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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 6 Hansard (15 June) . . Page.. 1812 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

In 1998 this Assembly passed the Crime Prevention Powers Act of 1998 to reinstate move-on powers, which I think I originally introduced back in 1989. Part 3 of this bill amends that act to enable police to direct a person to move on by a specified route. It also allows police to order that a person stay away from the area for a specified period. These additional powers will help minimise possible conflict between groups or individuals by keeping them apart while tempers cool down.

Part 4 of the bill contains a range of amendments to the Crimes Act of 1900, dealing with property offences, the rights of accused persons and investigatory powers of the police.

Home invasions are a growing concern in our community. Most of us who have either grown up in Canberra or have lived here for many years are used to thinking of our homes as places of safety. We almost take that feeling for granted. Home invasions shatter that belief in the home as a place of safety. Given the devastating impact of home invasions, it is appropriate that the law recognises the seriousness of this type of offence.

Accordingly, clause 12 of the bill amends the Crimes Act to ensure that home invasion situations are adequately dealt with under ACT law and a sufficiently tough penalty is available where a home invasion is committed. At present the problem is that home invasions are essentially dealt with by relying on the burglary provisions. However, a person who enters someone's home as a trespasser is only guilty of burglary if the person enters with the intention of doing one of three things-steal property, cause damage such that the penalty for the offence would be five years imprisonment, or commit an assault which would attract a penalty of five years imprisonment. That is an assault occasioning actual bodily harm, or grievous bodily harm, but not a common assault which only attracts a penalty of two years imprisonment. This means that if a person trespasses in someone's home intending to commit only a common assault, the burglary offence is not able to be made out, because the penalty for common assault is a maximum of two years imprisonment.

The government takes the view that it is unacceptable that an offender should be able to terrorise persons in their home by threatening them with assault and/or inflicting a physical assault, albeit at the lower end of the scale, and be liable to only a common assault charge and no more than two years imprisonment. The change made to the burglary offence will mean that any assault committed by a trespasser will amount to burglary, and the penalty provision for burglary will apply. That is, the offender will be liable to imprisonment for up to 14 years.

Clause 13 of the bill inserts new section 107A of the Crimes Act 1900 which re-establishes in the ACT an offence of presenting a valueless cheque. The former Police Offences Ordinance of 1930 contained an equivalent provision, which was apparently repealed in 1985 for reasons which are not recorded. Most Australian jurisdictions have an equivalent provision dealing with valueless cheques.

In the ACT existing provisions relating to theft and obtaining a service by deception are not very appropriate for valueless cheque cases. In cases where the person steals goods or makes off without payment there is no purported payment at all, and the relevant criminal intention is easy to establish from the facts. By contrast, if a person

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