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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 4 Hansard (6 May) . . Page.. 973 ..

I am not the author of them. Those reasons were put to me by the Director of Public Prosecutions and taken up almost word for word. I am very happy to convey to him, on your behalf, Mr Wood, your views about his arguments. I think it is worth bearing in mind, when you dismiss so quickly the question of costs - - -

Mr Wood: So they are not your arguments at all?

MR HUMPHRIES: They are not my arguments, no; they are the Director of Public Prosecutions' arguments, but I fully agree with them.

Mr Wood: You never said that.

MR HUMPHRIES: I am telling you now, Mr Wood. When you dismiss very quickly the question about costs, let me say that this Territory spends a great deal of money on running trials, both, obviously, from the point of view of the court in providing the forum for the trials to take place, and in funding legal aid proceedings. As members will know, legal aid is a very precious commodity which we have augmented recently. The amount spent on legal aid is a growing amount, fortunately, and probably needs to be growing. The amount we spend on prosecutions is also very considerable.

Members should bear in mind that in this city there is almost a tradition of accused people deciding not to enter their plea of guilty, often in circumstances where their guilt is extremely evident and would not be difficult to prove at a trial, until the very last minute, virtually on the steps of the court as they are about to enter the courtroom. This is a practice which occasions huge costs to the system. Obviously, the court has to prepare and set aside time for the hearing of those proceedings. The Legal Aid Commission will generally be providing for counsel to be briefed on behalf of the defendant, which costs the taxpayer a great deal of money. The Director of Public Prosecutions prepares a full case to run in the court, lines up witnesses, pays witnesses expense fees, and has counsel standing by ready to run cases. To have a plea of guilty on the doorstep of the court saves the court the extra few days of hearing perhaps but costs the taxpayer massive amounts of money.

Mr Wood described this as something which happens already. It happens, but in a very inexplicit way. And it does not consistently happen, which means that there is no feeling by those who come before the courts, in many cases at least, that they have anything to gain by an early plea. It is extremely important that we build into the system an explicit recognition of the capacity of the court to discount the sentence for - - -

Mr Wood: Hang on! You said it was a minor amendment. Now you are saying it is extremely important.

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