Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:C2025C00060:section:5:p2
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:C2025C00060
Segment Type: section
Provision Reference: s 5 (pt 2/31)
Character Range: 40183–42828

3—General

3.1  Elements
 (1) An offence consists of physical elements and fault elements.
 (2) However, the law that creates the offence may provide that there is no fault element for one or more physical elements.
 (3) The law that creates the offence may provide different fault elements for different physical elements.

3.2  Establishing guilt in respect of offences
  In order for a person to be found guilty of committing an offence the following must be proved:
 (a) the existence of such physical elements as are, under the law creating the offence, relevant to establishing guilt;
 (b) in respect of each such physical element for which a fault element is required, one of the fault elements for the physical element.
Note 1: See Part 2.6 on proof of criminal responsibility.
Note 2: See Part 2.7 on geographical jurisdiction.

Division 4—Physical elements

4.1  Physical elements
 (1) A physical element of an offence may be:
 (a) conduct; or
 (b) a result of conduct; or
 (c) a circumstance in which conduct, or a result of conduct, occurs.
 (2) In this Code:
conduct means an act, an omission to perform an act or a state of affairs.
engage in conduct means:
 (a) do an act; or
 (b) omit to perform an act.

4.2  Voluntariness
 (1) Conduct can only be a physical element if it is voluntary.
 (2) Conduct is only voluntary if it is a product of the will of the person whose conduct it is.
 (3) The following are examples of conduct that is not voluntary:
 (a) a spasm, convulsion or other unwilled bodily movement;
 (b) an act performed during sleep or unconsciousness;
 (c) an act performed during impaired consciousness depriving the person of the will to act.
 (4) An omission to perform an act is only voluntary if the act omitted is one which the person is capable of performing.
 (5) If the conduct constituting an offence consists only of a state of affairs, the state of affairs is only voluntary if it is one over which the person is capable of exercising control.
 (6) Evidence of self‑induced intoxication cannot be considered in determining whether conduct is voluntary.
 (7) Intoxication is self‑induced unless it came about:
 (a) involuntarily; or
 (b) as a result of fraud, sudden or extraordinary emergency, accident, reasonable mistake, duress or force.

4.3  Omissions
  An omission to perform an act can only be a physical element if:
 (a) the law creating the offence makes it so; or
 (b) the law creating the offence impliedly provides that the offence is committed by an omission to perform an act that there is a duty to perform by a law of the Commonwealth, a State or a Territory, or at common law.

Division