NZ and Australia to Share Criminal Records under New Agreement

Friday 23 May 2014 @ 12.00 p.m. | Crime

In early February 2014, New Zealand (NZ) and Australia signed a joint agreement to share criminal records after a successful six month trial between NZ and Queensland.

Background to the Agreement 

The deaths of Bradley and Ellen Livingstone in Dunedin, NZ, at the hands of their father, Edward, provided the impetus for the trial arrangements already existing between Queensland and NZ to be extended across the entirety of Australia.

In the case, Edward Livingstone had previously tried to burn down a Sydney girlfriend's apartment, however, as the NZ judge did not have access to this information when Livingstone breached his protection orders banning him from contact with his ex-wife and children, no legal red flags were ever raised.

The agreement is intended to allow initial sharing of fingerprint information and also allow vetting for employment purposes. If there is a match, then additional information may be exchanged in accordance with each country’s domestic laws.  Fingerprint queries will be able to be made under the Agreement in relation to offences with a maximum penalty of more than one year of imprisonment or a more serious penalty.

Provision of Criminal History Information in the Future

NZ Justice Minister Judith Collins said in a statement that the Queensland trial formed part of a wider program of reciprocal information sharing to support border control and law enforcement, consistent with the free movement of people across the Tasman.

Under the memorandum of understanding and resulting agreement, measures being canvassed include:

  • Easy access to criminal history for State and Federal police including addressing any foreign and domestic privacy laws;
  • NZ or Australian residents seeking employment across the Tasman and the associated criminal record checks; and
  • A national police checking service, established throughout the trial but proposed to continue

Current processes in Australia for obtaining criminal history information of persons from foreign jurisdictions require, in most cases, the individual to obtain their criminal history information from the relevant authorities in their home country, and possibly any other countries in which they have lived or worked.  This process, therefore, is entirely reliant on the individual initiating the process and can be ad hoc, inefficient and may result in delayed or poor decision making. It will be interesting to see how the law develops further in this field.

TimeBase is an independent, privately owned Australian legal publisher specialising in the online delivery of accurate, comprehensive and innovative legislation research tools including LawOne and unique Point-in-Time Products.

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