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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 9 Hansard (4 September) . . Page.. 3009 ..

MR SPEAKER: Mr Kaine, would you speak into the microphone. Hansard is having a bit of trouble.

MR KAINE: Can you not hear me?

MR SPEAKER: Shout at Mr Whitecross, please.

MR KAINE: I will shout at Mr Whitecross. My remarks are addressed to him. I am a little disappointed that, having agreed with the principle of sending a message to drivers, Mr Whitecross says this is a blunt instrument, or words to that effect. I thought we had got to the point where we needed to use a blunt instrument; the soft glove treatment does not work. Having agreed in principle that we need to send people a rather strong message, Mr Moore, supported by the Labor Party and the Greens, is now saying, "Let us soft-pedal it. Let us not send them a harsh message; let us soft-pedal it. Where the Chief Magistrate has sought additional guidance, we will not give it to him".

Ms Horodny: We are - exceptional circumstances.

MR KAINE: You are not. You are removing all of the changed guidance that we are intending to send to the Chief Magistrate in this legislation by putting us back where we were before, where the whole discretion resides with the magistrate. You need to read Mr Moore's amendments very carefully. You obviously have not read them. Mr Speaker, I have to say that, of Mr Moore's 17 amendments, 15 relate to removing from the Government's Bill that harsh message that we wanted to send, both to the magistrates and to the offenders, that the soft gloves are off. Mr Moore is now binding us to put the velvet gloves back on and put the mailed fist back in our hip-pocket because we are not allowed to use it. Personally, I think that is a great disappointment and it is not going to convey the message that the Government wanted to send, and which I thought the Assembly wanted to send.

Mr Moore's amendment No. 1 has to do with repeat offenders. Mr Moore wants to delete a small part of our Bill that had to do with somebody who is discharged under section 556A of the Crimes Act 1900 without conviction. This is somebody who has committed the offence and has been brought before the magistrate and found guilty, but because of some extenuating circumstance the magistrate has chosen not to record a conviction. What we are saying is that if that same person comes back into the court in a month's time, having committed the same or a similar offence, his previous history should be taken into account. He or she is a previous offender. The fact that no conviction was recorded does not alter the fact that the person has been found guilty of the offence.

What we are saying in our Bill is that that person should be no different from somebody who was actually convicted and received a penalty because of it, when it comes to a second or third or fourth time offender. I find it rather strange that Mr Moore and the soft lefties opposite seem to find that this is not a crime. The simple fact that no conviction was recorded does not alter the fact that the person committed and was found guilty of the crime. To say that that should not count when it comes to a repeat offender seems to me to be a rather strange piece of logic.

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