Crimes Amendment (Working with Children - Criminal History) Bill 2009
Information about the Inquiry
On 10 September 2009 the Senate referred the Crimes Amendment (Working With Children-Criminal History) Bill 2009 for inquiry and report.
The purpose of the Bill is to implement the Council of Australian Governments' agreement of 29 November 2008 to facilitate the inter-jurisdictional exchange of criminal history information for people working with children, including information about spent, pardoned and quashed convictions.
The Bill seeks to amend Part VIIC of the Crimes Act 1914 (Crimes Act). Part VIIC governs the disclosure and non-disclosure of pardons, quashed and spent convictions. Part VIIC provides that a person whose conviction is 'spent', pardoned or quashed does not have to disclose the fact of the conviction, and prohibits others from disclosing the conviction without the person's consent and from taking it into account.
The amendments would create an exception for convictions of persons who work, or seek to work, with children so that those convictions can be disclosed to and taken into account by Commonwealth, State and Territory screening agencies in determining whether the person is suitable to work with children.
Submissions should be received by 28 September 2009. The reporting date is 29 October 2009.
The Committee is seeking written submissions from interested individuals and organisations preferably in electronic form submitted online or sent by email to legcon.sen@aph.gov.au as an attached Adobe PDF or MS Word format document. The email must include full postal address and contact details.
Alternatively, written submissions may be sent to:
Committee Secretary
Senate Legal and Constitutional Committee
PO Box 6100
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
Australia
Notes to help you prepare your submission are available from the website at https://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/wit_sub/index.htm. Alternatively, the Committee Secretariat will be able to help you with your inquiries and can be contacted on telephone +61 2 6277 3560 or facsimile +61 2 6277 5794 or by email to legcon.sen@aph.gov.au.
Inquiries from hearing and speech impaired people should be directed to Parliament House TTY number 02 6277 7799. Adobe also provides tools at http://access.adobe.com/ for the blind and visually impaired to access PDF documents. If you require any special arrangements to enable you to participate in the Committee's inquiry, please contact the Committee Secretariat.
Once the Committee accepts your submission, it becomes a confidential Committee document and is protected by Parliamentary Privilege. You must not release your submission without the Committee's permission. If you do, it will not be protected by Parliamentary Privilege. At some stage during the inquiry, the Committee normally makes submissions public and places them on its website. Please indicate if you want your submission to be kept confidential.
For further information, contact: Committee Secretary
Senate Legal and Constitutional Committee
PO Box 6100
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
Australia