Page 3509 - Week 09 - Thursday, 21 August 2008
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It is not going to be at the expense of a fair trial for the accused. In many areas of the law, most cases do not even end up in the Supreme Court—although there is now a propensity to go there because it is far easier for a defendant to get off. The Canberra Times wrote an interesting article on that on Saturday. The vast majority of cases are decided at the Magistrates Court level where people just give evidence once.
So it is not startling to suggest that a complainant really needs to only give evidence once and be thoroughly cross-examined once. Yes, I am sure that there will be provision here and people will be cross-examined. Indeed, a complainant may be cross-examined for a day or more in the Supreme Court. But that complainant is not going to have to come back time after time to relive the horrific experiences inflicted on her, or him, in terms of sexual assaults.
The content and the intent behind this legislation are very sensible and very honourable indeed. To be critical of the government a bit, I am a bit amazed by one thing. When the DPP and the AFP—in March 2005, I think it was—put forward a paper, you would have hoped that we could have had a bit more action a bit more quickly. It would have been nice if we had had this in for 18 months. That would have been a reasonable time frame. March 2005. Look at it; consider it. Maybe at the end of 2006, in December, we could have had legislation and passed it. And we would be 18 months or more into the process now. But it is better late than never.
This is legislation which the opposition has been calling for and is pleased to see. There may be a few little hiccups. It is a bit of a shame that again—I said this yesterday in relation to another matter and I will say it again today—we have had a series of amendments dropped on us late in the piece. It would have been great if that could have happened one or two months earlier so that everyone could properly consider those.
There may be the odd teething problem with this legislation. I would certainly recommend that the attorney and his officials have a good close look at Ken Archer’s letter. There are things there which may well be wrong but there are things there which may well be worthy of consideration. I would hate to see prosecutions fail simply because of a few little problems in this legislation with things that perhaps could have been done better. If things need to be amended, we will do that regardless of whether, after 18 October, we are in opposition or in government.
This is an area of the law where the ACT has lagged behind other states. We need to be in line with other states. As I have always said, I am a great believer in consistency across the states, as far as is possible, in most laws, especially in the criminal law. Crime knows no boundaries. It is crucially important that someone who commits a heinous crime in Canberra—and the victims and witnesses—can expect to get a pretty similar result and be treated in pretty much the same way as they would if that crime was committed in Queanbeyan.
In principle we support this legislation and we will be voting for this legislation. It adds a lot to our criminal justice system here in the territory. I suggest that the Attorney-General adopt some other sensible provisions from interstate—certainly in areas of sentencing, which the government still seems to baulk at. But this particular
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