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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 8 Hansard (31 August) . . Page.. 2815 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

The difference between those situations and the one that arises here is that a person takes a deliberate step to provide the opportunity for them to enter into that state of intoxication such as to obviate their capacity to exercise their own will and make and form judgments about what they do. In those circumstances, Mr Speaker, it is appropriate for us to step back from the act itself, look at what the person does that leads them to that state of mental incapacity and judge the action on the basis of the reason why they took that first step. They took the step of self-intoxication that leads to that position. So it is appropriate for us to say tonight that it is no longer to be the case in the ACT common law that a person may plead their own self-induced intoxication as a basis for their incapacity to assume responsibility for their own actions, albeit undertaken while they were heavily intoxicated.

It is worth reminding people, Mr Speaker, that this is a defence which is not commonly available. It is not commonly pleaded in our courts, and it is even less commonly accepted in our courts as a defence. To my knowledge, Mr Speaker, it has not been successfully used in an ACT court since the Nadruku decision three or four years ago. Notwithstanding the rarity of its employ, it should still be wiped from the law of the territory, and that is what we do tonight.

In a sense, Mr Speaker, we send a signal tonight about the responsibility that people take when they use intoxicating substances, whether they be alcohol or other drugs. For too long defendants have been able to say in our courts, successful or unsuccessfully, "Don't blame me. I was drunk. I didn't know what I was doing." Too many partners in relationships in this community have had to put up with abuse from a drunken spouse, only to be told the next day by that spouse, "Sorry darling, I didn't mean it. It was the drink that made me do it." Too many have been assaulted by drunks in pubs and nightclubs who later say, "I didn't know what came over me. It's not my fault. I was just a bit too peed."

Mr Speaker, I note that recently in Germany there were three neo-Nazis who were convicted of bashing to death an immigrant while chanting Nazi slogans. Their defence was that they were very drunk at the time and really did not form the intention to kill this person; they just wanted to give him a bit of a beating up. Rightly, in that country, the court rejected that defence, and I think we should make sure it is not a defence available in any meaningful sense in ACT courts either.

It is worth noting that proposed section 428XB ensures that the bill will not apply to people who become unintentionally intoxicated. For example, the circumstances in which intoxication is not regarded as self-induced is listed in subsection (2) of that section. They include where a person takes medication in accordance with directions and suffers intoxication as a side effect, a situation where someone's food or drink is spiked, or where they are forced or tricked into becoming intoxicated, or who ingest the intoxicating substance accidentally. Those would be rare circumstances, Mr Speaker. No doubt some in our courts will attempt to argue those cases, but I think that as a result of what we do tonight by passing this bill such cases will be rather rarer.

We send an important signal tonight, Mr Speaker, that when people do get drunk or become intoxicated in some way they still bear a measure of responsibility for their actions. Whether they mean to do what they do or not, they still bear that responsibility.

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