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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 8 Hansard (26 June) . . Page.. 2140 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

Page 2, line 29, clause 4, proposed section 34A, add the following subsections:

"(3) In a prosecution for an offence under subsection (1), it is not necessary to prove that the person stalked or a third person, as the case may be, apprehended or feared serious harm.

"(4) In this section -

"harm" means physical harm, harm to mental health, or disease, whether permanent or temporary;

"harm to mental health" includes psychological harm but does not include distress, grief, shock, fear or similar emotions;

"physical harm" includes unconsciousness, pain, disfigurement and any physical contact that might reasonably be objected to in the circumstances, whether or not there was an awareness of that contact at the time.".

Mr Speaker, first of all, I would like to table the explanatory memorandum to the Government amendments, which are basically intact, although, as Ms Follett indicated, there has been some agreement between us on some changes to facilitate some accommodation of Ms Follett's concerns as well as the Government's concerns about the amendments. I will briefly run through what the amendments are designed to achieve. The Crimes (Amendment) Bill poses some problems for prosecutors in that it creates two quite distinct modes of committing the same offence which will have to be at least particularised and may have to be done as separate counts. There is, in Ms Follett's Bill, an offence of stalking and a separate offence of intimidatory behaviour, or something to that effect. Proposed subsection 34A(1) should have one mode of committing the offence, and intimidatory conduct should be amalgamated with the stalking conduct. Such a simplification has significant practical benefits in the charging process, and in reality is only a technical amendment.

For the sake of consistency in application, proposed paragraph 34A(1)(a) is an amendment to make reference to a third person, as in 34A(1)(b). This recognises that acts may be directed at persons other than the victim when intended to cause fear in the victim, including, for example, a dependant, relative, friend, employer or associate of the victim. The Bill, as introduced, covers every random act of following a person, including union picketing, et cetera. A stalking offence should be a serious offence covering serious cases. Therefore, the reference in proposed paragraphs 34A(1)(a) and (b) should be to serious harm rather than just harm. Non-serious harm and some other behaviour would be properly covered by other legislation, which may include

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