Current Path
Home :: ALRC inquiries :: Summary by title of final report :: ALRC 1 & ALRC 9 summariesImplementation
ALRC 1
The ALRC's recommendations were taken up in the Australia Police Bill 1975 (Cth), which was before the Parliament when it was dissolved in 1975. The Bill lapsed and no further action was taken until after the completion of the supplementary report (ALRC 9).
ALRC 9
In advance of legislation, the ACT police set up an Internal Affairs Branch in January 1978. The Northern Territory legislated to allow the NT Ombudsman to receive certain public complaints against police.
In 1979, the Australian Federal Police Act 1979 (Cth) was enacted bringing about the amalgamation of the Commonwealth and ACT forces into the Australian Federal Police. The Complaints (Australian Federal Police) Act 1981 (Cth) came into force on 1 May 1982. The legislation substantially introduced the scheme proposed by the Commission in that it established an Internal Investigation Division of Police and a Police Disciplinary Tribunal and provided for the Commonwealth Ombudsman to be a neutral recipient and in some situations investigator of police complaints. In 1994 the Complaints (Australian Federal Police) Amendment Act 1994 (Cth) amended the complaints legislation to provide for all staff of the AFP to be covered by the legislation. It also created an offence of making a false complaint or providing false information and provided for the Ombudsman to investigate matters on his or her own motion, thus bringing the function closer to that set out in the Commission's reports.