Tobacco

'Using Tobacco Plain Packaging to Protect the Human Rights of Children' by Genevieve Wilkinson in (2022) 45(1) UNSWLJ 370 comments 

 The societal interest of public health protection has driven Australia’s regulation of tobacco products for many years. The recent decision of the World Trade Organization Appellate Body, Australia – Tobacco Plain Packaging, should encourage states to protect supportable societal interests even if they restrict the exercise of intellectual property rights. As the decision suggests that non-World Trade Organization agreements can support tobacco control measures, this article advocates for greater attention towards the human rights implications of these measures. A primary objective of tobacco plain packaging measures is to protect young people, engaging Australia’s obligations pursuant to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The article argues that explicit engagement with children and recognition of their human rights in the development and implementation of plain packaging measures could have strengthened Australia’s defence of its plain packaging measures. It provides novel insights into what a child rights-based approach could mean for the future development of tobacco control measures worldwide.

Cost of Serious/Organised Crime Statistics

The Australian Institute of Criminology report 'Estimating the costs of serious and organised crime in Australia, 2020–21' -

estimates the cost of serious and organised crime in Australia for the 2020–21 financial year. It was not possible to undertake new empirical research to provide accurate baseline data to support the estimated costs. Instead, the most recent reported statistics for individual crime types or public and private expenditure were used as baseline indicators of incidence. The corresponding unit cost estimates were uprated using the RBA (2021) inflation calculator. Where more recent unit cost estimates were available, these were used in preference to uprating to account for inflation. .... 

As indicated above, it is estimated that 6.5 percent of the proceeds of crime actually laundered would be paid as commission to professional facilitators of laundering, representing a loss to the economy. In some cases, proceeds of crime are simply spent on lifestyle, enabling them to remain within the economy. 

Taking into consideration the observations above concerning the problematic nature of making comparisons between cost estimates over time, and bearing in mind changes in the societal influences on crime, changing crime control measures that have been implemented and changes in statistics and estimation methodologies present in current and previous research, Figure 1 presents the total costs of the higher level of serious and organised crime involvement for each loss category in respect of the years 2016–17 and 2020–21. The changes should not, however, be interpreted as necessarily reflecting a change in the net amounts of each cost category as the costing methodologies used have developed over time, and some new crime types have been included and different techniques of estimation applied based on new sources of information becoming available. To indicate how the totals changed between 2016–17 and 2020–21 because of changes in methodologies of measurement, an estimate was made of the higher-level costs presented in Table 21 that related to the counting of new forms of serious and organised crime, not previously counted, and new ways in which costs were calculated. From Figure 1, it is apparent that changes in costing methodologies increased the estimated costs of only some categories of crime. In the case of other crime types, the increase was predominantly due to changes in net actual costs. ...

The additional costs due to changes in methodology and cost categories totalled $8,072m since the 2016–17 estimation was published. The difference between this and the total in Table 21 is $52,049m, which is 9.7 percent more than the total higher-level costs for 2016–17. This is graphically shown in column 3 of Figure 2 along with comparable totals for 2013–14. These are presented as both the total estimated cost as well as the total cost as a percentage of Australia’s gross domestic product (GDP; ABS 2022: Table 36, col H). From Figure 2, the total estimated cost of serious and organised crime has increased by 65 percent since 2013–14, while this cost as a percentage of GDP has increased by 41 percent (or 1.2 percentage points). Between 2016–17 and 2020–21, this increase as a percentage of GDP was only 17.6 percent (or 0.6 percentage points). Nonetheless, the final global estimates indicate the increasing, substantial economic impact of this form of criminality on the Australian economy over time.

The AIC states

This report estimates the cost of serious and organised crime in Australia in 2020–21 to be between $24.8b and $60.1b. This is the third in a series of reports undertaken for the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission estimating the cost of serious and organised crime. It updates and improves on the methodology used in the previous report, which estimated the cost of organised crime in 2016–17. As with the previous research, this report considers the direct and consequential costs of serious and organised crime in Australia, as well as the costs to government entities, businesses and individuals associated with preventing and responding to serious and organised crime. While the current estimates were undertaken during the COVID-19 pandemic and may reflect changes in criminality resulting from the pandemic, the full economic impact of serious and organised criminal offending committed during the pandemic will not be known for some time. It is clear, however, that the impact of serious and organised crime on the Australian economy is substantial. 

