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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 14 Hansard (11 December) . . Page.. 5219 ..

Mr Stefaniak: I'm quite impressed.

MR STANHOPE: I won't have you yawning during the presentation speech.

Mr Stefaniak: But Jon, you're going quite well on this one. This is generally pretty good. Keep going. Carry on, please.

MR STANHOPE: I can't find any reference in any of the reference material that would outlaw boredom, Mr Stefaniak.

Mr Stefaniak: I'm not bored. I'm actually very interested in this. Please carry on, Chief Minister.

MR STANHOPE: Thank you. Everybody knows exactly what I was talking about, so I will just pick up on the sentence I was at. They are related to the other offences in chapter 3 because they protect government and the public from being disadvantaged by persons who pretend to be public officials and exercise powers that they are not empowered to exercise. Often pretences of this kind are part of a wider plan to commit theft, fraud and other deception-based offences.

The impersonation offences are also an important means of protecting the integrity of public officers but so too are offences designed to ensure that public officials are allowed to properly discharge their duties without obstruction.

Part 3.9 contains procedural and evidentiary provisions related to the offences in chapter 3 that largely adopt the relevant existing provisions in the Crimes Act. The part also includes a comprehensive range of alternative verdict provisions to ensure that if the wrong offence is charged the court can convict for the correct offence provided that the defendant is afforded procedural fairness to properly defend the alternative case against him or her.

Thus far I have outlined some of the most important improvements that this bill will make to the state of the ACT law on theft, fraud, bribery and related matters but this bill is also significant because of the important contribution it will make in rationalising and reducing the size of the ACT statute book. It will do this in two ways.

First, I should mention that part 2.5 of the Criminal Code contains the general principles for applying criminal responsibility to corporations. At present the part only applies to offences commenced on or after 1 January 2003 unless otherwise expressly applied. Clause 4 of the bill will now effectively apply part 2.5 of the Criminal Code to all ACT offences regardless of when they commenced. It was necessary to delay the full commencement of part 2.5 until a thorough search could be conducted of all unnecessary and incompatible provisions in ACT legislation. The department has now completed that task and schedule 1 to the bill will amend a total of 37 acts to clear the way for the full commencement of part 2.5.

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