Custody Notification Service

It is intended to reduce the high number of Aboriginal deaths in custody by counteracting the effects of institutional racism.

Legislation mandating the police to inform the legal service whenever an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person is brought into custody is seen as essential to ensure compliance and a clear record of events.

The implementation of a CNS in all Australian states and territories was recommendation 224[1] of the 339 recommendations of the 1991 Australian Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCIADIC), which had investigated 99 Aboriginal deaths in custody in the previous 10 years after community concerns were raised.

The Attorney-General for Australia commissioned the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) in October 2016 to examine the factors leading to the disproportionate numbers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australian prisons, and to look at ways of reforming legislation which might ameliorate this "national tragedy".

The result of this in-depth enquiry was a report titled Pathways to Justice – Inquiry into the Incarceration Rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, which was received by the Attorney-General in December 2017 and tabled in Parliament on 28 March 2018.

[11] The report listed 13 recommendations, covering many aspects of the legal framework and police and justice procedures, including:[12][13] Recommendation 14–3: Commonwealth, state and territory governments should introduce a statutory requirement for police to contact an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander legal service, or equivalent service, as soon as possible after an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander person is detained in custody for any reason—including for protective reasons.

The CNS serving the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and New South Wales (NSW) was established in 2000,[15] allowing access to a lawyer through the Aboriginal Legal Service.

[10][17] When 36-year-old Rebecca Maher was taken into protective custody by police for being intoxicated, under the provisions of Part 16 of the Law Enforcement (Powers and Responsibilities) Act 2002, police were only obliged to call the CNS if an Indigenous person was taken into custody for an offence, not if they were detained as an intoxicated person under this Act.

As a result of the coronial inquest into her death, in October 2019 the NSW government implemented a change to extend the CNS to cover police custody of intoxicated persons.

[7] In March 2017, Dhu's family criticised both the major political parties in Western Australia for not supporting such a scheme.

I'm sure if they took the late Ms Dhu into custody ... if the Aboriginal Legal Service [had] been contacted on day one it would have been a very different outcome".

[29] On 1 July 2020, the Attorney-General of South Australia, Vickie Chapman, announced that the state government would implement a formal CNS, after Aboriginal Affairs Labor spokesperson Kyam Maher had written to Premier Steven Marshall in June saying that he would introduce a Bill to parliament to legally mandate the service.

Mandating the measure would also mean that if an officer refuses or fails to comply, they "may be subject to disciplinary proceedings"[30] under the Police Complaints and Discipline Act 2016.