Page 3704 - Week 12 - Thursday, 13 October 1994
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In effect, Madam Speaker, as the report of the Legal Affairs Committee indicates, the committee is not able to support the vast majority of the provisions of the Bill. It is not a decision that members of the Legal Affairs Committee have made lightly. As members will know, not many pieces of government legislation are entirely rejected or substantially rejected when they are presented to this Assembly. However, on this occasion, as the committee has recommended, by and large, the Criminal Injuries Compensation Bill 1993 deserves to be rejected by this Assembly. The committee has not been convinced by the Attorney-General or through the evidence that has been presented to it that the Government's response to the reform of the criminal injuries compensation scheme is appropriate.
One of the major changes that the Government intended to make to the Act was to remove references to "criminal conduct" where it occurs in the Act and replace them with the word "offence". This proposed change affects clauses 4 to 6 and 10 to 16 of the Bill. The only clauses of the Bill unaffected by this change are clauses 1 to 3 - the formal clauses - clauses 7 to 9 and clause 17. The proposed definitional change would have imposed greater requirements on applicants applying for compensation to prove that injuries sustained were the result of the commission of an offence. It was argued in the presentation of evidence to the committee that these amendments would unfairly prejudice the position of a person injured as a result of conduct where, unfortunately, all elements of a criminal offence cannot be proved. Extensive discussion about this particular matter is included on pages 3 and 4 of the committee's report, to which I refer members.
Clause 7 of the Bill draws attention to the court having a discretion as to whether compensation will be awarded or not. It is stated in the explanatory memorandum to the Bill that compensation does not have to be awarded in every case where an injury results from the commission of an offence. Under the current scheme, compensation also is not awarded in every case, as a careful reading of the summary of cases which have been brought to court will demonstrate. The summaries of these cases are included in the Criminal Injuries Compensation Act 1983 annual report of 1993-94.
Clause 8 of the Bill proposes that the court take a number of factors into consideration before deciding whether compensation will be paid. The explanatory memorandum to the Bill explains the Government's intent well. It states:
The first consideration for the court in making these decisions is whether a prosecution has been instituted. If no prosecution has been instituted, the court is to consider whether the offender has been identified, whether the offence was committed with an intention to injure any person and whether the offence was reported to police as soon as possible after it was committed. The court is also to have regard to any other matters it considers relevant. These considerations are intended to focus the attention of the court, in exercising its discretion to award compensation, on the questions whether the applicant was injured as a result of an offence and whether the offence is serious enough to justify the expenditure of taxpayers' funds
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