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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 9 Hansard (6 September) . . Page.. 2950 ..
MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):
It further states:
A respondent may appear and oppose the making of an order in Court. Having regard to the significant constraints which may be imposed on the liberty of a respondent as a result of an order, the Court would be bound to afford the respondent a proper opportunity to hear the evidence adverse to him or her, and to present his or her own case. It is very difficult to see how this could be done without disclosing the identity and other relevant details of the aggrieved person.
I table the following paper from Dr Jarvis of the Government Solicitor's Office:
Magistrates Court Amendment Bill 2000-Advice on operation of Part X of the Magistrates Court Act 1930 from the Government Solicitor to Mr Gary Humphries MLA, Attorney-General, dated 6 September 2000.
I draw members' attention to that matter, because Mr Berry was quite firm about his view about the reason I was making those points in the chamber. He described as a red herring my point that the identity did need to be disclosed. He said that that was opposition for opposition's sake and that I was grasping at straws. I think it is important to put that on the record and to say to members that the government has a battery of lawyers at its disposal. Members should feel free to seek briefings from those lawyers, through the appropriate minister's office, to be able to understand what is being done in particular legislation.
We had the instance earlier today of Mr Stanhope being on radio making some quite ill-informed statements about the content of the government's DNA legislation. I have no objection to Mr Stanhope, via my office, getting confirmation about what he thinks the legislation might mean. It would save people from saying on the floor of the chamber or on radio things embarrassing to them.
Having confirmed that this bill is not about providing anonymity to people who are protected by restraining orders but about enlarging the class of people who can make application for restraining orders on behalf of other people, I think it is important to concede that there is perhaps some benefit in the approach, and we are happy to welcome it.
We have a review of the effect of restraining orders under way. That review will have significant changes in the wind for the operation of restraining orders. I hope it will identify some of the issues which Mr Berry originally raised in this place and which he believed he was addressing with his original bill.
MR BERRY (4.50): It is correct to say that the only way you could guarantee full anonymity is to treat an aggrieved person as a child in all cases. That is not a step I was prepared to take. It was thought that the best approach would be to widen the range of people who could make application, as has been described in earlier contributions to the debate.
It is also true that form 1 of schedule 1 of the Magistrates Court Act could be served on a respondent in a way that avoids the inclusion of the name of the aggrieved person, if the aggrieved person was not the applicant. In the scenario that I suggest, the applicant would possibly be-it is hard to imagine all of the circumstances-the employer.
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