David Feeney (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Justice) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Australian Crime Commission Amendment (Criminology Research) Bill 2015. The purpose of the bill is to amend the Australian Crime Commission Act 2002, the ACC Act, and repeal the Criminology Research Act 1971, the CR Act, in order to merge the Australian Institute of Criminology into the Australian Crime Commission. The bill comprises two schedules. Schedule 1 makes amendments to the ACC Act. The purposes of those amendments in this schedule are to enable the merged agency to: continue to carry out the Australian Institute of Criminology's research work; share criminological research and information with any person, including the private sector; and, thirdly, carry out commissioned research. Schedule 2 repeals the Criminology Research Act to abolish the AIC as a statutory agency.

The Australian Institute of Criminology, the AIC, was established in 1973 under the CR Act. As a Commonwealth statutory authority, the AIC is regulated under the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013. Staff of the AIC are generally engaged under the Public Service Act 1999 but may also be employed or engaged by the AIC for a particular project. According to the AIC 2013-14 annual report:

The Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) has served as Australia’s national research and knowledge centre on crime and justice for more than 40 years, undertaking and promulgating new research, monitoring and analysing crime trends, and providing advice to inform legislative, policy and practice change.

The independent status of the AIC has meant its output is not only robust, but trusted by government, law enforcement and justice agencies across the nation and internationally. Much of the AIC’s work falls under the Commonwealth government’s strategic research priorities, in particular, the priority themes of ‘living in a changing environment’, ‘promoting population health and wellbeing’ and ‘securing Australia’s place in a changing world’.

A Criminology Research Advisory Council, established under the CR Act in 2011, advises the director of the AIC on strategic research priorities, communications and on the Criminology Research Grants program. The advisory council consists of nine members who represent the Australian government and all states and territories. This composition ensures that areas targeted for research funding reflect both national and state and territory priorities. The Criminology Research Grants program managed by the AIC is funded by the Commonwealth and state and territory governments. The director of the AIC approves a series of research grants each year, taking into account the recommendations of the Criminology Research Advisory Council. The program funds research that has relevance to jurisdictional policy in the areas of law, police, judiciary, corrections, mental health, social welfare, education and related fields.

The Australian Crime Commission commenced operation on 1 January 2003. It has its origins in the April 2002 Council of Australian Government Leaders Summit, which agreed that a new national framework was needed to meet the challenges of multi-jurisdictional crime. It replaced and combined the strategic and operational intelligence and specialist investigative capabilities of the National Crime Authority, the Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence, and the Office of Strategic Crime Assessments. According to its latest annual report, the aim of the ACC is to reduce 'serious and organised crime threats of most harm to Australians and the national interest'.

To achieve this aim, the ACC has a range of special coercive powers such as the capacity to compel: attendance at examinations; the production of documents; and the answering of questions—similar to a royal commission. The ACC also has an intelligence-gathering capacity and a range of investigative powers common to law enforcement agencies, such as the power to tap phones, use surveillance devices and participate in controlled operations. Like the AIC, the ACC is regulated under the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act and staff of the ACC are engaged under the Public Service Act. With that background, the 2014 Commission of Audit announced by the Abbott government and released in February 2014 made a number of recommendations, including that, `Consolidated crime intelligence capability would also better support law enforcement operations.'

The Commission of Audit did not suggest the possibility of the AIC merging with the ACC but proposed that consideration be given to moving the AIC to a university. Prior to the 2015 budget, there was media speculation that the two bodies, the AIC and the ACC, would merge. At that time, I wrote to the minister requesting a briefing. However, the minister noted that government was yet to make a decision regarding the proposed merger and so would not be offering a briefing at that time.

Following the 2015 budget, the Minister for Justice announced the appointment of ACC CEO Chris Dawson as the newly appointed interim director of the AIC. At that time, Minister Keenan indicated that the government was considering whether the AIC should be placed within the ACC, but at that date a final decision had not been made. The minister said:

In the interim, the ACC and AIC will continue to exist and operate as separate entities, while working together on expanding existing relationships.

Finally, on 25 September 2015, the minister announced that the AIC would be placed within the ACC to 'boost research capability at the nation's criminal intelligence agency'. The AIC is to be incorporated into the ACC as an independent research branch known as the Crime and Justice Research Centre, CJRC. The minister stressed that the merger is 'not about cutting costs or personnel of either agency; it's about creating a unified workforce incorporating staff of both agencies'.

