Page 3619 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 8 December 1992
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BAIL (AMENDMENT) BILL (NO. 2) 1992
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (8.00), by leave: Madam Speaker, I present the Bail (Amendment) Bill (No. 2) 1992.
Title read by Clerk.
MR CONNOLLY: Madam Speaker, I move:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
Section 7 of the Bail Act creates a right to bail in respect of minor offences, which are offences punishable by fine only or by imprisonment of not more than six months. A person charged with a minor offence is entitled to be granted bail without any conditions and to be released from custody upon giving an undertaking to appear. There are exemptions to this entitlement, such as a failure to appear on a previous undertaking, that the person is in physical danger - for example, a person who is intoxicated - or that the person is otherwise in custody or that bail has been dispensed with.
This provision has the unintended consequence of allowing an automatic right of bail without conditions where a person is charged with breaching a domestic violence order under the Domestic Violence Act or a restraining order made under the Magistrates Court Act. This is because the relevant offences covering breaches of those orders are only minor offences within the meaning of section 7 of the Bail Act, in that they carry maximum penalties of six months' imprisonment.
Automatic bail in respect of minor offences is not, of itself, objectionable. The difficulty is that breach of a domestic violence order is the sort of offence where automatic bail is not appropriate. It should be noted that, if the police charge with other offences, apart from the breach of the order, then the automatic bail provision may not apply, depending on the offence. We have dealt with this in the interim by charging persons who may have breached a domestic violence order, if there has been no violence, or threat or violence, with assault so that bail may be refused.
The Bail (Amendment) Bill (No. 2) 1992 contains an amendment to the Bail Act 1992 to provide that the right to bail found in section 7 of the Act for minor offences does not apply to the offences of breaching a protection order under the Domestic Violence Act 1986 or a restraining order under the Magistrates Court Act 1930. The amendment will return the law to the same position that prevailed before the commencement of the Bail Act, which occurred last Saturday. The Community Law Reform Committee is conducting a review of domestic violence legislation and is examining, as part of its reference, more stringent bail provisions for persons who breach domestic violence and restraining orders. That review should be allowed to run its course before any other changes are made to this area of law.
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