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2013-2014-2015
THE PARLIAMENT OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
AUSTRALIAN CRIME COMMISSION (NATIONAL POLICING INFORMATION
CHARGES) BILL 2015
EXPLANATORY MEMORANDUM
(Circulated by authority of the
Minister for Justice, the Hon Michael Keenan MP)
AUSTRALIAN CRIME COMMISSION (NATIONAL POLICING INFORMATION
CHARGES) BILL 2015
GENERAL OUTLINE
1. This Bill forms a package with the Australian Crime Commission Amendment
(National Policing Information) Bill 2015 (Consolidation Bill), which would merge the
CrimTrac Agency into the Australian Crime Commission (ACC).
2. This Bill and the Consolidation Bill are intended to implement a decision by the Law,
Crime and Community Safety Council. This Bill also implements a Government decision to
provide a legislative basis for CrimTrac's current charging arrangements.
3. The purpose of this Bill is to create a legislative basis for the ACC to be able to
impose charges, as taxes, for applications for, and the provision of, national policing
information services currently provided by CrimTrac.
4. CrimTrac currently provides a national criminal history checking service, known as
the National Police Checking Service (NPCS). The NPCS is used for the purposes of
employment (including volunteer) screening and to provide a complete national view of a
person's previous convictions for criminal offences. The NPCS is not currently provided
directly to members of the public, but rather is provided to the Australian police services and
to certain accredited agencies (which comprise Commonwealth, State and Territory
government agencies and commercial agencies).
5. CrimTrac is a self-funded federal scheme established under an InterGovernmental
Agreement with the States and Territories. CrimTrac currently charges for each of the
checks performed as a result of a request from an accredited agency or police service. The
amount of these charges is set by the CrimTrac Board following consultation with and the
agreement of police jurisdictions. The CrimTrac Board comprises all Police Commissioners,
the ACT Chief Police Officer, and a representative from the Commonwealth
Attorney-General's Department.
6. CrimTrac also provides a number of other information systems and services for police
and other partner agencies, including services that support day to day policing activities. As
part of its self-funded business model, CrimTrac subsidises the cost of these other services
using revenue derived from the NPCS, at no cost to police or Australian governments.
7. The Consolidation Bill would transfer CrimTrac's functions over to the ACC and
abolish the CrimTrac Board of Management and the position of CrimTrac CEO. This Bill
would enable the ACC to continue CrimTrac's self-funded business model in order to ensure
the sustainable delivery of information systems and services to meet the emerging needs of
police.
8. This Bill creates a framework that would allow charges to be imposed by the ACC for
services other than just criminal history checking. This is currently within the remit of the
CrimTrac Board and the parameters of the InterGovernmental Agreement. This is necessary
to ensure CrimTrac's business model can adapt to the emerging information technology
needs of police.
9. The specific amendments are detailed below under the heading 'Notes on Clauses'.
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FINANCIAL IMPACT
10. The merger will be cost neutral with small savings expected over the forward
estimates. This Bill would establish a framework that allows the Minister to determine the
amount of charges, who must pay them, and the services to be subject to a charge. It is
intended to provide a legislative basis for CrimTrac's current charging arrangements after
merger with the ACC and would therefore have no direct financial impact.
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STATEMENT OF COMPATIBILITY WITH HUMAN RIGHTS
Prepared in accordance with Part 3 of the Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Act 2011
Australian Crime Commission (National Policing Information Charges) Bill 2015
This Bill is compatible with the human rights and freedoms recognised or declared in the
international instruments listed in section 3 of the Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny)
Act 2011.
Overview of the Bill
This Bill would provide a legislative basis for the imposition of a charge for applications for,
and the provision of, national policing information services by the Australian Crime
Commission (ACC).
Currently, the CrimTrac Agency provides national policing information services and charges
police and accredited agencies for criminal history checks. Police and accredited agencies
provide these checks to the community for a variety of purposes, such as employment vetting.
CrimTrac uses this revenue to provide necessary services to assist police in combating crime
and keeping the community safe.
The Australian Crime Commission Amendment (National Policing Information) Bill 2015
would merge CrimTrac with the ACC. This Bill is necessary to allow the ACC to continue
providing the services CrimTrac currently does and to continue to support police using
revenue from these services.
The Bill is enabling and facilitative in nature. It provides a mechanism that allows the
Minister to determine the parameters of charges to be imposed for national policing
information services in a legislative instrument after receiving written recommendations from
the ACC Board.
Human rights implications
This Bill does not engage any of the applicable rights or freedoms.
Conclusion
This Bill is compatible with human rights as it does not raise any human rights issues.
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NOTES ON CLAUSES
Background
1. This Bill forms a package with the Australian Crime Commission Amendment
(National Policing Information) Bill 2015 (Consolidation Bill), which would merge the
CrimTrac Agency into the Australian Crime Commission (ACC). This Bill and the
Consolidation Bill to implement a decision by the Law, Crime and Community Safety
Council. This Bill also implements a Government decision to provide a legislative basis for
CrimTrac's current charging arrangements.
