NSW Disclosure of spent convictions

[ashc]

Hello. Hope I’m in the right place wasn’t sure where to ask this.

Alright so some years back, in 2016, I was arrested for drug driving as well as getting charged with several other traffic offenses, unlicenced, unregistered, etc. I know, very bad, believe me I’ve paid a lot for my bad choices.

In the end I plead guilty, got a huge fine, which I paid off through a work and development order for a drug treatment program.

Anyway what I’m wondering is if anyone knows if this is likely to be an issue for things like international travel. Specifically my understanding is there’s a system whereby after ten years of having committed no additional crimes, of which I’m now 6 years into, offenses like mine become spent and aren’t disclosed for most purposes.

I‘m wondering what the law says about how this applies to our government disclosing offenses to border authorities of other countries.

Thanks for any info.

 

[Tim W]

You may be thinking of a thing called Spent Convictions.
Plenty about them on the web.
Understand up front though,
that no, your offences do not magically vanish once you've done your ten years as an utter cleanskin.
Depends on several things - not least on whether or not the conviction
is even one of the kind that can become spent (not every offence can).

Also depends on where you want to go.

 

[ashc]

Thank you for your reply.
To clarify, I was convicted in nsw of driving under the influence with a 12 month licence disqualification on top of a quite significant fine.

The main thing I was wondering, is assuming it can become spent after 10 years of no offending (to the best I was able to find online it sounds like it can). Whether that actually has any impact on the lawful disclosure of that conviction to other governments for things like visa applications and such.

Thanks to anyone who takes the time to reply, I recognize this is an academic question and no matter the answer ultimately I’m just gonna have to live with the consequences of what I did. I’m just trying to get an idea of if this is something that could still be a problem with travel even if the conviction becomes spent.