Page 4278 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 29 November 1994
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In conclusion, however, Madam Speaker, I say that the Liberal Opposition strongly supports these Bills. I detect, particularly in the Victims of Crime Bill, a certain tone of tokenism in some respects; nonetheless, it is an advance of sorts which deserves to be supported. But it is important for us to acknowledge that we have by no means sorted out the problems with these measures and that we have every right to return to this question. Certainly, my party would wish to do so in the next Assembly.
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General and Minister for Health) (10.41), in reply: I thank the Opposition for their support. I think at the end of the day it was support. This legislation is in fact a very significant landmark in the reform of the criminal law in the ACT and reflects very much this Government's overall philosophy of eschewing the rhetoric of conservatives around the country of "Let us get tough with crime; let us get tougher with crime; let us fall over each other to see who can be the toughest". This Labor Government takes the approach of getting smart with crime and civil disturbance, taking an enlightened and progressive approach to law reform and policing. We have seen diversionary conferences working remarkably well. We have police forces from the United States and from Britain coming to see what we are doing here in Canberra. The country town policing concept being trialled in two Canberra suburbs is attracting great interest from police forces around the country.
Central to a lot of this philosophy is returning the focus of the criminal justice system to the rights of victims, the idea that the criminal justice system really lost sight of victims midway through this century and needs to be redirected and refocused. This package of reforms, which puts us in the most advanced situation in Australia, was based very much on the work that John Kelly, a former judge of the ACT Supreme Court, did as chair of the Community Law Reform Committee. He not only chaired the committee for this major reference but also personally wrote the report. Although he would, of course, give appropriate credit - probably more than appropriate credit - to the people who assisted in the writing, the reality is that the judge basically wrote the report and it very much bears his personal stamp. It gives us the opportunity to come up with a package of law reforms that really are modelled on, and draw from experience in, other parts of Australia, but to improve upon them.
I would expect that at some time in the life of the next Assembly this issue will be revisited and we will need to look at how this package is working. It is landmark material in a lot of ways, despite all the rhetoric in other parts of Australia. The States do not have packages that are as substantial as this. They have not been prepared, in many cases, to make a statement about victims' rights. While Mr Humphries says, "Well, perhaps it is only tokenism", the reality is that proposed section 9 provides that the coordinator can investigate conduct about proposed section 4; so he can investigate if there have been problems with the charter, the governing principles. That is designed to grant systemic change. It is designed to change attitudes within the court administration and within policing.
It is not designed to prevent counsel from cross-examining. It is not designed to bring an action against a lawyer for asking tough questions, although over time we may well continue to change the extent of what is regarded as acceptable conduct in a defence case. For many years it was regarded as acceptable conduct in the defence of a sexual assault case to put the complainant in the box, pillory her about her sexual history and try to
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