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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 11 Hansard (6 November) . . Page.. 3797 ..

MR WOOD (continuing):

The assumption in that is that all trials are properly conducted. I would expect that the overwhelming majority - all but the very occasional one - are so conducted. But I have in mind, coming from where I do and with my background, the case of Joh's jury. It subsequently turned out that a juror on the panel - there is no evidence that he was anything else but empanelled by chance - was quite adamant against all the evidence, against all the persuasive attempts of the other jurors, who had one clear view. Against all odds, he would not convict the Premier of the day, Premier Bjelke-Petersen. There was a quite famous TV production about that. That is a pretty rare circumstance. But I would hope that if something went amiss with a jury there would be avenues whereby that could be publicly known.

The legislation does provide a number of outs whereby protected information can be published. My amendment adds one more occasion where that can happen. I will deal with it now, rather than run through it at the detail stage. The Bill allows the prohibition of the publishing of protected information not to apply in three circumstances, and I am proposing a fourth which says:

... a statement made or information provided by the Director of Public Prosecutions about a decision, or the reason for a decision, not to institute or conduct a prosecution or proceedings for an alleged contempt of court or alleged offence relating to jury deliberations or a juror's identity.

I am not quite sure it will cover exactly what I had in mind; but it does provide a further avenue whereby an irregularity, rare as it might be, could be published and the facts made known. I will be moving that in the detail stage. I will not then speak to it. On behalf of the Opposition, I will be supporting this Bill.

MR MOORE (6.39): I support the Bill. I think Mr Wood has adequately covered the issues. I think it is another piece of sensible legislation that does deserve support.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General) (6.40), in reply: In light of the hour, I will be very brief. I thank members for their support for the legislation. There is one item I want to mention, that is, that I was written to by the editor of the Canberra Times, who proposed to me that there should be a further exemption from the requirement to keep confidential jury deliberations, namely, situations where a media organisation seeks to publish protected information when it is in the public interest. He proposed that in such circumstances the onus of proof to demonstrate public interest rest with the media organisation concerned.

I realise that this is a sensitive area and I wanted to be careful about how I proceeded, so I wrote to my fellow Attorneys-General and asked them what they thought about the idea, principally because reform of the jury practice was one that had been partly a process of discussion between Attorneys-General and some of the provisions that appear in this legislation had been agreed as ideal provisions that ought to appear in legislation around the nation.

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