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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 03 Hansard (Thursday, 11 March 2004) . . Page.. 1143 ..

the original offence committed by the offender will determine the presumption the court must apply for breaches of punitive orders.

I also foreshadow minor amendments to clauses 30 and 31, which are too open to interpretation. These clauses address the powers of magistrates and judges to review bail decisions. The intent of the clauses is to enable magistrates or judges to review bail decisions if circumstances change, or evidence changes. The amendments will clarify that the sections contemplate magistrates reviewing their own or other magistrates’ decisions, and judges reviewing their own or other judges’ decisions.

In closing this debate I would like to summarise the key changes the government’s Bail Amendment Bill makes to the ACT’s bail law. The major change the bill makes to the territory’s bail system is the explicit identification of crimes that attract different types of presumption—a presumption for bail, a presumption against bail, and no presumption at all. The bill will create a presumption against bail for murder and the ancillary offences of murder such as attempted murder, conspiracy to murder and accessary to murder.

The bill removes any presumption whatsoever for the 18 serious offences specified in proposed section 9B. A neutral presumption towards bail will also apply to people charged with an offence involving violence, or threatened violence, if the accused person has been found guilty of one of four offences listed in new section 9B within 10 years prior to the current charge. Having no presumption towards bail for these serious offences will give the judiciary and authorised officers greater discretion to consider the facts and circumstances of each case without the impediment of a statutory bias.

Each and every bail decision involving a serious offence will be determined on its merits alone. Clause 11 of the bill sets out criteria for granting bail and introduces a method for decision-making. The proposed new section 22 is structured to provide bail decision-makers with a clear method of decision-making. I believe that a structured application of bail criteria to bail decisions will increase the community’s confidence in our bail system and our prosecution process.

Proposed new section 22 also provides the court with a greater scope to consider other relevant matters. However, the structure of section 22 means that the reasoning for a bail decision must address the prime criteria listed in section 22(1). These key changes of introducing a hierarchy of presumptions and a clear method of applying bail criteria are designed to work together to produce better bail decisions.

The government has endeavoured to present to the Assembly a bill that changes bail law in a holistic way rather than in a piecemeal one. The bill’s provisions will also impel prosecutors and defenders alike to improve the information they present to the court. In debates on criminal justice commentators, the media and the community often point to particular cases which cause anger and resentment. Pointing to particular cases of injustice is one valid means of identifying problems and solutions. However, we need to balance the anecdotal method of identifying problems with better research and quantitative evidence. The government is committed to researching these areas as a means of better understanding how we can improve the criminal justice system.

Before concluding, I would like to go to some of the issues raised in the submission lodged last night by the Law Society of the ACT. They raise a number of issues and

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