Page 1478 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 11 August 1992
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and our courts comprise reasonable men. I would hope that during the course of this reformist Labor Government they will comprise reasonable men and reasonable women; but at the moment they comprise reasonable men and they can come up with definitions to suit the moment.
The problem with going to this very long definition, as Mr Humphries would well understand or well acknowledge, is that when you attempt to exhaustively set out the circumstances of what constitutes cruelty you create the opportunity for loopholes. To give a brief example - I have looked at this only briefly - one of the definitions in paragraph (b) of the foreshadowed amendment is "knowingly overloads or overcrowds an animal". In some sections we have "knowingly" and in some sections we have "knowingly or negligently". In paragraph (d) we have "knowingly or negligently does an act or omits to do an act which results in pain, suffering or distress to an animal".
Overcrowding an animal negligently could well, you would think, fit within paragraph (d) - "knowingly or negligently does an act which results in pain" - but, of course, the lawyer would argue, "Your Worship, overcrowding has been expressly dealt with in paragraph (b) and the legislature has said 'knowingly overcrowds or overloads an animal'. So the broader definition in paragraph (d), which is general, must be read down to the specific offence in paragraph (b), which is a specific 'knowingly overloads or overcrowds'". It just creates wonderful grist for the mill of the legal profession, and that is just comparing two provisions. When you get from paragraph (a) to paragraph (p), you really have an enormous scope for causing confusion.
Mr Humphries says, "Why should circuses be dealt with differently?". I think that is essentially a debating point for this issue of what we should do with circuses, and we can all differ as to that. In the general proposition, I would say to members that the general definition of cruelty in clause 7 ought to be simple, plain, English-Australian, "A person shall not, without reasonable excuse, commit an act of cruelty", without an exhaustive definition of what constitutes cruelty, because when you create these exhaustive definitions you do get to the point where you create loopholes and it can get to the absurd. I think probably the high point of this was the first draft of the Commonwealth Corporations Act which had about 200 pages of definitions. In fact, the definitions section in that Act is called "the dictionary section", and it has virtually reached that point. You can get to the point where you define every word in an Act and the whole Act comprises definitions.
The point that Mr Wood made is a very valid one. Let us, when we can, use plain English, because plain English is often the best way to express an idea. When you try to break it down into a multiplicity of specific examples you are opening the door to clever lawyers to run points, to, in effect, draw circles around what we have tried to do and get away from our basic concept. I would urge members, when we get to the detail, to bear that in mind and stick to the plain, simple, English-Australian term "cruelty" rather than to define it.
MRS GRASSBY (10.02): Madam Speaker, I have not had much to say on the Animal Welfare Bill or Mr Lamont's amendments, basically because I thought they were all commonsense. I was a bit surprised that anyone would want to postpone this, as the Independents did for seven weeks. I think it is an important Bill. I have been to many circuses, and the ones that I have enjoyed the most are
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