National Anti-Corruption Commissioner the Hon Paul Brereton AM RFD SC delivered this speech at the eleventh session of the Conference of the States Parties to the United Nations Convention against Corruption (COSP11) on 15 December 2025 in Doha, Qatar.
Thank you, to our colleagues in the Pacific Islands Forum, and to UNODC, for organising this event, which brings a very important focus to the nexus between organised crime and corruption in our region.
I'd particularly like to acknowledge the visionary leadership of the President of Kiribati, HE Taneti Maamau, in the promotion of Pacific unity against corruption, as expressed in the Teieniwa Vision, in which the signatories, including Australia, record our collective aspirations for a peaceful, harmonious and prosperous Pacific and recognise that it cannot be realised unless we address corruption. I offer our deep condolences to His Excellency and the people of Kiribati on the passing of His Excellency's wife, which is why he is unable to join us in person today.
I also acknowledge the leadership of Secretary-General the Hon Baron Waqa in keeping combatting corruption and organised crime high on the agenda for our region.
I am proud to represent Australia's National Anti-Corruption Commission, which is Australia's preventive anti-corruption body under Article 6 of UNCAC. The Commission's mission is to enhance integrity in the Commonwealth public sector, by deterring, detecting and preventing corrupt conduct involving Commonwealth public officials, through education, monitoring, investigation, reporting and referral.
Our jurisdiction is concerned with corrupt conduct that involves Commonwealth public officials. That includes Parliamentarians, and staff members of Commonwealth agencies, including individuals providing services under a contract with the Commonwealth. Importantly in this audience, it includes Australian public officials - and contracted service providers - abroad, including those who may be involved in delivering Australian programs in the Pacific.
Serious and organised crime
A recent report on the cost of serious and organised crime in Australia estimated that in 2023-24 the cost of organised crime to Australia rose to $82.3 billion, a significant increase from previous years. Illicit drugs account for almost 50 per cent of the direct costs at $19.0 billion, followed by organised financial crime ($13.2 billion), trafficking illicit commodities ($8.6 billion), and cybercrime ($4.5 billion).
The 2025 Global Organised Crime Index launched last week describes the greatest risk for criminality in the region - and globally - as so-called 'state-embedded actors': essentially corrupt public officials. This is where combating corruption intersects with combating transnational organised crime.
We recognise that corruption and organised crime are transnational issues that do not respect national boundaries and that intersect in a number of ways.
For us, corruption at the Australian border is one of the most significant of these intersections. Serious and organised crime groups have sought to leverage trusted insiders within supply and enforcement chains.
These insiders are exploited for their access to information and knowledge of border security and law enforcement processes, to facilitate illicit importations. Our investigations to date show that investigations involving the border are far more likely to involve serious and organised crime groups than investigations elsewhere in our jurisdiction.
Serious and organised crime groups have also sought to systematically defraud large government-funded programs, and this activity can be enabled or enhanced by corruption. This includes collusion with service providers, and the exploitation of insiders within government agencies. New programs, with untested regulation and rapid disbursement of funding, are particularly vulnerable.
The increasing adoption of online services for government programs also broadens the avenues for exploitation, particularly by cybercriminals.
I acknowledge the work of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime in exploring the nexus between cybercrime and corruption, and linkages between the UN Convention against Corruption and the new UN Convention against Cybercrime , which Australia signed in Hanoi, Viet Nam on 25 October 2025. I look forward to further discussions on how our efforts to combat corruption can also fight cybercrime.
Regional anti-corruption co-operation
Ours is a very young organisation. We have much to learn from older organisations, not only in Australia, but elsewhere. The Commission embraces and fosters Australia's commitment, under the Teieniwa Vision, to unite our voice as a Blue Pacific, and to ensure that regional anti-corruption priorities are being presented, where possible, as a collective.
We are also keen to share our learning and experience with our Pacific colleagues in the anti-corruption community. Since our establishment two and a half years ago, and since we last gathered at CoSP10 in Atlanta in December 2023, we have built strong and enduring relationships with many of our Pacific colleagues. We have had regular exchanges with anti-corruption commissions in Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Tonga.
We were honoured to host 33 delegates from 11 Pacific nations (the Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tonga and Tuvalu) at the biennial Australian Public Sector Anti-Corruption Conference in Darwin in 2024, to discuss common challenges and solutions in our collective efforts to combat corruption.
I invite you all to join us next year in Canberra where we will host APSACC from 7-9 September 2026, to continue this vital, ongoing exchange of information and best practice.
