Property offences

Key statutes

  • Aviation Crimes Act 1972
  • Crimes Act 1961
  • Maritime Crimes Act 1999
  • Summary Offences Act 1981
  • Terrorism Suppression Act 2002
  • Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Act 2019
  • Trespass Act 1980

Key secondary legislation

  • Crimes (Interception Warrants) Regulations 2003

Information/links to recent or currently underway reviews

The Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 (TSA) was amended in 2021. The changes included ensuring the criminalisation of conduct that causes damage, or has a serious risk of causing damage, to property, if likely to endanger human life:

  • making amendments to clarify the definition of a “terrorist act”;
  • creating a new offence to criminalise planning or preparation for a terrorist act;
  • creating a new offence to criminalise terrorist weapons and combat training;
  • creating a new offence for international travel to carry out terrorist activities;
  • expanding the criminal offence of financing terrorism to include broader forms of material support; and
  • extending the eligibility for a control order to include individuals who have completed a prison sentence for a terrorism-related offence if they continue to present a real risk of engaging in terrorism-related activities.

Maritime Crimes Act 1999 - amended in 2017 by the Maritime Crimes Amendment Act 2017, including clarification of enforcement officers’ powers to board and search ships. The Act implements obligations under two maritime counter-terrorism treaties to ensure the maritime security framework can respond to contemporary transnational terrorist threats.

Crimes Act 1961 - amended by the Crimes Act Amendment Act 2019. Several of these changes ensured that, where a person criminally stole or damaged property, they could not escape prosecution:

  • repealed three provisions in the Crimes Act (blasphemous libel, the ‘death within a year and a day’ rule, and immunity for spouses and civil union partners in cases where they would otherwise be an accessory after-the-fact to an offence); and
  • increased the penalty for theft of animals from agricultural land.,

Summary Offences Act 1961 - last amended by the Family Violence Act 2018 that created an offence of associating with violent offenders in breach of an order under the FVA.

 
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