QLD Crime and Misconduct and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2014

Queensland has recently introduced (19 March 2014) the Crime and Misconduct and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2014, which, among other aims, renames the Crime and Misconduct Commission to the Crime and Corruption Commission to further focus their goals.

Background to the Bill

On 3 July 2013, the Queensland Government tabled its response in the Legislative Assembly to the two recent reviews of the Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC): the review by the Independent Advisory Panel (constituted by the Honourable Ian Callinan AC and Professor Nicholas Aroney (Callinan/Aroney)) of the Crime and Misconduct Act 2001 (CM Act) and related matters; and the inquiry by the Parliamentary Crime and Misconduct Committee into the CMC’s release and destruction of Fitzgerald Commission of Inquiry documents.

Implementation of the accepted recommendations by the Crime and Misconduct and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2014 will lead to an improvement in:

• public confidence in the CMC;

• timeliness of the investigation of complaints;

• operational and corporate governance structures within the CMC;

• the current culture within the CMC;

• CMC internal complaints management systems for misconduct matters;

• internal processes and practices in the CMC; and

• management of personal conduct and work performance of Queensland public service employees.

Objectives of the Bill

The Bill has 12 policy objectives:

1. Reform the upper governance structure of the CMC (which will be renamed the Crime and Corruption Commission)
2. Change the definition of ‘official misconduct’ in the CM Act to raise the threshold for what matters are captured within that definition and rename the defined conduct as ‘corrupt conduct’;
3. Rename the ‘misconduct function’ in the CM Act to ‘corruption function’; which will result in the following new titles: ‘Crime and Corruption Act 2001’; ‘Crime and Corruption Commission’; ‘Parliamentary Crime and Corruption Committee’ and ‘Parliamentary Crime and Corruption Commissioner’;
4. Improve the complaints management system of the commission to refocus it on more serious cases of corruption and reduce the number of complaints the commission is to deal with and investigate;
5. Remove the commission’s responsibilities for the ‘prevention’ of corruption in units of public administration;
6. Ensure the commission’s research function is more focussed and relevant to its functions;
7. Strengthen the transparency and accountability of the commission by expanding the role of the Parliamentary Crime and Corruption Commissioner (parliamentary commissioner) in his oversight of the commission, and requiring meetings between the commission and the Parliamentary Crime and Corruption Committee (the parliamentary committee) to be held in public as much as possible;
8. Clarify the grounds for discipline and what disciplinary action may be taken by the commission in relation to conduct of commission officers;
9. Make transitional arrangements to continue the current acting chairperson’s appointment and certain other appointments; and provide transitional arrangements for the ending of other appointments;
10. Implement recent recommendations of public reports about the commission’s investigation of alleged official misconduct at the University of Queensland and to make other unrelated minor amendments to the CM Act;
11. Improve the management of personal conduct and work performance of Queensland public service employees; and
12. Make consequential amendments to the CM Act, the Public Service Act 2008 and other Queensland legislation and regulations to support the above policy objectives.

According to Queensland's Attorney-General and Minister for Justice Jarrod Bleijie:

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Crime and Misconduct and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2014, as reproduced in TimeBase LawOne

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