Kim Wilkie (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Crimes Act Amendment (Forensic Procedures) Bill (No. 1) 2006. This bill, as we have heard, sets out to ensure that interjurisdictional DNA profile matching using the National Criminal Investigation DNA Database, NCIDD, may be implemented by all Australian jurisdictions.

The bill addresses specific impediments raised by states and territories which have previously delayed complete interjurisdictional DNA profile matching. The main problem is that, under current legislation, states and territories cannot transfer DNA profiles from their individual DNA databases to the Commonwealth and the Commonwealth cannot disclose DNA profile information that it holds to the states and territories. Clearly, this is a ridiculous situation and something that needs to be addressed, and I am very pleased it will be addressed in this particular bill.

Other amendments will seek to ensure that the Commonwealth DNA database is clearly distinguished from the various state and territory databases. The bill will also allow prison officers to be present if the law of the relevant state or territory allows or requires such a presence while a forensic procedure is carried out on a suspect. This will ensure the safety and security of those who carry out forensic procedures. This is a sensible measure and one that Labor obviously supports. In essence, the bill seeks to create the legislative framework for the realisation of a truly national DNA database and specifically aims to remove any outstanding barriers to a fully functional, fully integrated national DNA profiling system.

The establishment of such a national system is, sadly, long overdue. For example, the agency which will have carriage of the national database, CrimTrac, was conceived some six years ago. The National Exchange of Police Information, the NEPI, which was the predecessor of CrimTrac, was established in March 1990 during an agreement signed by Commonwealth, state and territory governments. The NEPI’s aims were to provide cost-effective services for the improvement of policing across Australia, acknowledging that our geography and federal system of governance provide significant challenges for law enforcement agencies. The NEPI’s successor, CrimTrac, built on the earlier success of this national resource and information sharing arrangement with access to DNA samples—a science which has seen such a dramatic boom in technology over the past decade or so—which are seen as a key part of its operations.

CrimTrac’s role is to support Australia’s police services through the provision of information and investigative tools that will accelerate the identification of suspects of crimes, clear the innocent, shorten crime investigation times and result in higher clearance rates. Obviously, higher clearance rates mean that many of the crimes that are unsolved at the moment will actually be solved because we will be able to go back, use previous DNA information and nab some suspects who we thought had committed crimes that we had not actually been able to pin on them in the past. So I think this is a very positive move.

The agency is underpinned by an intergovernmental agreement signed by the Commonwealth Minister for Justice and Customs and all police ministers across Australia. The establishment of a National Criminal Investigation DNA Database as part of CrimTrac’s activities was intended to facilitate access for all police forces to DNA samples from interstate prisoners or unsolved crime scenes. Importantly, as stated in CrimTrac’s 2005-06 annual report, the NCIDD does not contain personal information as defined in the Commonwealth Privacy Act 1988. Each profile entered onto the NCIDD has a unique identifier which cannot be linked by CrimTrac to information that will identify an individual. The annual report states:

DNA person profiles are automatically removed from NCIDD when predetermined destruction dates are specified on the system. The profiles associated with an index are set out in the legislation: for example, crime scene, offender, or suspect.

Only the forensic laboratory in the police agency that supplied the identifier can identify individual names and circumstances associated with the profile. No trace of the profile or associated match results remain on the database.

Unfortunately, movement towards the provisions in this bill before the House has been stymied, I believe, because of a lack of ministerial interest at a federal level. It is well known that when the current immigration minister, Senator Vanstone, left the justice ministry, she left the portfolio in a total shambles. Apart from a fondness for the canine Customs personnel, she showed little interest in the portfolio and its affairs were left in total disarray. Unfortunately, the move towards comprehensive national DNA profiling and data sharing was a victim of Senator Vanstone’s lack of interest and failure to provide leadership to the states on these very important issues.

The sharing of DNA profiles between jurisdictions can be effective in both incriminating and, of course, exonerating suspects. When CrimTrac was officially launched, it was announced:

The technology and hardware needed to set-up the DNA database is now on-line and operational. DNA samples in most States and Territories are now being taken and will be loaded onto the database in coming weeks. The system is expected to hold about 25,000 DNA profiles in the first year.

This, of course, is yet to pass. Delays persist with implementing the National Criminal Investigation DNA Database because of the lack of uniformity throughout Australia and legislation and procedures governing DNA. It is currently used by the states for varying purposes. The Commonwealth, the ACT, New South Wales and Tasmania use the NCIDD but only for intrajurisdictional matching. Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland use interjurisdictional matching to various degrees. There are still differences amongst the states and territories in the categorisation of DNA samples, the powers of police to take samples and the rules for matching and retaining samples. This can cause problems in court if DNA evidence is matched across borders.