The minister has stated that this merger brings together Australia's national criminal intelligence and research capabilities under one banner and that having a unified resource of this type will enrich our national understanding of criminal activity, including serious and organised crime and terrorism, allowing police, justice agencies and policy makers at all levels of government to adopt a more effective, efficient and evidence-based response to crime. Under the proposed merger, the AIC will carry its research functions over to the ACC, including its ability to undertake commissioned research, and the AIC's corporate functions will be merged with those of the ACC. The position of AIC Director will be abolished.

We have received some correspondence from various stakeholders raising concerns about the proposed merger. We have been briefed by the Attorney-General's Department regarding these concerns which have, for the most part, been satisfied.

Labor have been given an undertaking that this bill is not about savings measures and we will continue to support the strong and independent research capability that is vested in the Australian Institute of Criminology and will be known as the Crime and Justice Research Centre. The government will be held to account on its commitment that the merger will not result in job losses or erosion in employment standards for former AIC employees.

It is critical that the CJRC continues to be able to provide a strong and independent research capability that can be relied upon by law enforcement agencies across state and federal jurisdictions. This is why Labor has secured an assurance from the Minister for Justice that the CJRC will have the same access to the datasets currently used by the AIC. Further, Labor has secured an assurance that the CJRC will continue to operate an open access library at the JV Barry Library, which is a vital and well-respected resource for academics and criminologists in Australia and beyond.

Finally, Mr Speaker, to ensure proper scrutiny of this merger, Labor will be referring this bill to the Senate Legislation Committee for Legal and Constitutional Affairs. There we look forward to having these issues tested on a more forensic basis and we want to ensure that the priorities of the AIC will not be lost or subsumed in the merger. We will carefully consider the views expressed to the committee and the final committee report when it is released. I thank the House.

Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wish to indicate that the position of the Labor Party on the Australian Crime Commission Amendment (Criminology Research) Bill, as the previous speaker indicated, is that we not oppose it, but we do have, in varying degrees, concerns and reservations about the proposal to amalgamate the Australian Institute of Criminology with the Australian Crime Commission. I acknowledge the work the member for Batman has done to get some commitments from government about retaining an element of independence for the staff of the former Institute of Criminology.

It is not possible to overstate the importance of this independence. My concern is that the stated intent of the government in putting these agencies together is to ensure that the research is more closely aligned with the operational requirements of the state, territory and federal law enforcement agencies. I think that is a concern. Of course you want the research to be incredibly useful for those agencies and it is entirely appropriate that you ensure you are producing useful research, but to say you want research that is more closely aligned with the operational requirements of those agencies is, for me, somewhat troubling. I am concerned that the ability for an independent body to produce and analyse datasets in a way that might challenge some of the fundamental assumptions made by law enforcement agencies, and assumptions made by the governments that are directing those law enforcement agencies, will be profoundly compromised. If you have a law enforcement agency which is very focused, as ours are, on the war on drugs, any independent analysis of data might suggest a harm minimisation approach or indeed an approach similar to those we see emerging in a number of jurisdictions in North America and in South America which is one of decriminalisation. The research and the analysis of data that would go to investigating the potential benefits of such a path might of course not be closely aligned with the operational requirements of a law enforcement agency that is very focused on the business-as-usual model. So I do think that there is a very real risk inherent in what we are proposing to do here with this amalgamation.

It is very important that we have independent data as policymakers in this place. We are trying to grapple with many difficult issues around crime, law enforcement and social cohesion. We absolutely need the ability both in government and in opposition to access reliable and useful data. I want to quote a very pre-eminent person in this area, Dr Don Weatherburn, Director of the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research. Dr Weatherburn has this to say:

The abuse of crime statistics is so common it has in some quarters engendered great skepticism about them. The saying there are ‘lies, damned lies and statistics’ is probably nowhere more frequently uttered than in the context of crime statistics. … We have to make judgments about the prevalence of crime, about trends in crime, about the distribution of crime and about the impact of Government efforts to prevent and control crime. We cannot base these judgments on personal experience and anecdote. They have to be based on statistical information.

I discussed this with a former colleague, Paul Papalia of the Western Australia parliament. He is Labor's corrective services spokesperson, and he has been doing an enormous amount of work in restorative justice, focusing on an evidence based approach to crime, punishment and rehabilitation. He speaks about the Crime Research Centre at UWA, which unfortunately has now been closed down in Western Australia. It was established under Joe Berinson, who was one of my predecessors as the member for Perth in this place and who went on to become a very esteemed Attorney-General in Western Australia for a decade. One of the things that he established was the Crime Research Centre at UWA. It was a joint initiative that for over two decades provided the highest quality information.

