Statement on the Management of Sex Offenders

Queensland’s existing Dangerous Prisoner Sex Offender legislation (DPSOA), is regarded as the strongest and most effective regime of its type in the country.

The Palaszczuk Government believes it is the most appropriate post-conviction mechanism for dealing with and monitoring sex offenders.

A public register of sex offenders could lead to serious legal implications, including the possible identification of child victims.

The Australian National Child Offender Register keeps details of all registered child sexual offenders in every state.

The Queensland Police Service manages the information for this state and offenders on the register must tell police about their aliases, address and employment details, car registration details and affiliations with clubs with child membership or child participation.

In 2014, during the previous LNP government, the LNP voted down a Private Member’s Bill in Queensland Parliament that proposed creating a register for sexual offenders to allow information to be published.

In the same year, a proposal for a publicly accessible national sex offender register was rejected after a comprehensive examination by a high level ministerial council.

The Law, Crime and Community Safety Committee, comprised of Attorneys-General and Police Ministers from across Australia, rejected the idea after consulting with Australian law enforcement agencies and assessing empirical evidence on the efficacy of public notification schemes.

Any renewed call for a public sex offender register would again require detailed and comprehensive examination by the LCCSC.

Under Queensland’s tough Dangerous Prisoner Sex Offender legislation:

• The chief executive of Corrective Services can disclose confidential information if it is in the public interest and when individual community members need to know about an offender’s placement or employment, including residents, local schools and childcare centres in the same area where the offender is living.
• Offenders sentenced to community-based orders, including probation or intensive correction orders, are supervised by probation and parole officers throughout the order.
• Offenders released on parole are also strictly supervised by probation and parole officers.
• Dangerous prisoners cannot change their name without permission from the chief executive of Corrective Services.