Page 3984 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 9 November 1994
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Let me also briefly mention that the majority consisted of a number of fairly important members of the committee, including Mr Nicholas Seddon, who is now the chair of the Community Law Reform Committee, with the retirement of Justice Kelly; Professor Duncan Chappell, then of the Institute of Criminology; Ms Veronica Laletin, who, I think, is known to members opposite; Mr Rod Campbell; and Ms Robyn Burnett, who, I think, is the Acting Human Rights Commissioner in the ACT. So, these people are not marginal, by any stretch of the imagination.
Section 103 has not yet been gazetted. It is not yet the law operating in the Territory. That is why the Opposition is suggesting that, until we have gone through the process recommended by the Community Law Reform Committee, it is better for us to proceed cautiously. We have recommended - and we put forward the amendment to achieve it - a doubling of the penalty for failure to report child abuse, from $1,000 to $2,000. We ask the Assembly not to proceed to the stage of making that penalty more onerous until we have demonstrated that the processes and steps recommended in the majority report of that committee have been complied with. At this stage, we cannot be confident that that has occurred.
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General and Minister for Health) (5.05): Madam Speaker, Mr Humphries makes a fair point. The final Government response on where we are going on mandatory reporting has not yet been tabled. I expect that Mr Lamont will be making some sort of statement in due course. It has been made clear since the report was originally handed down that it was our intention to move to mandatory reporting. I know that a lot of work has been done in the last 12 months. Just in Health, we have put some additional resources into the Child at Risk Unit at Woden. Everybody is working on the assumption that it will come in. It is a point of principle that perhaps we should wait until it comes in. The Government will take the view that this is the opportunity. We are looking for consistency across penalties.
While this Act has not yet been proclaimed, we have to ask whether $1,000 is an appropriate penalty for failing to report child abuse. I think we all agree that it is not. Even Mr Humphries wants to double it. We would take the view that, if you are going to tamper with it at all in advance of its being brought in, you really should do it properly. We believe that $5,000, or 50 penalty units, is an appropriate level, putting failure to report child abuse within the scheme of all other penalties, and that $1,000, leaving it as it is, is inappropriate. I know that the Opposition is not saying that we make light of child abuse. Nothing could be further from the truth. Their genuine concern is where we are on the implementation timeframe. Mr Lamont will report on that in due course. But the Government, while noting that it is a fair point, will persist with its original amendment.
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