They had access, because of the collaboration with government and the government's desire for an independent stream of analysis of the data, and that provided a great resource for policymaking. So, when people got on talkback radio and suggested that we needed mandatory sentencing or that this would be the way to go or that would be the way to go, we actually had some mechanism to look at what actually did work. We could actually get beyond the emotion that so often is involved in this notion of crime and punishment, and we could really look at the data and let the data deeply inform the decision-making process.

These are incredibly serious issues for social order and social cohesion. The idea that we should be flying blind or that we should want our pre-eminent national body that is involved in the analysis and preparation of crime statistics to be subject to the operational alignment of enforcement agencies, I think, is deeply concerning. Just as I am very concerned at the way the Barnett government has gradually withdrawn support from the Crime Research Centre in Western Australia leading ultimately to UWA deciding to shut it down, I think that we need to be very careful about what we are doing here. I hope that this is an issue that is properly and fully scrutinised within the Senate committee.

One of the things that I have found most disappointing in moving into the federal arena is how often there is a very clear lack of evidence available to guide policy or to provide a justification for policy. Indeed—and I will get on my little Western Australian hobbyhorse again—today, I raised the issue of why the grants commission is able to say that we are going to change fundamentally the allowance for remoteness. In giving up the GST, we are no longer going to say: the more remote you are the more expensive it becomes to provide services. The remoteness factor will expire once you reach 1,254 kilometres. I prepared a series of questions to the agencies about why 1,254 kilometres would become the magical point. It is the ultimate distance between Sydney and the boundary of New South Wales. But, putting that aside, why would this be chosen as the basis for ending remoteness?

They came back with an answer that centred around, 'Well, it seems intuitively right that at some point the connection between remoteness and cost would not be linear.'

It is 'intuitively' felt. That is the basis on which Western Australia was ripped off another $350 million in our GST take. I can say over and over again that there are areas one comes across where there really are not sound statistics or sound evidence on which policy is based. Much of it is based on intuition, anecdote, gut or perhaps popular sentiment. It is important to take popular sentiment into account. It is also important that we allow popular sentiment to be informed by real rigorous analysis. My experience in many years of public life is that people actually want the right thing for the society and deserve to have good information.

I want to finish by quoting Arie Freiberg, Emeritus Professor of the Faculty of Law at Monash University. He says:

First, as the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the premier statistical body in Australia, states on its website: statistics 'form the basis of our democracy and provide us with the necessary knowledge to assess the health and progress of our society'. They are fundamental to the task of holding governments to account. Statistics must be public, accessible, valid and reliable and governments owe it to their citizens to provide this information to enable them to understand and evaluate government policies.

I think that really sums up just how central this debate is. I once again say that, whilst I can see, perhaps in the short term, cost savings or some close collaborations developing between the Australian Crime Commission and our statistical body, I believe that melding the Institute of Criminology so that it can align itself more closely with the objectives of law enforcement agencies is a profoundly wrong insight. I would hope that the government and, indeed, the Senate thinks about this very deeply.

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I note from the outset that Labor will not oppose the bill, which will be referred to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee for further scrutiny and to give stakeholders an opportunity to raise their concerns. We have taken at face value the government's undertaking that this merger is not a savings measure, but I do believe that, as the member for Perth has so articulately outlined, we are merging together two organisations which necessarily have very different cultures. The Australian Crime Commission must take secrecy and privacy seriously. Lives are at stake in their investigations, and it is absolutely vital that they are able to protect confidences. But the Australian Institute of Criminology, which will be known as the Crime and Justice Research Centre, must instead have a culture of openness, disseminating data and research as broadly as possible.

The member for Perth shares many of my heroes in the world of criminology and good, evidence led criminal justice policy. Don Weatherburn was a strong influence on me as a whippersnapper becoming interested in data and public policy. Mark Kleiman's book When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishmentreshaped my view on crime and punishment. Bruce Weston's work on US incarceration shines a light on a path that Australia should not go down. Reformers on both sides of politics—Paul Papalia and Greg Smith among them—have shown that it is possible to take Australia down a path where we have less crime and less punishment.

