AFP restructure targets organised crime

"The Government has increased funding to the Australian Federal Police by $111 million this year," Minister for Home Affairs Brendan O'Connor said.

"In 2009/10, the AFP will receive funding of approximately $1.3 billion.

"We are restructuring elements of the AFP today as part of the implementation of the Beale Review of policing in Australia.

"We're also taking steps to improve the Australian Federal Police's capacity to combat organised crime."

AFP Commissioner Tony Negus said the threat of organised crime was constantly 'reforming and reshaping'.

"It's about drugs.

"It's about fraud.

"It's about high-tech crime.

"It's about a range of different activities which now we see are very networked and very marketed amongst the criminal syndicates, rather than specifically looking at one particular crime type, they're very much multi-networked.

"The AFP has been fighting organised crime for many decades, but we think this new structure will prepare us to fight it in a way which is more in keeping with a joint approach, working with our partners internationally and locally to best address the threats posed by organised crime.

"This is a reallocation of resources from within our portfolios to focus on organised crime as a holistic process, rather than define it by drugs or fraud or money-laundering or something of a similar nature."