Page 2076 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 8 May 2012
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amendments be made to authorise police to take action when they identify a child at risk.
A key example of this gap in the law is when an offender reports to police that they are living with children. The offender is required under current laws to report the names and ages of the children they live with. However, if the police are concerned by the information and their risk assessments show that the reported living arrangements put the children in danger, they are currently unable to ask that person not to live in that particular household. What the Ombudsman suggested and what the government have now taken up is a system of prohibition orders where the police can request a court to order that the offender not engage in certain risky behaviour.
To use the same example, the court order could direct the offender to not live with the children. That order then becomes fully enforceable and it is a crime not to comply. This is an approach to crime prevention that is based on evidence and common sense. It is an approach that does not ask our police to wait until a crime is committed or before arresting the offender. Instead it allows them to seek practical orders from the court to stop the crime occurring in the first place.
This is certainly the kind of approach to crime the Greens support. As my predecessor, Deb Foskey, said in this place in 2005 when the register laws were being passed, the Greens wanted a more proactive approach that allowed police to intervene to prevent crime. Dr Foskey discussed the gap we are closing today when she said:
… information will be kept on the register but, and this is a big but, there is no capacity for the police to intervene if they believe the children are at risk.
She went on to say:
I do not believe the community would find this acceptable. If we are in a position to identify where children may be at risk, then we should be in a position to respond. What action could we take? I am not advocating public disclosure of the sex offender, as occurs in some parts of the United States, nor am I suggesting that some offenders should be incarcerated indefinitely or otherwise lose all their civil rights. We could instead look at a mechanism such as the child protection prohibition orders that have been built into the Northern Territory child sex offender register legislation. This gives the court the power to make a prohibition order similar to a domestic violence order that prohibits the person from engaging in specified conduct.
That preventative approach to crime is something I have continued to advocate for in my time in the Assembly, because it allows crimes to be prevented before they occur, which is, of course, both a source of confidence and benefit for the community.
I note Mr Corbell does not share my views that the Greens saw this gap in 2005 and urged the government to act, but I do not think that is the central point today. This law is certainly too important to engage in debate about whose idea it was first. I do not think that kind of debate is going to add much to the discussion today. The most important thing is that the gap is being closed and that the police are now equipped to
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