Page 3299 - Week 11 - Thursday, 22 September 1994
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Madam Speaker, I take the point that the Attorney made in his response to the committee's recommendations, about cooperation between the coroner and officers of the ACT public service. I accept what he said about the existing provisions of the Public Sector Management Act of this year requiring extensive cooperation from public servants. I think that that addresses the concerns of the committee. I think that I speak on behalf of my colleagues in saying that we are happy to accept that position. As I indicated, I am also prepared to support the amendment that is being brought forward to the Bill to improve that particular access to information.
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General and Minister for Health) (11.41), in reply: Madam Speaker, I thank members for their support for this legislation. The Coroners Act had it origins in a 1956 ordinance, which itself replaced a 1932 ordinance. That is as far back as I have gone. It is essentially nineteenth century English law that is still applying. The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody clearly showed that there were some problems with that. That is what the amending legislation is about. The committee has made some worthwhile recommendations to further improve that and to improve the way in which families, whether they be of Aboriginal persons or others, are treated by the coroner.
We have had an interesting exercise in the ACT in the last 12 months. It became very apparent, due to the tragic death of a religious gentleman from Tibet, that the coroner's proceedings can come into conflict with the culture, beliefs and practices of any one of the myriad ethnic groups that make up modern Australian society. Whereas the nineteenth century British coronial proceedings worked well in a homogeneous society, they do not work as well in a multicultural society. As a result of that, the Government has been conducting an internal review. It has been doing quite a lot of work with Mr Cahill, the Chief Magistrate and Coroner, and with the police, the Attorney-General's Department and a range of people from Canberra's ethnic communities, to ensure that the procedures in place in the Coroner's Court are more accessible and understandable to people from a background other than a traditional English background.
I do not think that that will lead to further changes to the Act. It is more about explaining why we go about certain procedures, particularly in the event of sudden death, when families are in a traumatised situation in any event. To further add to their distress, they are then confronted with what appear to be strange legal proceedings that may require a sudden examination of the body for a coroner's inquiry. In some cases, religious beliefs would indicate that a body should not be touched for a period of some days after death. There can be reasons why that cannot be allowed to proceed. The review is all about explaining that. I am pleased to report to the Assembly that we are making a lot of progress on that. In fact, when we looked around, we found that nobody else in Australia had done the exercise that we are doing in the ACT. Nobody in any Australian State had thought, "How do we make our coronial proceedings more accessible to persons of a non-English speaking background?". When that project is completed, I look forward to not only tabling the final outcome here but also distributing it around Australia, because other States are looking with some interest at what we are doing.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Bill agreed to in principle.
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