Page 5494 - Week 13 - Thursday, 17 November 2011
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Amendment Bill. Although he was debating that bill, he spent a lot of time dwelling on the bill that successfully passed yesterday. He said:
Mrs Dunne’s bill proposes to increase the maximum penalty for the offence of manslaughter—
that is true—
despite the fact that the DPP has said that the current penalty is appropriate …
When I heard that, I thought to myself, “That is unusual; I do not know that I have heard the DPP say that.” He went on to say:
… the current penalty is appropriate, in giving evidence to the very committee inquiry that Mrs Dunne says is the basis for the recommendation to increase the manslaughter penalty. The DPP has since reconfirmed his position that he believes the current penalty for manslaughter is appropriate.
Mr Speaker, you were at the hearing, as were Ms Porter and Ms Hunter, when the DPP appeared at the murder inquiry. It is worth looking at what the DPP said in relation to the manslaughter inquiry. Firstly, he made a submission, which was submission No 2, made on 31 March 2009. The DPP only made passing reference to manslaughter in his submission, saying that manslaughter was always an alternative available to the court as an alternative to the verdict of murder.
He did make a very important point about his status. At the beginning of his submission, he said:
I am independent of government, and accordingly I must leave matters of criminal law policy to the government and ultimately to the Assembly. However, it will generally be appropriate for me to highlight the practical implications of proposed legislation—
that is, the Crimes (Murder) Amendment Bill—
particularly in relation to matters which are of obvious importance to my Office.
So at the outset the DPP went out of his way to say: “I am not going to make comment on policy. It is not my job. It is the job of government and it is the job of the Legislative Assembly.” You were there, Mr Speaker; you asked him the questions about manslaughter that elicited the answers. But before issues about manslaughter were raised, the DPP, on 22 July when he appeared before the justice and community safety committee, said:
… I start with a caveat: it is not for me to advise the government or the Assembly on what the law should be, and these are matters of public policy. I see my role more as outlining the relevant considerations, particularly as they have an effect on my office.
That is at page 29 of the Hansard of the committee inquiry. You, Mr Rattenbury, asked him questions about the adequacy of penalties. He said in response to that:
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