Page 3570 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 12 October 1994
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Madam Speaker, generally speaking, these amendments are, as I indicated, technical in nature. They provide for a better operating Bail Act, and they deserve the support of the Assembly in order to ensure that the many uses made of the Bail Act every day of the week in this Territory are both in accordance with good practice and strictly within the terms of the law. As I indicated, some things done at the moment are not quite within the terms, strictly speaking, of our existing bail legislation.
MS SZUTY (4.54): I wish to speak very briefly to this Bill. This is the first major set of amendments to the Act that the Government has brought forward since this Assembly enacted the Bail Act in 1992. It is appropriate that the Government has reviewed the operation of the Act and come back to this Assembly with a series of amendments to facilitate the processes and procedures in relation to it.
Mr Humphries, I notice, has circulated an amendment which he foreshadowed in his remarks. He raised this matter with me a day or so ago and expressed his concern about this provision. My understanding of Mr Humphries's foreshadowed amendment is that he wants to omit paragraph (a) of clause 5, which reads:
an accused person who, in relation to the commission of the same offence on a previous occasion, failed to comply with any undertaking to appear or bail condition given or imposed in relation to that offence on that occasion;
He wants that provision removed from the Bail (Amendment) Bill. My understanding, Madam Speaker, is that that provision is a similar provision to one which is contained in the New South Wales Bail Act. I think it is primarily for that reason that the Government has put it forward. I think the point the Government is making, too, is that people should not be unnecessarily penalised for offences that they may have committed in the past and then be in a position where they will not automatically be granted bail for a minor offence on a subsequent occasion.
Mr Connolly also has circulated a number of amendments which, I am sure, he will speak to in the detail stage. My understanding is that these arise from a matter that the Scrutiny of Bills Committee considered. It drew to the Attorney-General's attention the fact that forms prescribed under the Bail (Amendment) Bill would not be subject to the scrutiny of this Assembly. I am very pleased to see that the Attorney-General has proposed these amendments to further improve the Bill.
Madam Speaker, I would like to raise one particular issue, and that is in relation to domestic violence situations. My understanding is that the granting of bail in situations where domestic violence has occurred, or has been deemed to occur, will still be at the discretion of both police officers and magistrates. The Attorney-General may be able to inform the Assembly as to how that area has been going in terms of bail provisions which have been granted to offenders or to people who may well have breached domestic violence orders. I would like the Attorney-General to keep that area of the bail provisions under review and to report to this Assembly from time to time on that matter.
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