The committee recently wrapped up a review of the commission’s new framework
The Law Council of Australia has voiced its support of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security’s (PJCIS) recommendations regarding Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) changes.
The committee had recently completed its review of reforms re-setting ACIC as a criminal intelligence agency specialising in serious and organised crime. These amendments overhaul the commission’s current legislative framework, which integrates law enforcement and intelligence functions.
The reform legislation changes the law that outlines ACIC’s powers, safeguards, and oversight, the Law Council said. President Tania Wolff noted that the new framework grants “extraordinary” powers to the commission.
“The ACIC possesses exceptional powers such as the ability to compel people, including children, to answer questions, even if the answers may incriminate them, and to run undercover operations during which laws can be broken with immunity. These are powers designed to be used in secret”, Wolff said in a Law Council press release.
She applauded the PJCIS’ recommendations, which urge the limitation of ACIC’s powers “to the extent necessary to achieve the public policy aim of collecting intelligence about serious criminal offending by sophisticated actors”. The recommendation, she explained, supports the Law Council’s own submission.
Wolff called for ACIC’s powers to be aligned with the rule of law, as “where exceptional powers are misused, there can be significant consequences for the administration of justice”.
“We believe the extraordinary powers provided to ACIC under the new framework must be consistent with the rule of law, appropriately constrained, and demonstrably necessary and proportionate to the gravity of possible harms that may befall the Australian community”, she said. “We support the focus of the PJCIS on more appropriate safeguards, greater transparency, and improved scrutiny of ACIC’s exercise of its powers”.
Wolff praised the PJCIS’ “thorough consideration” of the ACIC reforms and highlighted the Department of Home Affairs’ “early and continued engagement” with the council across the reform package’s policy development phase. She indicated that the Law Council would be tracking the amendments’ passage through parliament.
In December 2025, the Federal Court shot down an appeal that challenged ACIC’s authority to greenlight intelligence operations and issue compulsory examination summonses in serious financial crime matters. That same month, the PJCIS was given oversight of ACIC under the Strengthening Oversight of the National Intelligence Community Bill 2025.
