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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 3 Hansard (26 May) . . Page.. 549 ..

Mr Berry: What a pathetic defence of your position!

MR HUMPHRIES: No; I think this is, Mr Speaker. What members in this place have been saying, and Mr Moore also said it, is that judges and magistrates will sit down in front of the television set and watch reports, presumably of their own courts in action - - -

Mr Moore: We said that it is not their responsibility; it is the responsibility of this house.

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, I heard members in silence during their remarks.

MR SPEAKER: Order! You might not like what Mr Humphries is saying, but he has the right to say it.

Mr Wood: Judges themselves have been saying it.

MR HUMPHRIES: They do not, Mr Wood. You are talking rubbish. Mr Speaker, members have been saying that they will sit down in front of the television set, and their view about prevalence will be determined by what they see on television or read in the newspaper. Mr Speaker, judges and magistrates in this community are highly intelligent people, and they rely on the statistical evidence which is produced regularly for their benefit and the benefit of others. Why would a court rely on what they read in the newspaper, when they can simply go to their own libraries and see accurate statistical information about exactly what is happening with the prevalence of offences?

This is now published each quarter - I tabled it in the last sitting - "ACT Administration of Justice - Statistics Profile", which includes detailed information about offences, confirmed incidents, clear-up rates and classes of people committing offences. It is extremely detailed information. Why do members assume that judges and magistrates will not look at this material? Frankly, to suggest that they would ignore this accurate material - available in published reports, published every quarter in this community - and instead rely on what they see on Channel 10 or what they read in the Canberra Chronicle, is an insult to the judges and magistrates of this community. It is highly insulting.

Mr Speaker, quite rightly, those very judges and magistrates - at least, in this case, it is the judges - and the Director of Public Prosecutions have come back and said, "In passing sentence, we need to take into account the accurate information available in those reports" - the accurate information, not the misconceptions, not the impressions, not what they might hear about on the grapevine; but what they actually see.

Mr Stanhope: You do not know whether they see that stuff. You do not know whether they read it.

MR HUMPHRIES: It is published. It is available to them. You do the judges of this community a grave disservice by assuming that they would not rely on the information available to them. The law will say in respect of this matter that they will have to take into account the prevalence of offences. What does that mean? Does that mean what you see on television? Of course, it does not. It is information available in this accurate form.

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