritime crime, which is a real issue in the straits around Indonesia; people smuggling and also the emergence of trafficking in women and children for sexual servitude.
And it will develop strong links with the South East Asian Regional Centre for Counter terrorism which is based in Kuala Lumpur, and also the International Law Enforcement Academy, where I visited last Friday, in Bangkok. The Australian Federal Police has also established a transnational crime coordination centre in Indonesia, which will now link into coordination centres that we have established throughout the South Pacific.
And I think a lot of the experiences that we have gained out of our work in Indonesia has helped us set up for deployment to places like the Solomon Islands where our understanding of local conditions, different priorities and the way of doing business and local sovereignty has been so important.
It is interesting that in July - July the 24th - it was the 12 month anniversary of the intervention into the Solomon Islands. And for a place that was in the state that it was in, it is significant that not one crime has been committed in the Solomon Islands using a firearm since the intervention force went in on the 24th of July 2003. And that has made a huge difference for the people in the Solomon Islands.
That success led us to create what is now called the International Deployment Group. One of the problems that I saw confronting us as an organisation, but also internationally, particularly with the United Nations, is that you can often - anywhere in the world - tap into defence resources, but it is very difficult to tap into experienced police resources. Because, if you think about it, most communities need the policing skills they have at their doorstep. The idea of having police in large numbers go offshore is not one that attracts many communities, because they believe that the more police put on the ground, the safer their community is going to be.
So we had to do something different. Therefore, at the beginning of the year we created the International Deployment Group, where we are trying to build up a body of police - up to 500 - that we can deploy to places like the Solomon Islands. And commencing this Friday, a contingent will head up to Bougainville as part of a wider deployment to Papua New Guinea.
On the domestic front, I think Bali also got us to think 'outside the square' a little bit. We are starting to realise more now, that fighting crime is not about just simply law enforcement. The private sector and academic institutions have a very valuable role in helping guide our law enforcement policy to promote prevention and our knowledge base responses.
One of the initiatives announced in recent months is the creation of the Business Government Advisory Group on national security. This group will encourage dialogue between peak government and business leaders on national security matters. Some organisations will get access to intelligence and I think this will be very much mutually beneficial. Business is an excellent source of information on what is going on in the community. It employs large numbers of people and has wide exposure to the public. Business also relies on government to promote the stability that underpins their activities.
The AFP has been doing a number of things to build relationships with business. As we all know, high tech crime is one of the fastest growing areas of crime. A recent survey of computer security operations amongst our private and public sector organisations found that 49 per cent of those agencies last year experienced electronic attacks that harmed data confidentiality, the integrity of the system or the system availability in some way.
The High Tech Crime Centre hosted by the Australian Federal Police, has invited more than 20 law enforcement government and private sector agencies on board. They all work here in Canberra on a 24 hour 7 day a week basis.
We have also signed a recent major agreement with the five major banks, the Australian Bankers Association and also with Visa Card and Mastercard and Credit Unions Australia, who also have staff based in the High Tech Crime Centre.
In addition, we have joined forces with something in the order of 14 separate agencies to try and stem the flow and growing problem of identity fraud. Identity fraud is now worth $4 billion annually to this country.
And we are also looking at a range of new ways to get businesses on board in terms of helping us bolster the security environment, both nationally and abroad.
One of the other things we have been doing, which is very much focused on business outcomes, has been to commence some strategic partnerships with some of the universities. We have got joint research on illicit drugs with the Australian National University. And on that note we have done some analysis on the return of investment from various AFP operations and I can tell you, that for every dollar that is invested in an AFP drug operation, about $5 in value is returned to the community. For every dollar that is invested in a fraud investigation in the AFP there is about $6 returned to the community.
And we just engaged the University of Queensland to do a similar assessment of the dollar value of the money we have invested into counter terrorism. That is along with work we are doing with Deakin University, the University of Wollongong, and Charles Sturt University. We are trying to get some empirical understanding of some of the things we have engaged ourselves in.
In concluding, I think significant progress in securing our environment is being made. But it is going to be a long haul.
I have been talking to people about matters of philosophy and ideology, and our understanding of what is going on. I think we can too quickly categorise groups and institutions and not understand what the real long term issues are going to be.
For example, who would have thought that the IRA, which was responsible for so much terrorism in years gone by, would now have a position that it now has? People might talk about the PLO. People might talk about the ANC and the position that they occupy in the world today. And whilst we were happy to celebrate the end of the Cold War and the depolarisation of the world, I think in the current climate we need to be careful not to let the instability and uncertainty created by terrorism drag us back into a divided world; a world where communities are pitted against each other, generations against generations, or children against adults, or countries against countries based on religious or ideological grounds.
There are too many other challenges that we have to face. There are too many social and economic factors. Here in this country alone we focus very much on simple resources like water, which we have taken for granted for such a long period of time.
But I think there is some other work that we need to do. There are many countries in our region, particularly in the South Pacific, who have been left behind in globalisation's wake who don't have too many opportunities to choose the relevant path or an easier path, particularly when it comes to things like money laundering.
I think we need to focus very much on how we work out our relationship with countries like China, which will emerge as the new superpower, not only in an economic sense.
Regardless of what industry we belong to, we all have an important role to play, and our success will depend not only on what we are doing today but the sustained commitment and application of our processes from here on by all.
I'd like to just finish by quoting from a book. I happened to be involved in a project involving an architect - for whom I have enormous regard - and she got me to read this book called "The Clock of the Long Now". And in "The Clock of the Long Now" there was a quote by a mathematician, Freeman Dyson, who might be known to some of you. I think in terms of the long haul he sums it up very accurately. He says:
"The destiny of our species is shaped by the imperatives of survival on six different time scales.
To survive means to compete successfully on all of the six time scales.
But the unit of survival is different on all six time scales.
On a time scale of years, the unit is the individual."
I guess we could compare ourselves three years ago, two years ago, one year ago, to that.
"On a time scale of decades, the unit is the family.
On a time scale of centuries, the unit is the tribe or the nation.
On a time scale of millennia, the unit is the culture.
On a time scale of tens of millennia, the unit is the species.
On a time scale of eons, the unit is the whole web of life on our planet.
Every human being is the product of adaptation to the demands of all six time scales.
This is why conflicting loyalties are deep in our nature.
In order to survive, we have needed to be loyal to ourselves, to our families, to our tribes, to our cultures, to our species and to our planet.
If our psychological impulses are complicated, it is because they were shaped by the complicated and conflicting demands."
So, in essence, I think we need to think now about the challenges we confront in a big picture context. We face a lot of challenges and none of them will be resolved overnight. But I think the one thing that should guide us all is that everything we do today should be based upon making a better future for the generations that follow us, regardless of who they are or where they are.
Thank you.