Page 2077 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 8 May 2012
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better protect children from abuse. This is an outcome the Greens are certainly pleased with, and we support this bill today.
I would like to touch on one particular point of detail in the legislation which I have had a briefing on from the JACS directorate. It is the proposed section 132F(1)(a), which would enable the court to order that a registered offender not associate with certain people stated, such as other offenders.
Such an order would only ever be granted by a court if it was satisfied that, firstly, the order was necessary to protect the safety of a child and, secondly, by granting the order, the child’s safety would be increased. That is one of the key threshold tests the court must be satisfied of and, if that test is satisfied, it is appropriate for the court to be empowered to grant such orders.
However, on a detailed analysis, there is one potential issue that I was concerned to raise with the directorate. The question I had was whether in granting such an order a court could unwittingly stop the offender engaging in therapy or treatment that had elements of group therapy with other offenders. It would be a perverse outcome if an offender were stopped by the police and the courts from going to treatment that was designed to assist them and to prevent further crimes.
This was acknowledged by the directorate officials when I met with them, and they had obviously thought about the problem and identified a possible solution, and I thank them for their work on that. The potential solution is to ensure that the minds of police are explicitly turned to this issue when they are completing an application to court and to ensure that information about any group therapy is before the court when a decision is made. One practical way to ensure this occurs is to include a question about treatment programs in the documentation the police will be required to complete.
Magistrates are well versed in making orders that cater to the life circumstances of people involved. I am satisfied that, so long as the information about group therapy is before the court at the time, it will be taken into account in the orders given by the magistrates, and the orders will be written in such a way to allow the therapy to continue uninterrupted.
Having made those few brief remarks, I simply welcome the passage of this legislation and indicate the Greens are very pleased to support this bill today.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for Police and Emergency Services and Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development) (10.14), in reply: I thank members for their support of this bill. The passage of this bill today will ensure that police have appropriate powers to take preventative action to address the concerning behaviour of convicted child sex offenders. This bill is an important contribution to the ACT’s statute book, as there is nothing more critical than the protection of children and young people from sexual assault and violence. I thank all members for the contributions they have made in the debate today.
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