Labor has secured an assurance that the Crime and Justice Research Centre will continue to operate an open-access JV Barry Library, which is a vital resource for academics and criminologists, but I believe there are other issues that need to be taken up. To the extent that the proposed legislation for the formation of the Crime and Justice Research Centre takes the old legislation and simply incorporates a new framework, we are missing the chance for positive change. We should be opening up criminological such as is presently occurring in fields such as education and health. Principles of open data, open access to publications, transparency in methods and further collaborations with the academic sector will set a tone for a culture shift over time.

We know that academic researchers too often struggle to get access to good crime data. For research that I did when I was an Australian National University professor using crime statistics at the local government level on a monthly basis, I had to go to every state and territory police department in order to get those data. That does not make sense in the 21st century where we are talking about aggregated crime statistics at a local level. These should be available to everyone. Open data not only encourages better research but also allows us to weed out mistakes. The possibility of subsequent researchers replicating the data ensures that we are less likely to go down a path towards error.

If the government is serious about an evidence based response to crime, it should have a look at the model followed in the United States Second Chance Act of 2007 and, indeed, a range of other United States bills in which a small portion of funding—a percentage point or two—is set aside for the purpose of high-quality, rigorous evaluation. These evaluations—typically randomised evaluations but otherwise high-quality natural experiments—allow a better feedback loop, improving the quality of public dollars spent within an organisation such as the Australian Crime Commission. Unfortunately, this is not done at the moment. To take one example, a survey of juvenile arson intervention programs in Australia carried out by the Australian Institute of Criminology's researchers Damon Muller and Ashley Stebbins concluded in 2007:

Formal, independent evaluation of programs should now be undertaken to ensure that they are effective in stopping firelighting behaviour among young people.

I could pick a host of other examples where the evidence bar at the moment in our criminal justice interventions is too low.

I am also concerned that it is not clear under the new arrangements how academics and researchers could appeal if the Australian Crime Commission refused to provide data for academic research or to release research findings from a particular piece of research. The Australian Crime Commission routinely deals with a diverse range of sensitive information and it is experienced in ensuring that that information is appropriately secured and dealt with. As part of the merger, we understand that the Australian Crime Commission will put technical administrative mechanisms in place to ensure personal information collected for research purposes is stored appropriately. Beyond that, it would be of great benefit to researchers if the Australian Crime Commission was directed to publish a yearly list of its research projects and its data holdings. That could facilitate better use of data and better collaboration between the Australian Crime Commission and the academic community. Our law enforcement and protection agencies, and thus our researchers, are increasingly dependent on accurate and readily available data and intelligence. Many of the advances in policing, such as hot-spot policing, are driven by the better use of data. We should be pursuing that through the Australian Crime Commission as well.

We need to ask ourselves how these changes will help in finding ways to solve the problem that comes from Australia's rising incarceration rates. In the middle of 2014, the Australian incarceration rate reached a 10-year high of 33,791 people—that is, more than 185 prisoners per 100,000 adult Australians. The rising incarceration rate has not been principally caused by a rise in crime; indeed, the murder rate is now about half of what it was in the late 1980s. If you look across most violent crime categories, you see a reduction since the late 1980s but you see a rise in incarceration rates.

Australia may have started off European settlement as a nation of prisoners, but by 1905 we had 110 prisoners per 100,000. By 1920 that was down to 52 prisoners per 100,000 and it was only in 1998 that we hit 100 prisoners per 100,000. Now we are at almost double that with 185 prisoners per 100,000. Australian National University criminologist Adam Graycar notes:

… many of our prison population in 1900 were incarcerated principally as a result of their mental state … and in 2000 this situation has changed very little. In 1900 young males contributed significantly to criminal activities, and at the end of the century this continues to be the case.

Prison is expensive. According to the Productivity Commission, Australia spent $3.3 billion on corrective services in 2013-14. The amount we spend on locking people up has been growing at an average rate of 2.3 per cent a year since 2009, almost double the rate of growth in spending on student assistance schemes such as Youth Allowance and Austudy. We know that people who are dealing with poverty, unstable home lives and addiction are much more likely to have run-ins with the police and the courts and are more likely to experience the adverse consequences of imprisonment when they do. High-quality crime research can show us how to intervene early in order to save lives and to save taxpayer dollars at the same time. The research carried out by Australian criminologists is an important mission.

