Page 2267 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 31 October 1989
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penalty of $10,000 or two years' imprisonment or $50,000 for a body corporate crops up in several other parts of the Bill. But I would certainly commend increasing the penalty for this most serious offence covered by 89, and I would commend members to up the penalty there.
MR WHALAN (Minister for Industry, Employment and Education) (9.57): Mr Speaker, the penalty proposed to be amended is excessive. The comparable penalty in the Commonwealth legislation is only $2,000 or 12 months' imprisonment in the case of a natural person, and $10,000 in the case of a body corporate. In New South Wales the penalty is $2,000. Any sabotage which amounts to a crime is already an offence under part IV of the Crimes Act of 1900, and clause 89 does not need to cover that situation. The proposed amendment would also make clause 89 inconsistent with clause 90, which creates the offence of interfering with workplace notices. Both are equivalently serious, given the objects of the Bill.
MR MOORE (9.58): I have a great deal of empathy with what Mr Stefaniak is saying here. In this particular instance I am not going to support it because I think that we have already committed ourselves to take these penalties to the Bills committee and to have a look at them there. I would like to have it said that I do believe that, on a comparative basis throughout the legislation, this does appear to be out of kilter. I have not supported the changes to any of the amounts in the Bill because I believe that they are going to the Bills committee to try to establish a system of getting a standardised - as much as possible - range of offences. For that reason I would prefer to leave the Bill as it is. But, at the same time, I certainly empathise with what Mr Stefaniak is saying here, and it emphasises even more the need to get a standardised set of penalties - as close as we can, anyway.
MR COLLAERY (9.59): The Rally supports Mr Moore's views and supports Mr Stefaniak's arguments to the extent that we will go along with the argument but we will not support an amendment tonight. We believe it should go to the Bills committee and be properly ordered.
I want to say specifically that I do not really accept the arguments put forward by the Government on this. You can say in relation to any number of things here that they can also produce criminal penalties. The statement that the amendment is similarly excessive is not taken in relation to the overall legislation and, of course, contradicts the Deputy Chief Minister's commitment to have penalties generally referred to the Bills committee. So I think he has taken a conclusion that we are not wishing to take.
Our view is that we empathise with the view. Clearly, there is a very clear conflict with clause 66, where the fine is $10,000 for impeding an inspector in the exercise of his or her powers, and $50,000 for a company impeding an inspector, and only $5,000 or $25,000 for actually
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