The names, faces and “general” location of child sex offenders could be publicly available online under a proposal from Peter Dutton to establish a national child-sex offender register.

However the nation’s law council has warned any public sex offender register is not “a silver bullet”, while researchers for the Australian criminal intelligence body most likely to administer any register have previously questioned the effectiveness of such a proposal.

The states and territories, as well as non-government stakeholders, including the Law Council and advocacy groups such as the Daniel Morcombe Foundation, have been asked their views on the register, which would be the first of its kind in Australia.

In a statement released early on Wednesday morning, Dutton said consultation was underway, with the register potentially including identifying details of convicted abusers, including the type of crime, birthdate and postcode. Juvenile offenders would not be included on the register.

“It would have a strong deterrent effect on offenders and ensure that parents are not in the dark about whether a registered sex offender has access to their children,” Dutton said.

Speaking to Sydney radio 2GB, Dutton said the proposal was a “balanced approach”.

“We don’t identify the individual addresses, so I think we avoid the problem of vigilante groups or people forming outside particular residences that might be occupied by a register sex offender, but we do propose to give the person’s locality by postcode,” he said.

“…Families would have a better idea of who is living within their postcode, to either have an awareness in discussions with their children, make sure that they knew about somebody who had unsupervised contact of their children in a sporting sense, or in another group activity within the community.”

While the Daniel Morcombe Foundation welcomed the idea, child safety advocate Hetty Johnson slammed the proposed register as “a political ploy”.

“Elections are going to be run on fear or hope,” she said, after listening to a press conference held by Dutton on Wednesday afternoon.

“This is going to be run on fear. It is winning votes on the backs of children’s very lives and I get upset about that. That annoys me and I know this is a political thing and they all do it. But I think Mr Dutton is better than that and I am disappointed.”

Dutton was questioned at the press conference on the timing of the announcement, given the Coalition has been in power since 2013.

“We’ve been working on this for some time … we’ve been looking at ways in which it has been operating overseas and we have been looking at ways in which we can collaborate with the states,” he said.

“This is not an extreme measure, it is not too soft, it is not too hard.”

The Law Council of Australia has not objected to the idea, but believes it should only apply to “offenders who pose a demonstrated risk to children”, while stressing inclusion on any public register “should never be automatic”.

Responding to Dutton’s proposal, council president Arthur Moses said the register would have to be “stringently monitored to avoid unintentional errors” and only apply to the highest levels of offending, and done through the discretion of the courts.

“Inclusion brings onerous reporting obligations like ongoing police monitoring of and involvement in a person’s activities, the risk of adverse community attention and vigilantism,” Moses said.

“Therefore only offenders posing a demonstrated risk should be required to register.

“…Child sex offences are amongst the most abhorrent that come before our courts and, as the recent royal commission illustrated, for too long offenders were placed in a position where they could re-offend,” he said.

“This is why we need to get it right. We must be careful to ensure laws are not enacted that create negative unintended consequences that impact the wider community.”

The Northern Territory government announced similar plans in 2014, but was ultimately unable to bring it to fruition. At the time, then-prime minister Tony Abbott said he was “disinclined” for a national register.

“We don’t have a national murderers register, we don’t have a national thieves register, we don’t have a national white collar criminals register,” Abbott said in October 2014.

“I think the most important thing is to do what we can to have strong and effective law enforcement agencies, to have strong and effective laws, and I think if we’ve got strong and effective police forces, strong and effective criminal intelligence, if we’ve got judges and prosecuting services that are taking swift action when criminals or potential criminals are arrested, I think that is the best way forward.”

In 2015, the NT Law Society concluded a register was “not right” for the territory, citing a lack of evidence.

“There is no evidence that public registers of this nature are successful in increasing community safety or reducing the rates of offending or re-offending,” the organisation said in a statement.

It also said “victims of crime may well feel shamed by the publication, especially if the offender is a family member.”

Last year the Australian Institute of Criminology, which has since merged with the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission and would be the government body most likely tasked with administrating any public register, released a report which found no evidence public registers resulted in reduced recidivism.

It also raised the issue of teenagers caught ‘sexting’, which can be prosecuted as a child sex crime, finding their way onto any register, given the broad sweep of Australia’s laws.

“One of the key lessons learned from the US experience is that policies introduced rapidly in response to single, widely publicised incidences are generally not successful in achieving their aims,” the AIC report concluded.

“Policy responses to sexual offending need to be carefully considered and must be based on strong, theoretical foundations, supported by evidence.”

A spokesman for opposition leader Bill Shorten said Labor would wait to see what the states and territories had to say, as well as look at the proposal which was being put forward, once it included more detail.

Legislation passed by each individual state and territory established the Australian Child Protection Offender Reporting scheme in the early 2000s, giving police access to registered sex offenders and their movements, once any jail sentence has been completed.

Last year, following a campaign by Derryn Hinch, the register’s powers were extended to allow authorities to cancel the passport of registered sex offenders, who were suspected of traveling overseas for child sex.