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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 9 Hansard (26 August) . . Page.. 3153 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

That, of course, raises concerns about privacy. Shouldn't your choice of name be your own business? The public interest issue to weigh against this interest is that our names are the basis for any contracts or arrangements we enter into. We need to be able to believe that a person is who they say they are.

However, there are powers of some concern which go beyond being sure of names. Under the Births, Deaths and Marriages Act, a prohibited name means a name that:

(a) is obscene or offensive; or

(b) could not practically be established by repute or usage-

(i) because it is too long; or

(ii) because it consists of or includes symbols without phonetic significance in the English language; or

(iii) for any other reason; or

(c) includes or resembles an official title or rank; or

(d) is misleading because of similarity with the name of a body or organisation; or

(e) is, in the opinion of the registrar-general, undesirable; or

(f) is, or is a name of a kind that is, prohibited by the regulations.

That does take away some of the powers to self-identify. Names like "Naughty Sea Monkey"may seem frivolous or strange, but what is the harm if someone wants to take on that identity in the world?

The ACT Registrar-General's Office has, effectively, run a trial of the new system over the past four or five months by recommending to everyone who wants to change their name that they go through the registrar's process. I understand that there have not been any complaints.

In April and May 2002, Adam Graycar of the AIC delivered a paper on identify fraud. I would like to put some of what he said on the record here as it sets the context for this change, but also raises some related issues which will require further thought and debate here in the future. Adam Graycar's paper reported a trial conducted by the New South Wales Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages which checked the birth certificates used with Westpac to open bank accounts. It found that 13 per cent of the birth certificates presented during the experimental period were not an exact match with the records held by the issuing authority. In summing up a range of examples, he said:

I could rattle off more Centrelink cases, banking cases, immigration cases, the market in fake University degrees, et cetera, as well as cases of phantom beds in nursing homes occupied by non-existent patients and serviced by non-existent staff. What we have is false identify in funds transfer fraud, revenue fraud, theft, financial services fraud, social security fraud, other Commonwealth benefits, health insurance fraud, general insurance fraud, workers compensation fraud, payroll tax fraud and lots more things in the future-things we haven't thought of such as electronic conveyancing.

We know therefore that members of the public, like our con-artists, use false identify to obtain benefits illegally. We know that people in trusted positions sometimes do the wrong thing, whether they be professionals like our accountant, or staff members inside banks or the Health Insurance Commission,

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