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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 3 Hansard (6 March) . . Page.. 616 ..

MR QUINLAN (continuing):

based policing, peaking with Operation Anchorage, changes in drug availability and the presumed impact of changes to the Bail Act.

I have sought some empirical evidence to support that claim. I think it is very necessary, when you have legal provisions that could result in the inhibition of individual freedoms, that we thoroughly check the real effect. Of course, there is no way of measuring whether a person charged with a crime would have been allowed bail in other circumstances. Therefore, we cannot actually crystallise a statistic to the point of saying, "This number of crimes have been prevented or obviated because of the Bail Act."

I feel there is a probability that the Bail Act has had an effect on the crime rate. However, I would not go so far as to give a simplistic interpretation of some of the statistics available. I studied statistics a little whilst I was at college. The one thing I learnt was that it is a dangerous weapon in the hands of a fool and that one should be very, very careful of how statistics are used.

We have statistics available to us in this place. In fact, the Attorney-General, Mr Stanhope, has tabled the September quarter ACT Criminal Justice Statistical Profile. I recommend that members go back and have a look at the trend lines in offences, and look beyond mere property theft. When you are drawing conclusions, for God's sake, just in the interests of intellectual rigour, have a look at the facts!

If you look at the lines of best fit, going back from 1996, you will find that virtually every form of offence has increased in the ACT. If you look at more recent statistics, you will find that robbery, extortion and acts causing injury to people have increased in recent times. I know what I would prefer. If it was bodily harm or loss of property, I think I would go for loss of property. Motor vehicle thefts and property damage have increased in recent times. We have a mixed picture and yet a selective interpretation of statistics.

I think the police have a reasonable case to come forward and say, "We think that, because of our intelligence-based policing, changes in the availability of drugs and the application of the Bail Act, property crime at least has decreased." They are, in fact, tagging people who are out on bail. I am yet to hear of a case, I will admit, where an individual has been charged with a crime, refused bail, and then found innocent of that crime, but that is going to happen.

We ought to be ready. We ought to be, I think, flexible enough to realise that we are playing with a reasonably dangerous, blunt implement in relation to justice. If it is just a case of a plea, let's not paint the picture that crime is on the decline across the territory, and that it is on the decline because we are banging up habitual criminals. The statistics do not exactly verify that broad claim but, used selectively, they do.

The police can provide you, if you ask, with a number of selected case studies of people chronically committing offences-people who are out on bail, having been charged with previous offences.

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