Authorities in Tasmania will be able to release the name and address of registered sex offenders to the community if it’s believed there’s a risk to a child, under new laws that passed the state’s lower house this week.
The legislation allows the police commissioner to authorise release of personal details about a person listed on the sex offender register, which includes anyone convicted of a sexual crime against a child, to the parents or guardians of a child who has contact with that sex offender.
It also allows police to publish the name and photo of missing reported sex offenders on their website until the person can be found.
The police minister, Rene Hidding, said the changes brought Tasmania into line with other states which have laws allowing the release of otherwise confidential information in some circumstances.
It would allow police share confidential information with other government agencies, and for the head of the department of human services, which manages child protection, to tell the parent, guardian, or carer of a child who has “reportable contact” with a registered sex offender that the person was a sex offender.
Reportable contact is described as three or more days’ contact in a year.
The disclosure would be made only if it was “necessary and appropriate to ensure the safety and wellbeing of a child or children”, and if the person given the information told anyone else, they could face six months in jail.
However Lara Giddings, the shadow attorney general, said she was concerned the new laws could lead to vigilante attacks.
“We’ve seen that in recent times in local townships in Tasmania where drug and alcohol facilities are proposed to be established, or ex-prisoners have been proposed to be rehoused,” she told the ABC.
Similar laws exist in the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales and South Australia.
In Western Australia information about repeat or dangerous sex offenders is placed on a website which allows members of the public to request a photo of sex offenders living in their suburb.
There have not been any reports of vigilantism linked to the WA site since it was established in 2012 but there have been other instances of sex offenders being run out of town.
Under Australian law, anyone convicted of a child sex crime is listed on the Australian National Child Offender Register and has to update police about their whereabouts and meet certain reporting conditions for a period of time, ranging from a few years to life, after their release from prison.
Changes proposed in the community protection (offender reporting) amendment bill 2016 in Tasmania would allow the police commissioner to request a magistrate impose a community protection order to prevent a registered sex offender from going to a certain place, associating with certain people, or drinking alcohol.
Under the current law, Hidding said, police had limited options for restricting the movement of convicted sex offenders. He gave the example of a “well-known, dangerous and recidivist child sex offender in Launceston”, who allegedly visited a school claiming he was there to see his daughter. The man didn’t have a daughter, Hidding said, and a charge of “loitering near children” was dismissed in court.
“The conduct of this child sex offender may well have been restricted if there was a community protection order in place,” he told parliament on Thursday.
“Another example where such an order would be sought relates to a man from Glenorchy that was convicted and imprisoned for sexually assaulting his daughter. On his release from prison, the offender returned home, and continued to live with his family, including his daughter who he had molested for three years and was now aged 11. In this instance, police were forced to apply for a restraint order to protect the child.”
The penalty for breaching a community protection order would be a maximum of six months in jail.
The legislation is yet to pass the state’s upper house.
