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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 2 Hansard (1 March) . . Page.. 471 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

The Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Act should guarantee judicial independence. I know Mr Kaine has been very keen on Jefferson, and others would recognise that they argued in this way on many occasions about the American system. Such a system would not undermine the rights of ACT people to be governed by their directly elected representatives, which was a principle that was overridden by the Andrews Bill. Rather, such amendments would improve constitutional rights and protections. I think it is entirely appropriate that we look for amendments that improve the constitutional rights and protections of the people of the ACT. I think we need time to work it through, but I would ask members to consider the possibility that this Assembly ask the Federal Government to consider amending our constitution, the Self-Government Act, in order to deal with these issues.

I have heard many people argue that mandatory sentencing is a very good thing. There is no doubt in my mind that, if we polled the ACT, a majority of people would say ,"Yes, just do it". If we polled across Australia, I imagine you would get over two-thirds supporting it. If there were a referendum on the matter, I believe in the initial instance, until people understood the ramifications, a two-thirds majority would support it. People are unhappy with the level of sentencing. I think we have to look for solutions at that end rather than interfere with the separation of powers. That is the fundamental mistake that has been made in Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

I think they are wrong. People believe the judiciary is too soft not on first, second or third offenders but on recidivists. Why is the judiciary not more proactive in relation to repeat offenders? Why is it not stronger towards recidivists? That is the issue that people want dealt with. It has been dealt with badly in the past. Perhaps there is a message to be learnt for the ACT. I think the ACT community has fewer rednecks than the Northern Territory does. We have a community that is looking for a solution. We need to discuss those issues.

Perhaps the solution lies in having a varying penalty for the first, second and third offences. I do not think that has been done anywhere, but I imagine under our Acts Interpretation Act we could draft an amendment that said the penalty that applies at the moment is for the first offence. If it is a second offence, the penalty should be doubled. If it is a third offence, the penalty should be doubled again or something to that effect. (Extension of time granted) As Mr Stefaniak has said, we could apply that to property crime and certainly crimes of violence, where we would expect a much more rigorous approach from the judiciary. I do not know if, in the end, that particular solution will be a good one. But it does show that there are other ways to deal with this issue than mandatory sentencing, which results in the very poor outcomes that Ms Tucker has outlined.

Having said that, I reiterate that I will be opposing the motion. Although I was free to make a submission to the Senate committee, I chose not to. It seems to me that the first thing the people supporting this motion should ask themselves is why they did not put in a submission on such an important submission - as indeed the Government made the effort to do.

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