Page 1436 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 17 April 1991
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was introduced in 1981. I think we all like to be efficient in government; but you have to be conscious of the fact that, with taxi fares and all the other issues related to CPI and base calculations, here we would have another monster challenge for government to keep up to date in an area where people can be sentenced to matters that can cause severe deprivation.
Mr Speaker, our Territory legislation is, quite frankly - and I accept what Mr Connolly said - obsolete. There is vast inconsistency, such as in terms of what the penalty is for picking a wildflower. Under a Bill which was introduced, I think, by the Follett Government, I recall a penalty of something extraordinary.
Mr Stefaniak: It was $10,000, or five years.
MR COLLAERY: It was $10,000, or five years' imprisonment. Given the emphasis the current community puts on preservation of fauna, flora and environment, maybe that is an accurate reflection. But, whatever it is, that is vastly inconsistent with some of the other penalties which exist or subsist in our legislation for other property-type offences. In our view, the only sensible approach is to carry out a systematic and comprehensive review of all penalties, to decide the degree of seriousness of the relevant offence in the whole calendar of offences, and to place them consistently within a rational framework.
This is a very large undertaking, and, other than the research that I have alluded to now and the preliminary work and examination of the project, it is going to be very difficult to tackle it, with the short-term pressures that the Law Office and our budget face. The costs of consultants are high in this town, and I am sure that we are going to hear more about that. I am reluctant to put out a major consultancy that might cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, given the breadth of this study; and there is a question as to whether consultants would have sufficient linkage with the Government to be able to reflect the community sentiment.
Mr Speaker, in principle, therefore, I accept Mr Connolly's proposal; but it will not have any effect, other than to be a reminder to us that this big task faces the Government. I do not intend to say that this was only point scoring by Mr Connolly. I do not believe that it was. I believe that his Bill has attracted the public interest and public sympathy. What it has done is to focus again, really, on the resources of the Government Law Office, and how we will tackle one of the major law reform projects that will probably take place over the next decade.
Debate (on motion by Mr Stefaniak) adjourned.
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