Page 1532 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 18 May 1993
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option of either charging offenders, as now, with a particular offence under the Crimes Act or issuing an on-the-spot fine in respect of that offence. This applies to a range of what we might call minor offences under the Crimes Act.
Madam Speaker, the system has a number of obvious advantages and benefits. It saves police time in proceeding to lay charges against offenders. In cases of public disturbance such as, for example, at Aidex, the Summernats and so on it will be a considerable saving in time and effort to allow police to do the paperwork, as it were, for a particular offender and a particular offence on the spot rather than take that offender back to a police station, involving at least two policemen in most cases and occasioning a great deal of inconvenience and red tape in the process. It also, of course, saves court time in that in the vast majority of cases these matters are dealt with by the payment of a fine imposed by the police person rather than the imposing of a fine by a court. The system also saves offenders the stigma of criminal conviction. For young people, in particular, who become subject to the sorts of offences covered by the Bill, this may be a very important advantage.
One witness before the committee, the former Judge Kelly, made the very important point that on balance it is better to avoid the involvement of young people in the criminal justice system if that is at all possible. Of course, the proposed system provides the possibility of a more contemporary and more relevant response to certain minor criminal offences. The offences which are covered in the Bill are street fighting, misbehaviour at public meetings, possession of offensive weapons, offensive behaviour, indecent exposure, noise abatement offences and public mischief.
The point was made that there could be some difficulties with the operation of the Bill, some in-principle difficulties, some administrative difficulties, and as a result the Bill was referred to the Legal Affairs Committee in what I hope will be the first of a series of such references which take advantage of that committee's position to analyse the legal implications of Bills that are brought before the Assembly. The committee received seven submissions and heard from four witnesses during a public hearing a couple of weeks ago. In particular, it heard from the Australian Federal Police, representatives of the Attorney-General's Department and the Hon. John Kelly, who, at present, is chairman of the Community Law Reform Committee. The report that I have tabled this evening draws heavily on the inputs of these individuals and the submissions which were presented to the Assembly.
Madam Speaker, the Legal Affairs Committee gives broad support to the concept inherent in this Bill, for all of the reasons which I have already stated. There are 15 recommendations set out in this report which indicate that in the opinion of the committee there is considerable capacity to improve the Bill and to deal with potential problems inherent in it. This may appear to be a surprising number of recommendations in such a small Bill, but the principle that is inherent in this Bill is still a reasonably radical one and therefore deserves to be carefully canvassed before it becomes a permanent feature of our criminal law landscape in the Territory.
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