Page 424 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 13 May 1992
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Amendment agreed to.
Bill, as a whole, as amended, agreed to.
Bill, as amended, agreed to.
CRIMES LEGISLATION (STATUS AND CITATION) BILL 1992
Debate resumed from 9 April 1992, on motion by Mr Connolly:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
MR HUMPHRIES (4.15): Madam Speaker, the object of this Bill is to change, in effect, the way in which we refer to an Act that is very commonly referred to in courts in the ACT because it is an important Act, that is, the Crimes Act 1900 of the State of New South Wales in its application to the Territory. We have a very long title, as is clear, and it is a very complex matter.
What the Government is trying to do is to remove that complex nomenclature from courts and documents and replace it with a simpler reference, that is, to the Crimes Act 1900. I might say that the Bill does not clearly say whether one can refer to this as the Crimes Act 1900 (ACT). That is not necessary, perhaps; but one might ask that question if one ever had to refer to it in a context where one was referring to other Crimes Acts, for example, the Crimes Act (Commonwealth) or the Crimes Act (New South Wales). I think we can probably assume that we are entitled to put "ACT" behind 1900.
The Government is pursuing the question of removing archaic references in legislation with all the vigour of Red Guards smashing up Shinto temples during the Cultural Revolution or bulldozer drivers knocking down hotels in National Party-governed Queensland a few years ago. Perhaps one cannot be as sympathetic towards the long title of the Crimes Act as one is towards those other things. But it does bring to mind the observation that one's heritage is not merely about buildings and objects; it is also about things such as the laws. In this case, the laws include a very important law that has been in force in the Territory since virtually the beginning of the ACT, and that is the Crimes Act of New South Wales in its application to the Australian Capital Territory.
It is a pity, it seems to me, that it has to be redesignated in this way. It does remove the fact that the Crimes Act had its birth in New South Wales and has substantially had that influence from the New South Wales law ever since. It is true that the Crimes Act is now quite substantially different from its New South Wales counterpart. Both have been going on separate paths and developing quite separately in that time. Nonetheless, that is only an observation I make. Those arguments are purely emotional and not logical, and therefore I can only say that the Opposition will support the Government's Bill.
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (4.18), in reply: I thank Mr Humphries for his support. I was getting a little concerned when he was accusing the Government of carrying on like Red Guards smashing Shinto temples. I was finding it hard to see the relevance to this particular piece of law
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