Page 3788 - Week 14 - Thursday, 10 December 1992
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CRIMES (AMENDMENT) BILL (NO. 3) 1992
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (11.25): Madam Speaker, I present the Crimes (Amendment) Bill (No. 3) 1992.
Title read by Clerk.
MR CONNOLLY: Madam Speaker, I move:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
Madam Speaker, all members of the Assembly will be aware of the reports in the media concerning the level of public violence occurring in Civic, particularly in the vicinity of licensed premises and late at night or in the early hours of the morning. Tragically, only the weekend before last, a young man had his ear bitten off in a brawl outside a Civic nightclub, and the next night the body of a man was found at the bottom of the steps of another nightclub.
This Government is committed to ensuring that Canberra is a safe and secure community. As I told the Assembly during a recent debate on a safer Civic, the problem of public behaviour is a community concern and encompasses a broad range of issues which include, but are not limited to, the adequacy of the criminal law. I said in that debate that the Government was prepared to examine areas of the criminal law where there may be gaps or problems. This Bill is in response to an identified need for the creation of a new offence.
The Australian Federal Police have advised that there are real difficulties in gathering sufficient evidence to sustain a prosecution where persons are fighting in a public place. In such circumstances which might be dealt with as riotous behaviour under section 546A of the Crimes Act 1900, it is not unusual for the police to find that none of the persons involved in or viewing the fight are alarmed or in fear, as an element of the riotous nature of the offence, but rather are often actively encouraging and even enjoying the fight. They have advised me that in relation to laying charges of assault there are problems in identifying the aggressor - that is, who is actually assaulting whom, or are they both, or all, equally aggressive?
This Bill provides for a new section of the Crimes Act 1900, section 545A, which makes it an offence for a person to fight with another person in a public place, with a penalty of $1,000. There is no requirement that the fight be within the view or hearing of other people in the public place, which is a requirement in respect of the current offence of riotous, indecent, offensive or insulting behaviour, on the basis that violent acts should be proscribed whether or not there is another person in the vicinity to be affronted by them. I can assure you that the Liberal caucus room is not a public place, so you are okay.
Madam Speaker, the section is based on an almost identical section in the Summary Offences Act 1953 from South Australia. It should be of particular use in the prosecution of the challenge to fight situation. Of course, the defence of self-defence will be available to a person charged who may not have been the
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