Part 1D of the Commonwealth Crimes Act 1914 deals with forensic procedures, particularly the use of DNA material for law enforcement purposes. It was inserted into the Crimes Act in 1998 and was based on the model forensic provisions developed by the Model Criminal Code Officers Committee, the MCCOC, of the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General. The primary purpose of part 1D is to regulate the collection, storage and use of DNA samples and profiles.

An independent review of part 1D of the Commonwealth Crimes Act 1914 was conducted and published in March 2003. It was chaired by Tom Sherman AO, previously the Australian Government Solicitor and the Chairman of the National Crime Authority. The other members of the review were the federal Privacy Commissioner, the Senior Assistant Ombudsman, the General Manager of the Forensic Services Branch of the Australian Federal Police and the Deputy Director of the Office of the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions. The 2003 report concluded:

The major deficiency identified by the Review is that the national system is not yet operational and only one jurisdiction (NSW) had loaded profiles onto the relevant CrimTrac database known as the National Criminal Investigation DNA Database (NCIDD). The Review calls for redoubled efforts on the part of the Commonwealth, the States and Territories to move quickly to negotiate the relevant arrangements which are necessary to make the system fully operational.

As previous speakers on this side have made clear, Labor support the scheme and we welcome it. My home state, Western Australia, has been an enthusiastic supporter of the scheme and, I am proud to say, an early pioneer of intrajurisdictional matching. Indeed, when Western Australia and Queensland linked their DNA databases on 10 June last year, DNA from 14 unsolved crimes in Queensland was matched within days to DNA from Western Australia, allowing police to review the crimes and make arrests.

Earlier this year it was reported that WA have some 55,000 DNA samples on the state database and that DNA matching within the state and with Queensland led to charges being laid for 1,213 unsolved crimes since July 2002. Yes, we caught up with those crafty Queenslanders when they snuck off home, and it was great to see that particular process in use. Those crimes were also of a very serious nature. They included rape, serious assault and offences that had remained unsolved for more than a decade.

Western Australia continues to lead the way in DNA technology. Members may be interested to know that last year the Western Australian government, in an Australian first, distributed DNA kits to Perth bus drivers to help solve crimes on Perth’s buses. Drivers are able to capture evidence to help identify and prosecute the bus louts responsible for assaults on drivers.

I know there have been some legislative hurdles in various states which have delayed the implementation of the database, but quite frankly this is a situation that required national leadership from the federal government and, as I have said, for a period at least, that was sorely lacking. I am concerned that the federal government has had the audacity to criticise various states for the delay. That really takes some front. After all, seven years after it was announced that we would have a national missing persons database, the federal government has failed to deliver on this desperately needed initiative.

I refer to an editorial in the Age newspaper in July about the detention of Ms Cornelia Rau. The editorial states:

It seems we have learned little from the debacle that so recently caused national shame, the detention of Cornelia Rau. Ms Rau had been placed on a missing persons register in August 2004 and in November that year NSW police launched an appeal to locate her. Even with all this publicity, she remained incarcerated in Baxter Detention Centre for 10 months.

The Palmer inquiry into her case recommended the establishment of a national missing persons database. There has been little progress towards implementing this. It is unforgivable that, in the 21st century when technology makes it possible to track people and events across the globe, a further 49 bodies await identification in Victoria while families are left to wonder what has become of one of their own.

I do not need to remind the House that the immigration minister and the department were hardly revealed in good light by the Rau affair.

The priorities of the federal government are really quite amazing. On one hand we are told by the industry minister that in just 10 years time some Australians could be waking up next door to a nuclear reactor. We all know that it took just a matter of months after the 2004 election for the Howard government to fundamentally alter the constitutional tradition of states rights with its incorporation of industrial relations under the Corporations Act. Yet when it comes to an issue such as the national missing persons database, implementing a national system that might actually do some good, it is too hard.

Australia’s population is highly mobile, as we see today as workers move around the country to take advantage of economic opportunities. This means that our criminals are mobile too. Even as far back as the 1880s the Kelly Gang operated across state borders, demonstrating the need for cooperation between states. Well-known criminals have operated in many states across the country. The institutional framework for forensic information as foreshadowed in this bill will ensure that police can become more effective. This bill will improve the effectiveness of policing in Australia and should be supported. I commend the bill to the House.

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