Steve Fielding (Victoria, Family First Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Privacy and Freedom of Information, Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for Justice, Senator Ludwig. Given the crazy loophole that still exists that allows criminals to change their name by deed poll and thereby erase any record of their criminal history, and given the evidence by Detective Superintendent Carver to the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Australian Crime Commission—he said, 'Just moving states or even to countries like New Zealand and then changing your name by deed poll and coming back, you are almost like a new person'—what is the government doing to fix this dangerous situation so that criminals are not running around changing their names and walking away from their past crimes?

Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can I say at the outset that there are a couple of intersecting issues that you have raised. One is dealing with the change of name. As we know, births, deaths and marriages are state responsibilities, and they deal with them, so deed poll changes are not a matter for the Commonwealth as far as I am aware. But if I am wrong about that then I will correct the record. In terms of privacy, it is not a privacy matter per se if you want to change your name and deal with births, deaths and marriages in a state registry. They may require and have to keep privacy issues surrounding births, deaths and marriages and those matters. So I am just attempting to separate the two issues out. In terms of privacy, of course, this government has significant reform in this area. We have already announced the first tranche of reform of the privacy legislation.

Dealing with the specificity of your question, however, the issue around how you effectively couple up states around births, deaths and marriages to ensure that criminals cannot take advantage of the system by how you have described it, and the evidence that has been provided, is a matter that I think falls more correctly within the Attorney-General's portfolio, dealing with the type of response, the type of sharing of information and the ability for the Australian Federal Police to work with the state police to ensure those loopholes are closed. But, to the extent that I can take that on notice and get further and better particulars in relation to the primary issue, I will.

Steve Fielding (Victoria, Family First Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Given that this was already raised two years ago in Senate estimates and the federal and state attorneys-general have been working on this, and despite there still being no meaningful progress, can the government explain why it is still dragging its feet? This has been a federal issue, working with the states. Why has this not been resolved?

Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Fielding. We do seem to have jumped a fraction from the initial substance of the question—which I thought did go to privacy, which is within Minister O'Connor's portfolio, which deals with privacy reform—to an issue which now is subsumed within the Attorney-General's portfolio, dealing with the AFP and how to effectively close this particular loophole. In looking at this issue, I am not aware of it having been raised two years ago in Senate estimates. However, if it has been, I will certainly ask the Attorney-General's portfolio to have a look at Senate estimates and to examine the issue that you have raised and provide an explanation, to the extent that they are able to, as to the work that they are conducting. In and around what I think you have identified is an issue where people with— (Time expired)

Steve Fielding (Victoria, Family First Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a further supplementary question. Given that the states have occasionally used the Privacy Act to hide behind the changes, when will the government support changes to the Privacy Act to make it clear that the Privacy Act does not prevent government agencies from passing on relevant information to each other in relation to tracking a person's criminal history so that criminals cannot exploit this loophole and hide their real identities and their past crimes?

Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

(Queensland—) (): In response to your question, the issues around the powers of the Information Commissioner and the privacy legislation itself are quite complex, because you are talking about the relationships between the states, the territories and the Commonwealth in terms of investigations about transfer of information. I will take the question on notice to ensure I am correct, but my recollection is that there is a significant amount of information-sharing between the Commonwealth, through the Australian Federal Police, and the states and territories. They use CrimTrac, which is a body that has been set up to deal with the sharing of criminal information. However, in the earlier issue around identifying how we close loopholes— (Time expired)