House of Representatives

Australian Crime Commission Amendment (National Policing Information) Bill 2015

Explanatory Memorandum

(Circulated by authority of the Minister for Justice, the Hon Michael Keenan MP)

General Outline

1. The purpose of this Bill is to amend the Australian Crime Commission Act 2002 (ACC Act) in order to merge the CrimTrac Agency into the Australian Crime Commission (ACC).

2. This Bill is intended to implement a decision by the Law, Crime and Community Safety Council on 5 November 2015 that the Commonwealth take steps to implement a merger of the ACC and CrimTrac.

3. This merger brings together Australia's national criminal intelligence and information capabilities under one banner. Having a unified resource of this type will enrich our national understanding of criminal activity, including volume crimes (such as domestic violence) and serious and organised crime and terrorism. This will allow police, justice agencies and policy makers at all levels of government to adopt a more effective, efficient and evidence-based response to crime.

4. Under the proposed merger, CrimTrac will carry its functions over to the ACC (including its function of providing nationally coordinated criminal history checks). The CrimTrac Board of Management and the position of CrimTrac CEO will be abolished.

5. The Bill comprises two schedules. Schedule 1 makes amendments to the ACC Act. The purpose of the amendments in this schedule is to:

enable the merged agency to continue to carry out all of CrimTrac's functions, which are referred to as 'national policing information functions' under the merged agency structure
broaden the remit and functions of the ACC Board
ensure that states and territories have capacity to retain control over Board decisions should the composition of the ACC Board change over time
set out the Constitutional basis for the merged agency's new national policing information functions
enable the merged agency to charge a fee for goods or services that it provides in the course of performing its national policing information functions, as CrimTrac currently does
preserve the current CrimTrac funding model, which allows charges for certain services to support the provision of national policing information systems and services to police at no cost to Australian governments
broaden the types of duties a state or territory law may impose on the merged agency, to include duties relating to the merged agency's national policing information functions
place limits on the ACC CEO's ability to disclose national policing information to non-Board agencies, as currently apply to CrimTrac
enable the ACC CEO to disclose national coordinated criminal history checks to an accredited agency or the individual that is the subject to the check, and
continue the National Policing Information Systems and Services Special Account, which is currently established by a Finance Minister determination, in the ACC Act.

6. Schedule 2 makes consequential amendments to reflect merged agency arrangements- namely that CrimTrac functions will be carried out by the ACC-and also makes transitional arrangements.

7. The specific amendments are detailed below under the heading 'Notes on Clauses'.


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