'Our model and our mantra has been working with others': John Lawler, the Australian Crime Commission's outgoing chief executive. Revealed: Australia's offshore organised crime threat There was a whiff of suspicion, a hint of turbulence, and a fair bit of naysaying. The ACC has all the ingredients for a wonderful wedding cake. But they've only got the budget for a cup cake. But 10 years after the Australian Crime Commission was established, doubts about its future and the closure of the organisations it replaced, have mostly disappeared. What lingers is the perhaps inevitable concern that surrounds any government agency: is it doing its job? And has it shifted too far from its original charter? There are, as an expert put it, few "heads on spikes" that the ACC can lay claim to, because it focuses more on intelligence than prosecutions. ACC chief executive officer John Lawler, who announced his retirement on Wednesday, says increased intelligence capacity has helped federal and state police forces, and other federal agencies, with hundreds of prosecutions, many of which the organisation does not take credit for. It is not about spiking the head, but finding it. "This is not about puffing out the chest of the ACC," Lawler says. Everything we've achieved, we've achieved with somebody... We've seen a very profound shift in the focus on intelligence, and using that intelligence to enable and empower our law enforcement partners to focus their efforts. Rather than us trying to do it in isolation our model and our mantra has been working with others. He is gratified that since the ACC was formed - replacing the National Crime Authority, the Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence and the Office of Strategic Crime Assessments - it has improved its stakeholder rating to the point where 100 per cent agreed the ACC helped fight organised crime. The outlook was not always so rosy. "Nothing today emulates the turbulent atmosphere that existed at the time of the creation of the Australian Crime Commission," former ACC board chairman and AFP commissioner Mick Keelty says. The closure of the National Crime Authority was a policy decision based on performance and was looked upon with a degree of suspicion. While the government agencies were focused on themselves and the naysayers were predicting a short lifespan for the ACC, it has not only survived the first decade but it is now delivering on expectations. Keelty was quoted in a book that was published for stakeholders celebrating the commission's first decade. His successor and current AFP Commissioner Tony Negus says the ACC board had galvanised Australian law enforcement bodies and the commission was now producing results. "The role of the ACC has developed over the past 10 years to ensure its strategic direction effectively aligns with national law enforcement needs," he says. No amount of phone taps or coercive interviews could predict whether the next chief executive of the commission will continue the path worn by Lawler. Whether his successor can continue to run the national criminal intelligence agency on what critics say is a pauper's budget is another unknown. "The ACC has all the ingredients for a wonderful wedding cake," one intelligence expert says. The ACC's budget equates to about 1 per cent of national law enforcement spending, Lawler says. His predecessor, Alastair Milroy, says public agencies will always ask for more money. But because the ACC was able to ask their board agencies to commit resources when taskforces were approved, a lack of funding was not an issue during his time as chief executive. Should the threat increase rapidly, however, funding may not be as forthcoming. "Where there's a new area of organised crime that needs to be looked at... and a level of threat to society and the need to investigate as soon as possible, it's a matter for government whether they would approve additional funding," Milroy says. In a book released in 2012, Bob Bottom, who was involved in the reformation of the NCA, argued that the ACC should be subject to a federal review to determine whether it had "downgraded" from a national investigation body to a criminal intelligence agency. An intelligence expert, who did not wish to be named, believes the ACC would not be efficient if it focused on investigations rather than intelligence, as it would put them in competition with existing agencies. Changes to the ACC's approach, and beefed up coercive powers, had given the commission the clout it needed. "The other important thing is that it's not a commonwealth or state agency, it's a national agency," the expert says. It's not tarred with the commonwealth brush, which can make things difficult with the states. Lawler, who spoke to Fairfax Media before he announced his retirement, will serve a five-year term, as did Milroy. Bottom contends that the shift to intelligence agency has occurred on Lawler's watch, and that his appointment appeased those at his former employer, the AFP, as he was seen as their man on the inside. Lawler does not feel the commission's intelligence focus will deviate greatly from the previous 10 years. But he's sure the ACC will have to evolve as it stalks the shadow of organised crime. "I still don't think the community understands the pervasiveness and the damage and the cost to them of the organised crime threat, which is set to grow," Lawler says. It will grow unless we can effectively do something about it. I don't have a crystal ball to know what that [threat] is going to look like in 10 years time, but I'm sure it's going to be profoundly different from where we are in 2013. $3 billion in illicit drugs seized 300 disruptions to criminal syndicates Restrained $250 million in proceeds of crime Issued $400 million of tax assessments Produced 1700 intelligence ""products"" Data: Australian Crime Commission