Page 3637 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 20 October 1993
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to the provisions of the Act to which Mrs Carnell refers, mass screening has not happened for ages. But you do not just scrub out one piece of legislation without looking at the whole package. Mrs Carnell was not prepared to look at the whole package. That is the hard work. All she was interested in was pulling the cheap stunt and going for a cheap headline. She is to be severely criticised for that and warned against doing it again.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
BAIL (AMENDMENT) BILL 1992
[COGNATE BILL:
BAIL (AMENDMENT) BILL (NO. 3) 1992]
Debate resumed from 25 November 1992, on motion by Mr Humphries:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
MADAM SPEAKER: Is it the wish of the Assembly to debate this order of the day concurrently with the Bail (Amendment) Bill (No. 3) 1992? There being no objection, that course will be followed. I remind members that in debating order of the day No. 3 they may also address their remarks to order of the day No. 4.
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (11.02): Madam Speaker, the two bail amendment Bills that have been presented by Mr Humphries are going to be opposed by the Government. Mr Humphries has moved two amendments. One is a precise duplicate of the amendment that Mr Humphries moved during the detail stage of the debate on the Bail Bill. It was a significant improvement upon amendments similar in tone that were moved by Mr Stefaniak in the former Assembly when the Bail Bill lapsed. What Mr Humphries is proposing is to have a new presumption in the Bill that, if you are charged with an offence which it is alleged that you committed while you were on bail, it will be much harder for you to get bail. In speaking to this amendment in the original debate on the Bill I said:
Mr Humphries introduces these amendments and says that the bail legislation should not just protect the interests of the accused; it should protect the interests of the community, and the community ought to be concerned about persons who, while on bail, commit further offences.
I said at the time, and I say again, that I can agree with what Mr Humphries says in relation to that.
The issue of persons committing offences while on bail was an issue that the Government was very conscious of when it brought the Bail Bill before the Assembly. That is why our Bail Act differs quite significantly from the Bail Act of New South Wales on which it was otherwise generally based. The Bail Act in New South Wales says that you can consider the likelihood of reoffending where you are considering a bail application only if it relates to sexual offences or violent offences. We very consciously deleted that qualification, so that there are three criteria to be taken into account for a grant of bail - the protection of the
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