This Statistical Report provides an estimate of the cost of serious and organised crime in Australia for the year 2020–21. This is the third in a series of reports undertaken for the Australian Crime Commission (2015a, 2015b) and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC; Smith 2018a) and draws on a methodological approach first developed by Mukherjee and Walker at the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) in the 1980s to estimate the size and cost of all crime in Australia (Mukherjee et al. 1987). The present study is the eighth iteration of the original cost of crime research design, with each report demonstrating improvements in the scope and sophistication of the methodology. 

Crime, of course, is continually evolving and adapting to changes in society, the economy and the criminal justice system. Since the last report was written (Smith 2018a), Australia and the world have been subject to the global coronavirus pandemic, which has not only affected the health and wellbeing of individuals but also changed the way in which social relations take place and how business and government operate. The pandemic has also provided many opportunities for criminality to occur (Levi & Smith 2021) and, although some of these have been taken up, the full economic impact of offending committed during the pandemic will not be known for some time. 

Accordingly, the estimate of the cost of serious and organised crime for 2020–21 reflects some changes evident in the incidence of crime during the pandemic but is unlikely to show the full impact of such crime identified at the time of writing. It would therefore be inappropriate to attribute any changes in the costs of crime presented in this report, compared with those costs presented in earlier reports, solely to the influence of the pandemic. Further research on individual crime types is required to determine the exact ways in which, and the extent to which, costs have changed from previous estimations. 

As with the previous research, this report examines the direct and consequential costs of serious and organised crime and the costs associated with preventing and responding to serious and organised crime by government entities, businesses and individuals or households. The estimated total cost for 2020–21 was between $24.8b (low), $39.9b (medium) and $60.1b (high) and comprised the following cost categories. 

Direct serious and organised crimes were estimated to cost up to $37.3b in 2020–21. These are crimes that have a clear and direct link with serious and organised crime (eg illicit drug trafficking, human trafficking and organised financial crime). 

Consequential serious and organised crimes were estimated to cost up to $6.4b in 2020–21. These are conventional crimes committed as a consequence of serious and organised crimes. They are crimes that generate funds used to support involvement in serious and organised criminal activities (in particular, the crimes illicit drug users commit to finance drug purchases), crimes that result from involvement in serious and organised crime-related activities (eg violence, sexual assaults and burglaries committed by those using illicit drugs), or conventional crimes committed by organised crime groups (eg organised shop theft) or committed to facilitate serious and organised criminal activities (eg using violence to intimidate businesses or using identity crime to facilitate financial fraud). 

Prevention and response costs were estimated to be up to $16.4b in 2020–21. These include costs incurred by law enforcement, the criminal justice system, other government agencies, the private sector and individuals in the community in preventing and responding to crime. 

Interestingly, the upper estimate of total direct costs, including consequential costs, of serious and organised crime in 2020–21 ($43.7b) was only slightly less than the total recurrent expenditure of all government agencies with some responsibility for serious and organised crime control in Australia in the same year ($45.1b). 

The methodology adopted in this report seeks to estimate costs for the financial year 2020–21. Where data were not available for this period, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA; RBA 2021) inflation calculator was used to uprate estimated costs from earlier periods to reflect changes in the cost of living, where appropriate.

Electoral Roll

The Victorian Parliament's Legislative Assembly Electoral Matters Committee report last month on its inquiry 'into whether Victoria should participate in a national electoral roll platform' reflects the following terms of reference - 

(a) the possible implications, if any, of a national electoral roll platform on the independence of the Victorian Electoral Commission; 

(b) the security and integrity of Victoria’s electoral system; and 

(c) mechanisms to ensure the security and integrity of electoral systems and events in other jurisdictions around Australia and internationally to determine best practice. 

 The report states 

 Since 2017, Australia’s state, territory and Commonwealth electoral commissions have been working towards the development of a shared software platform. This ‘national electoral platform’ could support a variety of electoral functions, including the electoral roll. It has the potential to improve cyber security and to provide cost savings and efficiencies for electoral commissions. 

The national electoral platform is still in the concept phase. The system specifications, the funding arrangements and the governance structure have not been determined. No part of the system has yet been developed. 

This Committee was asked to investigate whether or not Victoria should move to a national electoral roll platform—that is, the electoral roll component of the national electoral platform. This would involve a major change from the current arrangements, in which the Victorian Electoral Commission (VEC) maintains a bespoke piece of software which stores Victoria’s database of electors, produces electoral rolls and supports other electoral functions. 

