Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett has called for a "renewed conversation" about organised crime and illicit drugs, warning that Australians' consumption of narcotics is directly linked to gangland violence and national security threats.
Barrett said the shootings tied to organised crime in New South Wales, including cases of mistaken identity, may have finally given the public reason to pay attention to a danger police have long struggled to communicate. She stressed the problem was not confined to one state, noting that mistaken murders carried out by organised crime gangs had also occurred elsewhere in Australia.
"But at its core, we are battling a demand issue, and that is Australia's voracious consumption of illicit drugs," Barrett said. She said organised crime groups, onshore and overseas, were fighting for dominance because of the "obscene profits" they make from drugs sold in Australia, and that those who pull the trigger or traffic the drugs bear responsibility for the violence. She said the victims could be "your mum or dad, your neighbour or the person who makes your latte in the morning," and said her comments were not aimed at criticising any individual, policy or decision but at focusing community attention on the issue.
Five Eyes警告
Barrett referred to the Five Eyes Law Enforcement Group Annual Principals Meeting held earlier this year, which brings together senior police and law enforcement leaders from Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand. She said many leaders at that meeting had noted how difficult it was to get the public's attention on the dangers of illicit drug use.
The Kaz Hamad case
Barrett pointed to the case of Kaz Hamad, a former Melbourne underworld figure who was sentenced to life in prison in Iraq for drug trafficking, as an example of the AFP's approach to pursuing offenders overseas. Hamad had also been accused of being one of the key orchestrators of Melbourne's tobacco wars, a wave of firebombings across the city as criminal groups fought for control of the billion-dollar illicit tobacco market. Barrett said many gangs behind cocaine, methamphetamine or heroin trafficking are also involved in illicit tobacco importation, describing most crime groups as "commodity agnostic" and drawn to whatever product generates the biggest profits.
Wider threats cited
Beyond the suburban violence, Barrett listed several other reasons she said justified a renewed national debate on drugs and organised crime. These included the growing availability of more potent synthetic drugs being trafficked worldwide, and a rising national security threat from the convergence of state actors and organised crime groups willing to work together.
She also flagged the pace and scale at which criminal groups are able to use artificial intelligence to evade detection by law enforcement. Barrett said crime gangs, both onshore and offshore, were increasingly outsourcing violent reprisals to young Australians, some in their early teens, creating what she called a new pipeline of offenders with little impulse control who could be more reckless than older criminals. She also pointed to the growing movement of illicit commodities to and through the Pacific.
Barrett's priorities as commissioner
Barrett became AFP Commissioner in October 2025 and has since set five priorities for the force. These are defending Australia's domestic security and its region, including guarding against terrorism, protecting designated airports and significant sites, and expanding the AFP's role in security arrangements for the AUKUS submarine program; protecting vulnerable communities from predators and those who radicalise children; future-proofing the AFP workforce; investing in science and technology-led capability; and "supercharging global operations."
Targeting offenders overseas
Barrett said supercharging global operations meant working with international partners to pursue offshore offenders, including those trafficking drugs into Australia, and bringing them to justice. Where countries refuse to extradite their own citizens, she said the AFP instead supplies intelligence and evidence so those citizens can be prosecuted at home, noting that a criminal in one country is generally an offender in another too. She cited Hamad's conviction in Iraq as a recent example of that strategy working. Barrett said the approach also involves working to stop crime in source countries, arguing that preventing illicit drugs from leaving another country is faster, cheaper and safer than intercepting them later. She said she would have more to say on this in future.
Barrett said she had heard many times over her career that the "war on drugs" never worked, but argued it was a battle authorities could not abandon. She said the first line of defence must always be educating the community about the harms of illicit substances and warning people against taking them. Reducing demand, supporting people before harm escalates and refusing to normalise illicit drug use would make families safer, weaken organised crime and protect communities, she said, adding that she was ready for the conversation but that it required the whole of society to take part.
