Crimes Legislation Amendment (Powers, Offences and Other Measures) Bill 2017
The submission on the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Powers, Offences and Other Measures) Bill 2017 (the Bill) was prepared by the Law Council.
The Law Council acknowledges the assistance of its National Criminal Law Committee, Indigenous Legal Issues Committee and the Law Society of New South Wales in the preparation of this submission.
The Bill would make amendments to the Australian Federal Police Act 1979 (Cth), the Crimes Act 1914 (Cth) (Crimes Act) and the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth) (Criminal Code). The amendments include:
- Clarifying the functions of the Australian Federal Police to enable cooperation with international organisations and non-government organisations;
- Clarifying the custody notification obligations of investigation officials when they intend to question an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person;
- Creating separate offence regimes for ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ for the disclosure of information relating to controlled operations in the Crimes Act;
- Increasing the maximum penalty for general dishonesty offences in section 135.1 of the Criminal Code from five years to ten years;
- Removing an obsolete reference to the death penalty in the Crimes Act;
- Strengthening protections for vulnerable witnesses and complainants in Commonwealth criminal proceedings in the Crimes Act;
- Authorising the collection, use and disclosure of information for the purposes of preventing, detecting, investigating or dealing with fraud or corruption against the Commonwealth and establishing safeguards to ensure these measures do not unduly interfere with privacy; and Allowing the New South Wales Law Enforcement Conduct Commission to use and disclose spent conviction information under the Commonwealth spent convictions scheme.
You can read the full submisson below.