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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 4 Hansard (2 April) . . Page.. 1201 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

At the end of the day, it is essential that our community values are reflected by the courts and by the legislation that governs the administration of justice in this area. It is essential that the fundamental right of the community to be protected is recognised; that all the principles of sentencing are adhered to-not just one or two-and that the legitimate rights of the criminal are protected as well.

It is often difficult to strike a balance but, unfortunately, in recent times the pendulum has, I think, swung far too much in favour of concentrating on the rights of the criminal, with not enough emphasis being placed on the rights of the victims and society. Excessively lenient sentencing, like excessively severe sentencing, does no-one any favours at the end of the day. The legislation I intend introducing today seeks to address some of the problems the ACT experiences in sentencing.

Whilst I was Attorney-General, I commissioned the department to look at sentencing patterns and compare those of the ACT Supreme Court with those of the equivalent courts in New South Wales-namely the District and Supreme courts.

For murder offences, it was 100 per cent imprisonment, as one would expect. However, for armed robberies, 67 per cent of persons sentenced in the ACT went to jail, and in New South Wales it was 87 per cent. For break, enter and steal and burglary offences, 30 per cent in the ACT went to jail, and 75 per cent in New South Wales. For sex-related assaults in the ACT, it was 30 per cent imprisonment, and in New South Wales 72 per cent. For the offence of supply and possession of drugs, it was 44 per cent in the ACT and 62 per cent in New South Wales.

You can have as many police on the beat as you like and spend huge amounts of money on preventative schemes. However, at the end of the day, unless your laws are able to properly deter persons from committing serious crimes and the courts are willing to, where necessary, impose strong prison sentences, then the justice system will be brought into disrepute. I have witnessed, both as a prosecutor and as a defence counsel, a lot of anguish about our courts by victims and police, as to what they see as excessively lenient sentences in a number of individual cases. One only has to look at the papers and reports of recent incidents to see that people are very concerned over what they see as excessive leniency in our system.

Since I commissioned the study, which relates to the years 1999-2000, I have followed the papers in the ACT. If anything, the percentage of persons not being incarcerated for serious offences seems to have increased. I recall, for example, a matter about 12 months ago where the police were very happy with a drug bust which netted three persons importing amphetamines into the territory. Only one of those three persons, however, received a term of imprisonment when the matter was dealt with by the courts. The rest were given suspended sentences-that is, bonds.

Of course, we also have the famous Saudi Bill case where, at the end of the day, only one person was sentenced to a term of imprisonment-and that person was not even at the scene of the crime. That was a case which I think everyone found bizarre.

A number of people have assisted me to prepare this bill. I thank parliamentary counsel. I also thank the committee of ordinary citizens, assisted by several lawyers-and also a

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