Tasmania Introduces Bill To Update Legislation As A Result Of ACC and CrimTrac Merger

Wednesday 21 November 2018 @ 1.46 p.m. | Crime | Legal Research

On 28 August 2018, the Australian Crime Commission Legislation (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill 2018 (“the Bill”) was introduced to Tasmania Parliament’s House of Assembly ("the Assembly") by the Hon Michael Ferguson.

The Bill has passed the Assembly and is currently before the Legislative Council where it is awaiting further discussion.

Background

Due to the 1 July 2016 merger between the Australian Crime Commission (“ACC”) and the CrimTrac organisation, Commonwealth legislation was introduced into Parliament to manage the consequences of such a merger between the two entities. For legal purposes, the Australian Crime Commission is still known as the ACC.

The ACC now performs the previous functions of CrimTrac, including providing national police information systems and services to police and other eligible bodies and nationally co-ordinated criminal history checks to accredited agencies. 

Functions of the ACC

In a Report produced by the Federal Government, the functions of the ACC were outlined at [para 37.4]:

“To counter serious and organised crime in Australia, the ACC was established under the Australian Crime Commission Act 2002 (Cth) … the ACC was formed by replacing the National Crime Authority (NCA), and absorbing the functions of the Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence (ABCI)  and the Office of Strategic Crime Assessments … The functions of the ACC include collecting and analysing criminal intelligence; setting national criminal intelligence priorities; providing and maintaining  criminal intelligence systems; and investigating federally relevant criminal activity and undertaking taskforces.”

Overview of the Amendments

Due to the merger of the two organisations, a number of consequential amendments are required to Tasmanian acts that authorise, or facilitate, the release of information to CrimTrac, allowing those bodies to instead send that information to the ACC.

The proposed amendments will amend the Tasmanian legislation by removing references to “CrimTrac”, and where required, replacing them with references to the “ACC”. The Bill also includes transitional arrangements to ensure that any agreements made between Tasmanian government agencies and CrimTrac are also deemed to be equivalent agreements with the ACC. Amendments to Tasmanian legislation currently affected by the merger of the two entities are:

  • Section 3 and Schedule 1 to the Annulled Convictions Act 2003;
  • Section 83 to the Firearms Act 1996;
  • Section 58 to the Forensic Procedures Act 2000; and
  • Section 12 to the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law (Tasmania) Act 2010.

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Sources:

Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission – About Us (Accessed 20 November 2018)

Australian Privacy Law and Practice (ALRC Report 108) – Australian Government (Accessed 20 November 2018)

Australian Crime Commission Legislation (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill 2018 (Tas) - Bill and supporting information available from TimeBase LawOne Service

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