Page 3427 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 13 October 1993
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Research, funded by the Australian Crohn's and Colitis Association, is currently being undertaken at Woden Valley Hospital into the possible hereditary factors of Crohn's disease. The research includes the establishment of a bank of DNA and blood serum. This is being developed by taking blood donations from families where more than one member has the disease. It is hoped that the establishment of such a bank will provide information that will help in discovering the cause of the disease and determining whether Crohn's disease is hereditary. Families who are asked to participate attend a brief medical interview and donate about 50 millilitres of blood. The blood is stored and used in the search to identify the genes responsible for the possible inheritance of Crohn's disease.
Hopefully, Mr Deputy Speaker, it will not be too long before a cause and a cure can be found for this chronic, relapsing and debilitating disease. While the head office of the Australian Crohn's and Colitis Association is in Victoria, there is a branch in Canberra which sufferers and their carers and interested members of the community can approach for further information. I present a copy of this statement and I move:
That the Assembly takes note of the paper.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
CRIMES (AMENDMENT) BILL (NO. 2) 1993
Debate resumed from 25 March 1993, on motion by Mr Connolly:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
MR HUMPHRIES (3.07): The Bill before us today does not substantially change the law that applies in the Territory. What it does do is to put into statute form in one consolidated place what is both the common law in respect of sentencing policy in the ACT and the practice of the ACT bench - both the Supreme Court bench and the Magistrates Court bench - with respect to sentencing practice. There is great value in that consolidation and that codification, as it were.
As the Attorney observes in his presentation speech, this is an area of great discretion on the part of the bench. The individual judge or magistrate has traditionally been recognised as having considerable personal discretion as to what sentence he or she may impose. It is always possible to appeal a sentence on the basis of its being, in the case of the defendant, too severe or, in the case of the prosecution, too lenient. Generally speaking, courts will take the view on appeal that it is up to the judge or magistrate concerned to make a decision about sentencing a particular offender who has been convicted by the court, and that the circumstances - for example, the demeanour of the offender and so on - which are peculiarly within the knowledge of the trial judge or magistrate ought to be therefore judged by that trial judge or magistrate and not by other people on appeal. We do have an area here of considerable judicial discretion; but it is very important at the same time to provide a measure of common practice. This Bill attempts to provide a set of guidelines under which judicial officers in our system might appropriately apply those consistent principles of sentencing.
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