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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 9 Hansard (5 September) . . Page.. 2856 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

Line, 17, subparagraph 19 (1) (b) (ii), after "children", insert ", older people or people with a disability".

Line, 19, subparagraph 19 (1) (b) (iii), after "children", insert ", older people or people with a disability".

Line, 25, paragraph 19 (1) (d), after "children", insert ", older people or people with a disability".

The Spent Convictions Bill offers protection to the community by ensuring that spent convictions must be disclosed in regard to work in the courts, law enforcement and gambling or in regard to arson in fire fighting and fire prevention. The bill offers specific protection for children by ensuring that convictions must be disclosed in regard to any work or engagement with children. I accept that children are amongst the most vulnerable members of our community and require some special protection, but my experience in Canberra over the past few years has been that it is not only children who are particularly vulnerable. Aged people and people living with a disability are particularly vulnerable to abuse in our society and would profit from similar specific protection. These amendments, taken together, expand on the protection afforded to children to include the aged and people with disabilities.

MR HUMPHRIES (Treasurer, Attorney-General and Minister for Justice and Community Safety) (10.50): Mr Speaker, I do not rise to take serious issue with what Ms Tucker has brought forward. I think we can live with what she suggests. I would remind the community that the amendments significantly widen the number of occupations in which a person with a conviction well in their past will find it more difficult to obtain a job because of the need to disclose a particular conviction.

My colleague the minister for health assures me that a person who might have had a conviction not relating to a personal type of offence such as sexual assault and who applies for a job in our hospital under the scheme, as amended by Ms Tucker, would necessarily be excluded from working in the hospital. That is probably an appropriate matter to assess on a case-by-case basis. Bear in mind that what we are trying to do here is remove the stigma from people who have not had convictions for a period of 10 years in the case as adults. I do not know that we need to widen the legislation in the way suggested, but I do not have a serious objection to it. We can come back in the future and consider the exclusions in clause 19.

There is already a very long list. In fact, there has been some criticism that the list is already too long, so I am not sure about adding to it. We may find that there are other occasions that arise for which we have to add further to this list. The more we add to the list, the less benefit this scheme provides to people in the community who have kept their noses clean for a long period of time.

With that cautionary note, I am also aware of cases where some fairly serious matters have occurred in health facilities in the ACT. There have been one or two cases of reasonably serious sexual assaults on elderly people in nursing homes, and I can understand why some people would wish to know about the background of individuals in those circumstances. With those crossbench-type comments, I indicate that the government will not be opposing these amendments.

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