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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 1 Hansard (16 February) . . Page.. 124 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

However, I think that the Assembly should give consideration to passing clause 87 as it appears in this legislation. Mr Stanhope has made a very eloquent defence of the concept that parliament should not remove the right against selfincrimination. I would say that I would be very quick to agree with him that the protection against selfincrimination is a very important part of the process by which the Territory lays down laws to protect a number of things, including our revenue base. We should understand that people have the right of silence, have the right to be able to take steps to prevent them being incriminated by their own comments and their own admissions, and that is a principle which I hope that this Government does not erode.

In terms of past legislation in this place, we have worked hard to make sure it was not eroded. I am sure members of this place who have been here for a little while can recall occasions when we have removed provisions from legislation that has come forward which have not guarded against selfincrimination. But, Mr Speaker, whereas we agree that selfincrimination is not appropriate, I think what we have in this particular clause is very different from the provisions that have previously occurred with respect to selfincrimination. This is a very different provision from the ones that have occurred before.

Clause 87(1) certainly is the sort of thing which provides for a capacity for someone to selfincriminate. It says:

A person is not excused from answering a question ... on the ground that to do so might tend to incriminate the person or make the person liable to a penalty.

That is a provision by itself which removes a person's entitlement to refuse to answer a question on the ground of selfincrimination. But I particularly direct members' attention to subclause (2) because that is the let-out here against selfincrimination in a broad sense. It says:

If the person objects to answering the question, providing the information or producing a document on that ground, the answer, information or document is not admissible against the person in any criminal proceedings other than -

(a) proceedings for an offence with respect to false or misleading statements, information or records; or

(b) proceedings for an offence in the nature of perjury.

In other words, if the Commissioner for ACT Revenue has a taxpayer in front of her and says, "Have you breached section 25 of the Land Tax Act?", and the person says, "Yes, I have breached section 25 of the Land Tax Act; I have rorted the system", that is a statement which the commissioner cannot use to prosecute that particular taxpayer unless the statement or the document that is being provided at that time is itself false or misleading. If the taxpayer produces a forged document to produce some kind of

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