Criminal law of Australia

The criminal law of Australia is the body of law in Australia that relates to crime.

Responsibility for criminal law in Australia is divided between the state and territory parliaments and the Commonwealth Parliament. This division is due to the Commonwealth Parliament's limited legislative powers under Australian constitutional law.^{[Note 1]}

The criminal law system differs across Australian states, with distinctions readily found across jurisdictions regarding criminal offences, sentencing and criminal procedure.

Additionally, there exists a distinction between Australia's "code states" and "common law states". The code states of Western Australia, Queensland and Tasmania have wholly replaced the system of judge-made criminal law inherited from England with legislative instruments that exhaustively define the criminal law within those states. Other Australian states have retained the criminal law as inherited through the common law, albeit modulated through legislation and subsequent common law development by Australia's courts.
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