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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 14 Hansard (10 December) . . Page.. 4068 ..

MS DUNDAS (continuing):

election campaign. So far the ACT has been exempt from a lot of this kind of political nonsense. But my fear is that at meetings of state Attorneys-General the politics could be overwhelming, and the resulting criminal code that we are asked to sign on to may have tougher sentences and stricter regimes than we would prefer.

It should be noted that currently the ACT has the lowest rate of imprisonment in the country, at about 70 prisoners per 100,000 population. This is half the national average. My concern is that, by signing up to a national uniform scheme, we could be signing up to an increase in the prison population.

The disparity between states and territories is just amazing. As I said, the ACT has about 70 prisoners per 100,000 people. Compare that with New South Wales, currently at 155, Tasmania at 103, Western Australia at 217, and the Northern Territory at over 500. What will the criminal code do to the mandatory sentencing regime of the West Australian and Northern Territory governments? Will the criminal code be able to stamp that out, when the federal government has no desire to stop the locking up of mainly indigenous people for petty property crimes? So while the ACT Democrats do agree that uniformity before the law is a desired outcome, I hope that does not mean that changes to our criminal law will see our rate of imprisonment double to be uniform with the other states.

Mr Speaker, this bill is excellent in its codification of many of the principles that already exist in common law. Codified are the elements of an offence, recklessness, negligence, and definitions of strict and absolute liability. It includes provisions regarding intoxication, and codifies the fact that "ignorance is not a defence"in the eyes of the law.

The new section of corporate criminal responsibility is particularly interesting given the events of the last few years both here and overseas of acts such as those surrounding HIH or OneTel, where some directors were guilty of offences in the court of public opinion.

The new offences regarding the threat of property damage, fear of death and harm, are new to the statute books in the ACT, although they have existed in other states for some time. Earlier this year in the "anti-hoax"legislation debates, I objected to those offences as public alarm and anxiety seemed to be open to many interpretations. The current threat offences would seem to be similar in scope, and I would have thought could be used instead of the "anti-hoax"laws that were passed earlier this year.

I might point out, Mr Speaker, that one year has passed since the anthrax hoaxes were occurring around Australia, and it is seven months since we brought in the new "anti-hoax, anti public alarm"laws. I still have not heard of one arrest under this law. Now that we have the offence of threat, the Attorney-General might wish to think about removing the unneeded "anti-hoax"laws.

The offence of sabotage is similar to the hoax legislation in that it contains a broad definition of the offence that union protests, student protests and industrial action could also fit into. My warning here is similar to the warning I made with the hoax legislation. When offences are made so broad and police power so strong, our police are frightened to test the laws and they go unused. This is already the case with the hoax legislation, and I believe the offence of sabotage will sit on the statute books for a long time before it is enacted.

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