Given that the national electoral roll platform is still in the concept phase, the Committee cannot definitively say whether moving to it would be in Victoria’s interest. The evidence received by the Committee suggests that, if a national platform is designed appropriately, it could be beneficial for Victoria. A national electoral roll platform has the potential to facilitate best practice information security systems for electors’ data, to provide cost savings over time and to enable a more complete and accurate roll. 

However, to protect Victoria’s democracy, any change to electoral systems must be done in a carefully considered manner. Electoral systems are complex and it is important to ensure that changes do not have unintended consequences. Before moving to a national platform, the system needs to be carefully examined to ensure that it does not negatively impact on the VEC’s ability to perform its functions. 

A national platform must meet all of the VEC’s business needs. In addition, it must have systems to support future changes to Victoria’s legislation and the VEC’s processes, so that Victoria’s electoral independence can be maintained. It is also important that moving to a national platform does not affect the VEC’s ability to deliver local council elections. If the national platform can address these matters while providing the expected benefits, it would be in Victoria’s interests to move to it. 

The Committee’s conclusion is that it is worthwhile for the VEC to continue working with other commissions to explore the possibility of a national electoral platform, including a national electoral roll platform. 

In the meantime, both the Victorian and Australian electoral commissions are currently undertaking work to redevelop the software they use to manage their databases of electors and produce electoral rolls. The Committee considers this an appropriate interim measure while work towards a national electoral roll platform takes place. However, the Committee would strongly encourage both electoral commissions to collaborate wherever possible to reduce duplication of effort and costs. 

The Committee has also noted that there is a lack of transparency around what data are stored in the Victorian database of electors. The Committee has therefore recommended that legislation be updated to clearly set out what is stored on the database, as is the case in several other Australian states and territories.

The Committee's Findings and recommendations are -

 Current arrangements 

FINDING 1: Both the Australian Electoral Commission and the Victorian Electoral Commission maintain registers of enrolled electors on bespoke pieces of software. The vast majority of Victorian electors are on both registers. Western Australia is the only other state with a similar arrangement. Australia’s other states and territories rely on the Australian Electoral Commission’s register, which is used to produce electoral rolls for state and local council elections in those jurisdictions. 

FINDING 2: Both the Australian Electoral Commission and the Victorian Electoral Commission have recently begun work on redeveloping the software that they use to manage their registers of electors. 

RECOMMENDATION 1: That, as part of the Victorian Electoral Commission’s redevelopment of its Roll Management System, the Victorian Electoral Commission seek opportunities to collaborate with the Australian Electoral Commission and its project to redevelop its roll management system where possible. This collaboration should seek any opportunities to reduce the duplication of effort and costs involved with separately commissioning two pieces of software with similar functions. 

What Victoria needs from a register of electors 

FINDING 3: Victoria’s Electoral Act lacks clarity about what data are to be stored in the Victorian register of electors. Legislation in other Australian jurisdictions is clearer about what data must be stored, while still allowing for flexibility. Victoria’s Electoral Act could be improved by adopting this approach. 

RECOMMENDATION 2: That the Government amend the Electoral Act 2002 to specify what data can be stored in the register of electors. The legislation should specify what data must be stored and what data may be stored for each elector, as in the Australian Capital Territory’s Electoral Act. The legislation should also provide for flexibility by allowing further data categories to be specified in subordinate legislation. 

A national electoral roll platform 

FINDING 4: Australian electoral commissions have done some work to develop the concept of a national electoral platform, which would include a national electoral roll platform. However, they have not yet developed a concrete proposal for how a platform would be designed or operate. Work is ongoing. 

FINDING 5: If it is designed appropriately, a national electoral roll platform has the potential to meet Victoria’s needs, while providing better cyber security, being more accurate and complete, and enabling cost savings over time compared to the current arrangements. 

RECOMMENDATION 3: That the Victorian Electoral Commission continue working with other jurisdictions towards the creation of a national electoral platform, including a national electoral roll platform. As part of this, the Victorian Electoral Commission should advocate for the platform to be designed in a way that will meet Victoria’s needs. 

RECOMMENDATION 4: That Victoria not commit to a national electoral roll platform until details of the design and governance structure are more developed. At that time, an assessment can be made as to whether or not a national electoral roll platform would meet Victoria’s needs.