I want to offer a few more reservations and suggestions which might perhaps be taken up by the Senate Standing Committees on Legal and Constitutional Affairs as it scrutinises this bill. On privacy, the bill engages the right to privacy by inserting a new information disclosure regime into the Australian Crime Commission Act that supplements the existing information dissemination regime. The issue of privacy is particularly sensitive in the area of crime research. It is often used to prevent researchers getting access to criminal justice data. Perhaps what we need is a general statement that, notwithstanding the Privacy Act, the Australian Crime Commission will seek wherever possible to make data available to academics. The Australian Crime Commission is experienced in ensuring that information is appropriately secured and dealt with. I understand that as a part of this merger it will put technical and administrative mechanisms in place to ensure personal information is collected, stored and used appropriately so that it might better facilitate use of the data as a result of this merger.

Under the Criminology Research Act the Australian Institute of Criminology is limited to those objectives of promoting justice and reducing crime in performing those functions. The Australian Crime Commission's criminological research and related activities might continue to promote those objectives but it will not be limited to those objectives. I think it would be useful to know what this might mean and what might be included if the Australian Crime Commission's objectives become defined by their indefiniteness.

On the issue of oversight of the board, the Australian Crime Commission board already has the function of providing strategic direction to the Australian Crime Commission and determining its priorities. Following the broadening of the Australian Crime Commission functions under this bill, the board can provide strategic direction or it can determine the Crime Commission's criminological research priorities under its existing broad powers. In doing so, the board may take advice from a non-legislated advisory body that includes both justice and law enforcement representation. That 'may' does not go far enough. The board ought to be required, in my view, to seek this kind of advice in setting its research priorities. It is important that the board, a non-legislated advisory board, ought to meet at least twice a year, be focused on research and have at least half of its membership from the criminological research community. It would be useful if its minutes were published so that outside researchers can see that the Australian Institute of Criminology becoming part of the Australian Crime Commission has not reduced the quality of Australian crime research.

The Criminology Research Special Account will continue but the modifications required by this merger need to be monitored. The amendment to the bill appears to leave room for funds from the CR Special Account to be allocated for research or activities not tied to criminology research. I would hope that future amendments will limit the amount that can be spent on administration and ensure that the Crime Commission has no temptation to direct funds from the CR Special Account to research that is not solely criminology research.

This bill will enable the ACC to charge fees for services that it provides in performing any of its designated functions relating to crime research. It might be worth considering a specific out clause exempting academic researchers from charges for access to data, while leaving commercial consultancies liable for such charges.

Proposed new subsection 15B(2) provides that the fee must not amount to taxation. That means it must be reasonably related to the cost of providing the services. The government intends that the ACC will be able to charge for services relating to crime research on a fee-for-service basis, as the AIC currently does.

The AIC currently undertakes a significant level of commissioned work for Commonwealth, state and territory agencies and the private sector, including research projects, surveys, program evaluations and other administrative type services. The government proposes that this work would continue through the ACC post-merger but has not made it sufficiently clear, in my view, how it will deal with the potential for real conflicts of interest, how these transactions will be handled or whether the ACC is subject to the Public Interest Disclosure Act.

Finally, item 2 in the bill, the repeal of the Criminology Research Act 1971, will abolish the AIC as a statutory agency and remove the requirement that there be a director of the AIC. The Criminology Research Advisory Council will no longer be a statutory body, but it is not yet clear what its role will be in relation to the ACC.

Let's be clearer again as we go ahead here. The advisory council should continue its role as a non-legislated body providing advice to the Australian Crime Commission's CEO and the Australian Crime Commission Board. If that is not the case, we will lose effective oversight of the criminology research funds. That advisory council needs to meet, publish minutes and have appropriate representation—preferably 51 per cent crime researchers—to maintain appropriate oversight.

The issues that the Australian Institute of Criminology deals with are fundamental to tackling crime and disadvantage in Australia. It ought not be beyond our wit to do both—to see an Australia that locks up fewer citizens and provides more opportunities to disadvantaged Australians, where people are safer in the streets but where lives are not blighted by incarceration.

I mentioned at the outset the United States path, where the odds of a black American high school dropout going to jail by their 35th birthday have gone to two in three. America now incarcerates over one per cent of its adult population, a level higher than in all other developed countries. This is not a path we want Australia to go down, and good crime research can help us avoid it.

