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Federal Budget 2019: What it means for you

Australians will soon have access to a wealth of information about convicted paedophiles across the country after the Federal Budget allocated $7.8 million for a “name and shame” list.

The Budget 2019-2020 provides $7.8 million to establish a National Public Register of Child Sex Offenders, an initiative the government hopes will provide a “nationally consistent approach to the public release of information about child sex offenders”.

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The register will allow Australians to see names, aliases and photographs of thousands of paedophiles, as well as their date of birth, physical description and the “general location and nature” of their crimes.

The public database will be managed by the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, with police agencies from each state contributing information.

“Protection of our most vulnerable — our children — remains one of the highest priorities of the Morrison government,” Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said in a statement.

Mr Dutton announced a proposal for the National Public Register of Child Sex Offenders in January, saying it would be based on the model introduced in the United State in the 1990s, although unlike in the US, the Australian version won’t include the address of offenders, just the suburb they live in.

Following Mr Dutton’s January announcement, the Law Council of Australia president Arthur Moses said in a statement a mandatory child sex offender registry posed issues, including the possibility of citizens using the data to carry out vigilante justice.

“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,” he said.

“Sentencing courts should be granted a discretion to take into account the individual circumstances of the offence and offender in determining whether an eligible person should be required to register and report.”

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Ardent supporters of a national child sex offender register include Bruce and Denise Morcombe, the parents of Sunshine Coast teenager Daniel Morcombe who was abducted and murdered in 2003 by convicted paedophile Brett Peter Cowan.

Previous attempts to create a child sex offender registry have been unsuccessful. The Northern Territory government announced similar plans in 2014, but was unable to push them through.

At the time, then-prime minister Tony Abbott was opposed to the idea.

Asked at a Melbourne press conference in October whether he supported the state’s plan, Mr Abbott said: “What other governments do is a matter for them. I am disinclined to pursue such a thing nationally.

“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. I am disinclined to single out particular crimes for particular public registers.”

The following year, the NT Law Society concluded there was not enough evidence to support the measure.

“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”.