Page 3130 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 15 September 1993
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New South Wales Attorney. The New South Wales Attorney was extremely helpful. A member of his staff devoted about half a day to chasing the papers around the bureaucratic maze in order to get that prisoner to Canberra in time for the funeral. It is appropriate that I should thank Mr Hannaford's office for that courtesy. It was a problem where we had Commonwealth law applying, me as the Minister here, and the New South Wales Attorney seeking to facilitate a transfer to Canberra.
Mr Humphries raised an interesting point. He noted the citizen's power to arrest the absconding prisoner. There is a general citizen's power to arrest persons committing an offence, which is to be found in section 352 of the Crimes Act. I am always loath to refer the law and order obsessed Liberals to citizens' powers of arrest for fear that they might be lurking in the streets of Civic arresting people, but Mr Humphries was right to mention that there would be an anomaly if there was a power to arrest only escaping prisoners and not other malefactors. There are, indeed, powers to arrest all malefactors. If you want to go for your lives, Liberals, there is your legal power; but I suggest that it be left to the Federal Police, who do a very good job of it.
Mr De Domenico: Yes, we would probably be asked to move on.
MR CONNOLLY: Fortunately, no-one will be asked to move on on any more occasions. The issues that Ms Szuty raised have all been addressed in those briefings that she received from departmental officers. Her first point was that it is not particularly elegant legislation.
Mr Kaine: Unlike yesterday.
MR CONNOLLY: It is not as elegant perhaps as the forestry appropriation Bill of yesterday, Mr Kaine. It is a dilemma when you are taking part in a uniform scheme, particularly one that has been around for some years, when the ACT is joining it as a consequence of self-government. If this Act were to be rewritten, I am sure that it would be in a much simpler form; but we are joining a fairly old Act.
Mr Humphries raised the issue of executive pardons and it is one, as he says, that the Government will have to address in due course. It is one that I can certainly flag as causing me some of the same concerns that it causes Mr Humphries. While we are not looking at creating the position of Administrator, and I do not think you need to create the position of Administrator to solve this problem, it does cause me some concern to have a situation where the Executive, the Cabinet - four politicians from the majority party or the party that has sufficient support to form a government - is making decisions to let people out of prison. I do not think that is a decision that I should be making. I think that is generally a decision that a court should be making.
I suspect that we may see in the ACT, rather than a replication of the traditional executive power to pardon, some regime that takes it out of the hands of politicians and puts it more in the hands of the judiciary, where I believe these matters more properly fit. I think it is something of a false hope to suggest that having a Governor takes it out of the hands of politicians because, quite clearly, a Governor acts on the recommendation of the ministry. Where a royal pardon is granted, it is granted on the recommendation of a State Cabinet, and there is no question that it is State politicians, the Ministers, who are making that decision.
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