2. The Bill creates a new Act that imposes charges, as taxes, on applications for and the
provision of national policing information services by the ACC.
3. The Consolidation Bill provides the necessary machinery for the charges to be
imposed by this Bill.
Preliminary
Clause 1 - Short title
This clause provides for the Bill to be cited as the Australian Crime Commission (National
Policing Information Charges) Act 2015 after its enactment.
Clause 2 - Commencement
This clause set outs when the various parts of the Bill are to commence.
Item 1 in the table provides that the whole of this Bill will commence at the same time as the
Consolidation Bill commences. It also provides that this Bill will not commence at all if the
Consolidation Bill does not commence.
This is necessary to ensure a charge will only be able to be imposed after the provisions in the
Consolidation Bill that provide the machinery for the charge commence.
Clause 3 - External Territories
This clause provides that the Act will extend to every external Territory of Australia.
Clause 4 - Property of a State
This clause ensures that charges imposed under this Bill are not taken to be imposed on
property of any kind belonging to a State.
To avoid doubt, clause 5 clarifies that 'property of any kind belonging to a State' has the
same meaning as in section 114 of the Constitution.
Nothing under this clause would prevent a State voluntarily paying charges imposed by this
Bill.
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Clause 5 - Definitions
This clause provides definitions for the Bill.
'Board' is defined to have the same meaning as in the Australian Crime Commission Act
2002 (ACC Act). Section 4 of the ACC Act defines 'Board' to mean the Board of the ACC,
which is established by section 7B of the ACC Act.
'National policing information' is defined to have the same meaning as in the Australian
Crime Commission Act 2002. The Consolidation Bill will amend the ACC Act to insert a
definition of 'national policing information' into section 4 of the ACC Act, which is intended
to capture all of the functions currently performed by CrimTrac, and all of the CrimTrac-like
functions the merged agency may perform in the future.
'National policing information charge' is defined as a charge imposed by clause 6 of this Bill
for applications for, and the provision of, national policing information services.
'Property of any kind belonging to a State' is defined to have the same meaning as in section
114 of the Constitution for the purpose of clause 4 of this Bill.
Clause 6 - Imposition of national policing information charges
This clause imposes charges, as taxes, on applications to the ACC for, and provision by the
ACC of, national policing information services.
Currently, the only service for which CrimTrac charges is the provision of national criminal
history checks through the NPCS.
This Bill creates a framework that would allow charges to be imposed for criminal history
checking as well as other national policing information services.
This approach ensures the self-funded CrimTrac business model will be able to continue to
meet the emerging information technology needs of police as national policing information
services evolve.
Clause 7 - Charge amounts
This clause creates a mechanism through which the Minister can determine the details of
charges to be imposed as taxes by this Bill.
Subclause 7(1) provides that the amount of a national policing information charge for and
application for, or the provision of, a kind of national policing information service is the
amount determined by the Minister by legislative instrument.
It is intended by this provision that the Minister be able to determine different amounts for
different kinds of national policing information services.
Subclause 7(2) clarifies that, in making the instrument under subclause 7(1) the Minister may
determine different amounts (including a nil amount) of charge for different classes of
persons in relation to the same kind of service.
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This is necessary to allow different charges to apply to different classes of persons in some
circumstances. For example, while a charge applies for criminal history checks sought for
general employment screening purposes, police are not currently required to pay CrimTrac
for checks that are for operational policing purposes. It is intended that these arrangement be
allowed to continue.
Subclause 7(3) requires the Minister to have regard to any recommendation made by the
ACC Board under subsection 7C(7) of the ACC Act, to be introduced by the Consolidation
Bill, in determining national policing information charges.
The amount of charges for criminal history checks is currently set by the CrimTrac Board
following consultation with and the agreement of police jurisdictions. The amount of this
charge is a crucial component of the funding model that supports the CrimTrac business
model and provision of national policing information services to police. It is necessary that
the Board retain the ability the CrimTrac Board currently has to influence the amount of
charges, the services they apply to and the persons that must pay them. The mechanism
established under subclause 7(3) of this Bill and subsection 7C(7) of the ACC Act will ensure
this continues.
Subclauses 7(1) and (3) are also intended to provide scope for the Minister to make an initial
determination at the commencement of this Bill, prior to the Board having made an initial
recommendation under subsection 7C(7) of the ACC Act.
Clause 8 - Exemption from charges
This clause provides that a national policing information charge is not payable by a person if
the provision of the service to the person is subject to fee for service arrangements under
section 15 of the ACC Act.
The Consolidation Bill would insert a new subsection 15(1) into the ACC Act that will enable
the ACC to charge a fee for goods or services that it provides in the course of performing its
national policing information functions.
The fees to be imposed for services under subsection 15(1) of the ACC Act must be
reasonably related to the cost of providing that service. Accordingly, they cannot be used to
subsidise the costs of providing other services to police, as is intended to be the case with
revenue generated under the charges imposed under clause 6 of this Bill.
This clause ensures there can be no overlap in fees and charges that would result in a person
being subject to both a fee and a charge for the same service.
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