Page 3850 - Week 11 - Thursday, 24 November 2022
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That description by the royal commission is exactly what this legislation seeks to do. It was recommended by the royal commission because it has real effects in preventing people from being retraumatised unnecessarily. It already has safeguards built in to ensure fairness, such as the discretion to exclude any part of the recording and to allow further questions to be asked.
I note as well the generally applicable provisions of part 3.11 of the Evidence Act to exclude and limit evidence. These amendments are simple, beneficial and sensible. I am confident that, were this only a matter of concern about the proposed amendments per se, we would have heard nothing at all from Mrs Lee. This is not mere speculation. The reason I feel so confident about this is due to the legislative history having been so deeply uncontroversial in the past.
Section 69 of the Evidence (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act was inserted into the act by the Crimes Legislation Amendment Act 2013, at that time as section 43A, and it only applied to complainants. Surely, if the Canberra Liberals are so disturbed by this radical law reform today, the idea of giving evidence by audiovisual link and recording that would have seemed even more extreme at that time, when it was introduced for the very first time. But it seems there were no issues.
The bill was not referred to committee. The scrutiny committee made no comment on those aspects of the bill. Mr Seselja, speaking on behalf of the Canberra Liberals, spoke for just over a page of Hansard. These amendments were alluded to in a single dot point of his speech. He stated that the bill does a number of procedural things, such as:
… strengthening Sexual Assault Reform program evidence provisions for giving evidence in sexual and violent offences and the giving of victim impact statements in such cases.
The Canberra Liberals supported the bill without discussing the issue further.
The provisions were considered again in 2018, with the Royal Commission Criminal Justice Legislation Amendment Bill of that year, which expanded the provisions to apply to all witnesses. Again, it was not referred to the committee. Again, the scrutiny committee made no mention of these provisions. And, again, the Canberra Liberals, this time represented by Mr Hanson, made only cursory comment on the provisions saying:
On the procedural matters, we recognise that the processes of the trial itself can be improved to reduce the distress to those who are dealing with the impacts of very serious crimes, and we will support these changes.
You can imagine my confusion today. There was no big deal when the provisions were first introduced; nor when they were expanded. The amendments that Ms Lee has singled out are, I would argue, the smallest of these steps, simply seeking to rectify what has been identified as an anomaly, yet they curiously need four whole months to consider. So unless Ms Lee wishes to shed some light on her motivations
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