Mal Brough (Fisher, Liberal Party, Special Minister of State) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will say at the outset I will attempt to address some of the questions raised by honourable members in their speeches and I thank them for their contributions. On behalf of Minister Keenan, I offer this summing up. The Australian Crime Commission Amendment (Criminology Research) Bill brings two of the nation's leading authorities on crime and justice—the Australian Institute of Criminology and the Australian Crime Commission—together under one banner.

Australia's law enforcement and justice agencies are increasingly dependent on accurate research, information and intelligence to ensure that our officers on the ground, at our borders and in our intelligence agencies can do their jobs. Accurate research, information and intelligence is also essential to deliver evidence based crime prevention strategies and effective justice policies that benefit the Australian community. A combined agency with strengthened research capabilities will be able to provide a better evidence base for our agencies to identify the patterns and associations that can help detect, disrupt and undermine those who seek to do our community harm.

In addressing some of the questions raised by the honourable members in the second reading debate, I am advised that, in respect of whether the proposed merger will impact on the independence of the AIC's research, the answer is emphatically no. Under the merger, the AIC would carry its research functions over to the ACC, forming a new research branch, the Australian Crime and Justice Research Centre, which will be headed by a senior criminologist and research specialist. Furthermore, the ACC and AIC agreed on this structure following consultation with the AIC's stakeholders, including state and territory justice agencies and external criminology researchers, who reiterated the importance of the AIC remaining an independent research unit within the ACC.

I was further asked: what are the benefits for both of these agencies? I am advised a merger presents significant opportunities for both the AIC and the ACC. By merging these two agencies, staff would have greater access to classified information. This would enable them to develop better informed and targeted research that will be of greater value to the law enforcement and justice agencies across Australia. A merger would also provide the ACC with a specialist research capability that will support the development of evidence based responses to serious organised criminal threats. A merger would also provide significant opportunities to the staff of both agencies by providing greater diversity in the type of work that they can undertake and, of course, the professional opportunities available to them.

The member for Fraser particularly queried whether the criminology researchers would still be able to access the AIC's datasets. I can confirm for the member for Fraser, who is of course listening to every word I am uttering here today—

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Hanging on it!

Mal Brough (Fisher, Liberal Party, Special Minister of State) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He is hanging on every word. The answer to your question is yes. The question again was whether the criminology researchers would be able to access the AIC's database. The merged agency will continue to respond to data requests from researchers in the same way as the AIC currently does. Each request will be assessed on a case-by-case basis, with the level of detail provided subject to the normal ethical and privacy considerations.

I believe the member for Fraser further asked what will happen to the JV Barry Library. The library will be maintained, I can advise the member. The merged agency will also work towards digitising this collection to improve public access, particularly for those located outside the ACT.

Furthermore, the question was raised: what are the implications for the AIC's research? Following the merger, the AIC would carry its research functions over to the ACC, forming a new research branch, the Australian Crime and Justice Research Centre. The Australian Crime and Justice Research Centre would continue to carry out the AIC's three main work streams, those being statistical monitoring programs, fee-for-service research and thematic research on crime and justice priorities.

Finally, what requirements will the ACC need to comply with in collecting personal information for research purposes? That is clearly an important question. I am advised the ACC will be subject to the ethical requirements set by the National Health and Medical Research Council's guidelines for research involving human subjects. These include the requirement to obtain informed consent when collecting data from participants and to ensure unit record data, which has the potential to identify a single participant, is only used for research purposes. An ethics committee will oversee the ACC's compliance with these requirements, as is currently the case with the AIC.

Finally, there is one last point that was requiring clarification and it related to people having access to correct their own information held by the ACC. Again, I am advised, that, although the ACC is exempt from the Privacy Act, it is subject to the Freedom of Information Act. This allows individuals to rely on the access and correction provisions in the FOI Act to access the correct personal information that the ACC may hold on them.

The proposed merger is not about cutting staff, nor is it about cutting the functions or the costs of the AIC or the ACC. It is about leveraging the strengths of both agencies to achieve the best research and intelligence outcomes for the Australian community. With the merger of the AIC into the ACC, the ACC will be better able to fulfil its role as Australia's national criminal intelligence agency, supporting and informing the efforts of law enforcement agencies across Australia. Similarly, the new Australian Crime and Justice Research Centre in the ACC will continue to prepare and disseminate world-leading criminological research, which informs our understanding of the trends and developments in crime and justice. In this way, the bill delivers on the government's commitment to tackle crime and to keep our community safe. I commend the bill to the house.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation.