Page 1328 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 16 April 1991
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I think that measure has a lot of merit. As the South Australian Government has had a $5 levy for a number of years, perhaps in 1991 we might look at something like a $10 levy on all fines as being an appropriate figure. After all, in the last couple of years the old court costs for summary matters have come back into the ACT. That was something we did not have for 10 years, but that was introduced as a necessary measure. Really, I can see a lot of merit in a compulsory $10 victims levy being imposed by the courts. Certainly that would help, in these difficult financial times, to pay for this very good increase in compensation to $50,000.
Finally, although probably the majority of offenders will not be covered by proposed new section 29A - whereby, if they have the means, they have to pay, rather than the Government, for the result of their action against a victim - I do think it will have a salutary effect on the offenders who are able to pay pursuant to that section. One of the best ways of bringing home to offenders the ramifications of what they have done to the victim is to hit them in the hip pocket nerve. That is another way of bringing that very important lesson home to them. I think that is a further benefit we will see, apart from a mere financial one, from the recovery of compensation from offenders.
This is a timely Bill. There are a number of other provisions in it which were alluded to by the speakers - which I will not go into - which simplify the procedure and make it easier for victims. Indeed, an offender who has paid out compensation under some other law will be reimbursed under this law. That is fair enough. It stops them paying twice. It is sensible legislation; it is timely. I commend it to the Assembly and I am sure it will receive unanimous support.
MR COLLAERY (Attorney-General) (8.49), in reply: I thank members for their comments and I will not retraverse them. I note Mr Connolly's suggestions in relation to improvements to the scheme. With respect to Mr Connolly, I trust that the Community Law Reform Committee is looking at those matters in its victims reference, but I do accept Mr Connolly's proposition that there is a sort of guiding light on these affairs from the State of South Australia, as there has been in related areas for a number of years. I am sure that Mr Connolly, as a South Australian, is proud of that fact.
Whilst I was at a ministerial meeting in Adelaide recently, I took advantage of the opportunity to traverse some of these issues directly with the Victims Support Unit of the South Australian police. They are matters that are relevant at the moment not only to work of the Territory's Community Law Reform Committee but also to the reform work that is being carried out right now within the regional office of the Australian Federal Police.
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