12.01.2016
10.100 In 2004, the Scrutiny of Bills Committee recommended that the ‘Attorney-General’s Department should coordinate a new project to ensure that existing strict and absolute liability provisions are amended where appropriate to provide a consistent and uniform standard of safeguards’.[131]
10.101 The Government did not accept this recommendation for a number of reasons, including that the Criminal Code harmonisation project has achieved a significant degree of certainty and consistency in the application of strict and absolute liability.[132]
10.102 However, the trend in legislation brought before the Parliament to harmonise provisions with the Criminal Code is that it does not consider the policy merits of imposing strict or absolute liability. The amendments simply seek to ensure that existing strict or absolute liability offences are not interpreted as fault-based offences, as a result of the operation of s 5.6 of the Criminal Code,by expressly stating that the relevant offences are strict or absolute liability offences.[133] This suggests that there may be a continuing need to undertake a project of the kind suggested by the Scrutiny of Bills Committee, including the examination of issues such as the drafting of s 588G of the Corporations Act and provisions in prudential and environmental regulation discussed in this chapter.
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[131]
Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills, Parliament of Australia, Application of Absolute and Strict Liability Offences in Commonwealth Legislation (2002) 289.
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[132]
Australian Government, Government Response to the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills, Sixth Report of 2002—Application of Absolute and Strict Liability Offences in Commonwealth Legislation (2004) 6.
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[133]
See, eg, Communications and the Arts Legislation Amendment (Application of Criminal Code) Act 2000 (Cth); Treasury Legislation Amendment (Application of Criminal Code) Act (No 1) 2001 (Cth); Treasury Legislation Amendment (Application of Criminal Code) Act (No. 2) 2001 (Cth); Treasury Legislation Amendment (Application of Criminal Code) Act (No 3) 2001 (Cth); Environment and Heritage Legislation Amendment (Application of Criminal Code) Act 2000 (Cth); Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business Legislation Amendment (Application of Criminal Code) Act 2001 (Cth).