Latest News

The 2021-22 CDPP Annual Report was tabled in Parliament on Friday 28 October 20

The CDPP recently received an overall satisfaction score of 86 per cent from its biennial 2022 Partner Agency Survey.

The CDPP's 2022-26 Corporate Plan is now available.

The Attorney-General of New South Wales today announced the appointment of Ms Sarah McNaughton SC as a judge of the Supreme Court of NSW. 

The CDPP’s Library and Research Services team has won the 2022 Legal Information Service of the Year award announced at the Australian Law Librarians’ Association (ALLA) conference in Hobart on Thursday 26 August.

On 7 July 2022 the Commonwealth Attorney-General, the Honourable Mark Dreyfus QC MP, announced he had declined to proceed further in the prosecution of Mr Bernard Collaery for five offences relating to the alleged unlawful communication of ASIS information contrary to the Intelligence Services

On 11 February 2022, the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions Ms Sarah McNaughton SC announced her decision to decline to proceed further in the criminal prosecutions of Citigroup Global Markets Australia Pty Limited, Deutsche Bank AG and four senior banking executives for cartel offences

The CDPP 2020-21 Annual Report was tabled in Parliament on Wednesday 20 October 2021. 

The Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, Sarah McNaughton SC, has been extended in the role for a further two years.

The CDPP has launched a new Partner Agency Portal, giving investigators from partner agencies easy and timely access to information.
The last 12 months has tested businesses, including the CDPP, to become more agile to effectively deliver services throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Office of the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP) is an independent prosecution service established by Parliament under the Director of Public Prosecutions Act 1983 (Cth) to prosecute alleged offences against Commonwealth law.

The Office of the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions is warning members of the community to beware of scammers claiming to be from the CDPP.
The CDPP’s Partner Agencies will soon have access to a refreshed, scalable and dynamic, secure website to support their investigative work.

This is a joint media release between the Australian Federal Police and the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions

A 24-year-old Sydney man has been jailed for nine years and four months after he posed as a teen to exploit and extort explicit images from children online.

Note: This is a joint media release between the Australian Federal Police and the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions

A serial paedophile who abused children in Australia and Southeast Asia has today been sentenced to 35 years imprisonment, with a non-parole period of 28 years.

On 7 November 2019, Richard Ham (21) and Soo Lee (24) were sentenced in the District Court of New South Wales after pleading guilty to attempting to possess a commercial quantity of methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), more commonly known as ‘ecstasy’.

Today, Perth woman Alesha Stopforth (30) was sentenced in the District Court of Western Australia to 3 years imprisonment, to be released after serving 16 months upon entering into a Recognisance Order in the amount of $10,000 and to be of good behaviour for a period of 20 months, after pleading

Suzanne Akkari (25) was today sentenced to 18 months imprisonment to be released forthwith on a recognisance of $500 and to be of good behaviour for 18 months, after pleading guilty to a charge of aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring another in the arrangement of a marriage to obtain perman

Today*, Savas Avan (49) was sentenced in the County Court of Victoria to 3 years imprisonment, after pleading guilty to mailing packages containing asbestos to consulates and embassies in Melbourne and Canberra.

Today, Luke Borg (36) was sentenced in the County Court of Victoria after pleading guilty to a number of child sex offences.

A man from Sydney was today sentenced to a total term of imprisonment of 34 years, with a non-parole period of 29 years, for preparing and planning a terrorist attack, threatening to kill the NSW Commissioner of Corrective Services and for an attack on an inmate in custody.

Three Victorian men were today sentenced in the Supreme Court of Victoria for the offence of engaging in a terrorist act.  A jury had earlier found the men guilty of this crime by setting fire to a Shia mosque in suburban Melbourne, causing $1.5 million in damage.

The Victorian County Court has today sentenced Mohamed Osman Omar (36), to four years imprisonment, after he pleaded guilty to defrauding the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) of more than $370,000, and attempting to obtain a further amount of more than $85,000.

Serious Drugs

Intercepting illicit drugs and precursors at the border prevents them from entering the Australian community. We prosecute a significant number of cases relating to serious drug offences, often involving the importation of drugs and precursors.

Importation

Serious drug offences, particularly importations, are rarely committed by one person. In most cases they involve a number of players who are involved at different levels and in different ways. As a result, we often have to rely on extension of criminal liability provisions involving conspiracy, joint commission or accessorial liability in order to prosecute all those involved in an importation.

Precursors

When it comes to precursors, substances used to manufacture drugs and essential for producing illicit drugs, we see a huge variety in the methods people use. These range from smaller quantities being imported through the mail, often several kilograms at a time, to highly sophisticated importations of hundreds of kilograms or several tonnes via shipping containers.

Serious drug offences

Commonwealth serious drug offences apply to a long list of illicit substances including:

  • Heroin
  • Cocaine
  • Gamma-Butyrolactone (GBL)
  • Ecstasy (MDMA)
  • Methamphetamine, and
  • precursor chemicals such as Pseudoephedrine.

Drug and precursor offences are among the most serious Commonwealth offences and attract substantial penalties under Part 9.1 of the Criminal Code, including imprisonment for life for offences involving the importation of a commercial quantity of a border controlled drug.

There are a range of other serious drug offences in the Criminal Code, including:

  • trafficking
  • commercial manufacture of controlled drugs, and
  • pre-trafficking in controlled precursors.

There are also provisions in the Criminal Code that extend the schedules of controlled and border controlled drugs to include substances that are analogues to those drugs listed. Drug analogues are substances that have a similar chemical structure to a drug that is listed.

There are also provisions that extend the definition of controlled and border controlled precursors to include substances that are salts, esters, and immediate precursors of the precursors listed.

We also prosecute State and Territory drug offences, usually where the investigation involves a Commonwealth agency and it is appropriate for us to conduct the prosecution.

Main offences

Serious drug prosecutions can be divided into four main categories:

Additional offences

Additional offences relating to the importation of non-narcotic drugs, specified chemical compounds and specified performance enhancing substances also exist under the Customs Act, though the penalties are significantly less than those prosecuted under the Criminal Code.

Penalties

The level of penalty associated with serious drug offences generally depends on the quantity of the illicit substance involved. There are three tiers of quantities used in the Criminal Code:

  • commercial quantity (the largest, usually measured in kilograms)
  • marketable quantity (in grams), and
  • trafficable quantity (in grams, but less than a marketable amount).

The penalties range from 2 years’ imprisonment for basic possession offences, through to life imprisonment for trafficking or importing/exporting commercial quantities of a border controlled drug.

Key legislation

Partner agencies

Practice Group Instructions (PGI)

PGI IIE/OCCT No. 1 – pdfCharging Guideline for serious drug offences under Part 9.1 of the Criminal Code