Page 1435 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 17 April 1991
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adopted the approach that where offences were punishable by a fine and a prison sentence, the existing maximum prison term was accepted as defining the gravity of the offence and the monetary penalty was brought into line in accordance with a formula that equated one week's imprisonment with one penalty unit, a maximum of one month's imprisonment with five penalty units and so on.
It goes on to say:
... this only preserved the pattern set by the maximum sentences of imprisonment which had been allocated, often inconsistently, to those offences over a long time span. Each of these offences should -
in the opinion of these authors -
be re-examined to establish their relativity ...
It goes on to state:
There is a degree of uncertainty as to whether a judge or magistrate may impose a fine of less than one penalty unit either by specifying a fraction or percentage of a penalty unit, or a specific dollar amount.
The learned authors go on to state that they have given consideration to how to deal with relativity and how to adjust base values of penalty units for inflation, bearing in mind the very important aspect that much of this penalty will have a relativity to average weekly wages, unemployment benefits and average household disposable income. It is a very complex topic.
In the face of that learned report, my Law Office advice is that we need not only to set penalty units, but also to work out what our community sentiment is about maxima in sentences and what we see as worth, say, for example, a month's imprisonment. In the Northern Territory recently someone was detained overnight, I believe, for not voting. That demonstrates the sort of challenge facing us in bringing in a penalty unit system. So, perhaps we should await further work, given the experiences of those two States.
To summarise, the problems detected interstate are: It is difficult and cumbersome for judges and magistrates to detect the current penalty unit; it has had the effect of lifting small fines to the smallest penalty unit, even though the legislature specifically states that the smallest unit is to be considered a maximum fine for the particular offence; and, of course - and it is an enjoiner to us all and a reminder - the Victorians have not altered the value of their penalty unit since the legislation
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