Page 788 - Week 02 - Thursday, 23 February 2012
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I note that I was approached by a journalist the other day who told me that the attorney had decided that he was going to refer this matter to his law reform advisory committee for inquiry. I am not quite sure how that stands. I have seen a statement from the minister saying that he has done that. It does beg the question why that was not done before the bill came into this place, rather than after the bill came into this place. Once it is here, if there is a question about whether it should be inquired into, the logical place for it to go is to a subject matter committee. So I would welcome an explanation from the minister as to how he thinks these two inquiries might run together, at the same time.
I envisage that this would be a relatively short inquiry. In the discussions I have had with you, Mr Assistant Speaker, and with Ms Hunter, we spoke about the end of April as an appropriate reporting time. But I note, when consulting the calendar, that the next appropriate sitting day for report would be 1 May. I would encourage members to support the motion for the referral of this legislation to the committee for inquiry and report.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (4.28): The Greens will be supporting Mrs Dunne’s motion today, as flagged, and I do intend to move an amendment, which has also been flagged. We certainly support the intent of the motion from Mrs Dunne. The legislation that she is referring to certainly is a complex piece of legislation.
Assaults against police are the focus of two bills that are currently before the Assembly and we believe that it is sensible to ask the JACS committee to inquire into both at the same time. The second bill, of course, is the Crimes (Offences Against Police) Amendment Bill 2012, which has been introduced by Mr Seselja. The amendment that I intend to move will ensure that the inquiry looks at both bills rather than just one.
The issues associated with both of the bills are important and, as I said, I think they are also complex. We certainly support a considered and evidence-based approach to law reform. We believe that a committee inquiry will provide a good forum for that to take place.
One example of the complexity involved is the data on assaults against police. Despite some commentary, assaults against police are not on the rise. The Chief Police Officer confirmed this late last year when he appeared before the JACS committee during annual reports hearings. What he did say was that in his opinion the severity of the assaults was marginally increasing. This raises an interesting but complex question about what the best response to address this is. Is it from the Assembly? Is it the various things that have been proposed? Or is it an operational issue? Certainly that is a question that needs to be determined as well—whether having a higher penalty will provide sufficient deterrence in the sort of violent and highly confrontational situations that police officers are confronted with, or whether they are operational matters, and whether different gear or a different size of teams is in fact a more effective way to provide a safer operating environment for the police. These are the sorts of questions that will come out through this conversation.
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