Page 4402 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 30 November 1994
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The trauma for any person who had lost their children had nothing to do with the fact that the man was sitting there with a suit on. I think it had to do with the fact that, when they got outside and found out what they had lost, they were angry. I have known people whose first language is not English and who have had to go into court and to face a judge in a wig and a gown. They are nervous enough. They often lose their language. They speak very good English outside the court, but all of a sudden they cannot remember things. Then they will be screamed at by the prosecution, who says that they are doing that because they do not want to give evidence. They do not understand it.
I disagree with everything that Mr Humphries said here today. As a woman, and knowing women who have gone through rape cases, women who have brought the charges and have given evidence, and knowing the questions they are asked, I find it unbelievable that Mr Humphries would stand there and make statements like that. I applaud the Attorney-General for bringing this Bill into the house. As a woman I stand here and say to every woman out there that they also should applaud him. I find the speech that Mr Humphries made here tonight most conservative. It would have sat well in the seventeenth century.
MS SZUTY (5.40): I, too, support the Bill in principle. In speaking briefly at the in-principle stage of the debate on this Bill I would like to refer to some of the comments I made on 17 May this year on the Evidence (Closed-Circuit Television) (Amendment) Bill as it was presented at that time. At that time the Attorney-General, Mr Connolly, foreshadowed this Bill by saying this in closing the in-principle debate:
I have referred to the ACT Community Law Reform Committee a reference on the way we prosecute sexual assault and rape in this Territory.
The Attorney-General went on to say:
I am not seeking to pre-empt the work of the committee, but I very firmly believe that one of the recommendations will be that adult survivors of violent sexual assault also have the option of video evidence.
So, Madam Speaker, we have this legislation before the Assembly today to consider and, as I have indicated, I am a wholehearted supporter of it. It allows people, primarily women of course, who allege that they are victims of a sexual offence, defined as complainants in the legislation, to give evidence by closed-circuit TV, as children became able to do following the passage of the Evidence (Closed-Circuit Television) (Amendment) Act in May this year.
Madam Speaker, I would also like to address a few other remarks that the Attorney-General has made on this subject during the year. The first of these is the fact that, when he introduced the initial Evidence (Closed-Circuit Television) (Amendment) Bill on 21 April this year, he made extensive references to report No. 63 of the Australian Law Reform Commission, a fact that I commented on during the in-principle debate on
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