Crime and Corruption Act 2001

This Act may be cited as the Crime and Corruption Act 2001.

This Act commences on a day to be fixed by proclamation.

This Act binds all persons, including the State, and, so far as the legislative power of the Parliament permits, the Commonwealth and the other States.

Subsection (1) does not make the State, the Commonwealth or another State liable to be prosecuted for an offence.

The main purposes of this Act are—

to combat and reduce the incidence of major crime; and

to continuously improve the integrity of, and to reduce the incidence of corruption in, the public sector.

The Act also has as the purpose to facilitate the commission’s involvement in a confiscation related investigation.

The Act’s purposes are to be achieved primarily by establishing a permanent commission to be called the Crime and Corruption Commission.

The commission is to have investigative powers, not ordinarily available to the police service, that will enable the commission to effectively investigate major crime and criminal organisations and their participants.

Also, the commission is to—

investigate cases of corrupt conduct, particularly more serious cases of corrupt conduct; and

help units of public administration to deal effectively and appropriately with corruption by increasing their capacity to do so.

Further, the commission has particular powers for confiscation related investigations for supporting its role under the Confiscation Act.

The purpose of this part is to briefly outline the responsibilities of relevant entities under this Act.

The Crime and Corruption Commission has primary responsibility for the achievement of the Act’s purposes.

The Crime Reference Committee—

has responsibility for—

referring major crime to the commission for investigation; and

authorising the commission to undertake specific intelligence operations; and

has a coordinating role for investigations into major crime conducted by the commission in cooperation with any other law enforcement agency.

The Parliamentary Crime and Corruption Committee is a standing committee of the Legislative Assembly with particular responsibility for monitoring and reviewing the commission’s performance.

The Parliamentary Crime and Corruption Commissioner is an officer of the Parliament who helps the Parliamentary Crime and Corruption Committee in the performance of its functions.

The Public Interest Monitor has a right of appearance before a court hearing an application by the commission for a surveillance warrant or covert search warrant and is entitled to test the appropriateness and validity of the application before the court.

The dictionary in schedule 2 defines particular words used in this Act.