New Customs integrity measures unveiled

The Customs and Border Protection Service announced new integrity measures to fight corruption. Source: AAP

THE time is up for corrupt Customs officers hoping to escape detection, the border patrol authority says after announcing a new suite of integrity measures.

The Australian Customs and Border Protection Service (ACBPS) made the announcement following the release of an Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity report into the activities of four corrupt officers arrested between August last year and February.

ACBPS CEO Michael Pezzullo said the behaviour of those officers undermined the community's trust in the service to protect Australia's borders.

Since September, the ACBPS had significantly strengthened integrity processes and hardened against infiltration and corruption, he said.

"For those few officers who continue to make the wrong choices or who might think that by keeping their heads down they might ride out the clean-up, here is the bottom line: there is no escape form the new integrity approach and your time is up," Mr Pezzullo said in a statement.

Customs officers will from Saturday undergo random drug and alcohol testing, will legally be required to report corruption and serious misconduct, and can now access an integrity support and referral network.

In Australian airports, a range of reforms have been introduced from this weekend, including a ban on personal mobile phones in sensitive operational areas and new rules for the processing of passengers known to officers.

There will also be tighter control over access to staff rosters to reduce the potential for corrupt officers to plan activities, and increased monitoring of unscheduled and unauthorised absences and attendance of officers in the workplace when not rostered to work.

Mr Pezzullo said the actions of a few had undermined and tarnished the work of the diligent majority.

"This is a difficult time, but we are committed to combating corruption and determined to remove anyone who does not share the highest standards of personal and professional integrity," he said.

"The service will not ease up and drift back to the (previous) state of affairs."

Minister for Justice Jason Clare said the report follows the arrest of 20 people, including four employees of the ACBPS, one officer from the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, one baggage handler, and 14 others.

Further arrests are possible, he said.

Fifty-four kilograms of pseudoephedrine have also been seized, and cash and assets to the value of approximately $237,000 have been confiscated.

"An enduring lesson is that corruption risk will follow opportunity for illicit profit," the report states.

"Those responsible for governance of high-risk operating environments must expect this situation to be the case and plan accordingly."

Mr Clare has also established the Customs Reform Board made up of James Wood QC, who headed the royal commission into the NSW police service, former NSW Police Commissioner Ken Moroney, and David Mortimer, former CEO of TNT and former Chairman of Australia Post and Leighton Holdings.

The board will advise the minister on further major structural and cultural reforms to Customs.

The federal government has systematically dismantled the capabilities of the ACBPS and increased their vulnerability to infiltration from organised crime, opposition border protection spokesman Michael Keenan said.

He said the agency has had its funding and personnel cut in every budget since Labor came to office in 2007, with $125.5 million and 870 staff cut since then.

Mr Keenan also said the government has cut funding to the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity in the last budget, "the very agency tasked with the enormous job of investigating the systemic corruption allegations within Customs".

He accused the minister of trying to avoid scrutiny of the report's findings by releasing it on a weekend.

"You cannot systematically dismantle our border protection agency, load them up with significant extra responsibilities and then expect that this won't expose vulnerabilities that organised crime can exploit," Mr Keenan said in a statement.

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