Page 431 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 13 March 2007
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He then referred to what this bill does and concluded by stating:
This will more appropriately reflect the seriousness of the offence and render the ACT penalty more consistent with the practice elsewhere.
I do not think the government can have it both ways. When it suits the government it uses that reason to increase penalties, which is fine, but there should be consistency. The government goes completely the opposite way when it does not want to increase penalties and it states that there is no reason for it just to slavishly follow the other states. This is common of its attitude to criminal law relating, for example, to New South Wales.
Recently, on at least two and possibly three occasions, I introduced sentencing bills in this Assembly which, amongst other things, ensure that our penalties are in line with the state that surrounds us. On each occasion the government knocked back that legislation. It is true that a high range of penalties is not necessarily the be-all and end-all of everything, but at least it sends a message to a court that the legislature takes an issue seriously on behalf of the community. It also gives the court a greater range to impose a penalty to reflect the gravity or otherwise of an offence.
It concerns me that the government is using consistency as a reason to raise the penalty. It has done that, for example, in other traffic cases but it refuses to do so in serious cases such as rape. In other jurisdictions, in particular in New South Wales, a pack rape would incur a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. I think the maximum penalty for a pack rape in the ACT is still only 20 years. In the ACT I think an offender can receive a higher sentence for an aggravated burglary than he or she can receive for a pack rape.
There are some real anomalies in our laws compared with the laws in other states. For example, the penalty for manslaughter in New South Wales is 25 years, whereas I believe that the maximum penalty for manslaughter in the ACT is 20 years. There is a wide diversity and disparity between the penalties here and interstate for some very serious offences such as those I just mentioned. I think the government must get serious and apply consistency across the board much more than it has done in the past. It is selective when it suits it for offences such as this, laudable though this amendment is. I commend that avenue to the government. Whilst we are supportive of what it is doing it must also do that.
I will conclude by giving a pertinent example of people who stopped and who did the right thing at an accident scene, although none of them were the drivers concerned. However, the incident that I witnessed on Sunday highlights our community spirit and what people should do. I was driving along William Slim Drive in the vicinity of Cassidy Street on my way to play veterans rugby. I got to the tail end of the drive, which was probably just as well, because out of the corner of my eye I saw quite a bad accident between a Holden Barina and a larger car.
I got out of my car to render what assistance I could but a fellow who was already there was trying to ring 000 which I managed to ring for him. I was impressed with a
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