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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 03 Hansard (Thursday, 11 March 2004) . . Page.. 1157 ..

laws that protect property should not be elevated to the extent that they begin to erode the rights of human beings.

We had part of this debate last week and Mr Stefaniak sought to introduce a right to own property into the Human Rights Act. The reason I did not agree with that amendment was that the right of possessions and material goods should not be raised above the rights of human beings. I will take, for example, the situation that used to exist in the Northern territory, specifically the imprisonment of children under mandatory sentencing laws for the theft of a packet of biscuits. I note that these laws have now been overturned under the new government, but I think they illustrate the point that laws that protect property can swing so far that they badly affect the rights of people, even children. Equally, I would be very disturbed if laws in the criminal code were used to imprison somebody who stole food because they were starving or because they stole blankets because they were freezing. There may be circumstances where taking something without permission is justifiable and property rights are not absolute. For example, I note that chapter 2 of the criminal code contains provisions for a defence against crime in the case of emergency. So, if something is stolen for the use of an emergency, that may be a reasonable defence.

I think it is also appropriate for us to consider whom these laws will affect. It is well known that laws are disproportionately used against young people in our society, especially laws relating to theft. They will be disproportionately used against Aboriginal people in our community and against people living in poverty. For these reasons, we have to look at other methods to prevent crime rather than simply sending people to prison. Law and order has been the theme of today and there has been some chest beating about who is tougher on crime and who will fix law and order problems. In the end, we have to hope that crime just does not occur. The aim of government should be to reduce and prevent crime, not simply punishment.

To prevent crime, we need to look at the causes of crime. One of the biggest causes for the offences we are talking about today in this criminal code amendment of theft, fraud, bribery and related offences is addiction. Drug addiction is a huge cause of property crime. I think we are increasingly realising that gambling addictions may also be the cause of many crimes. Only by looking at the causes of addiction and the treatment of addiction will we be able to reduce a large proportion of property theft. I think we always need to keep in mind that there is a lot more to dealing with property crime than just courts and sentences. We should be keeping that in perspective while we debate the criminal code today.

I note that the bill contains two schedules. Schedule 1 deals with consequential amendments to section 2.5 of the code, which deals with corporate criminal responsibility. Schedule 1 contains measures that set out the transfer of criminal responsibility between people and their representatives for the purpose of a large number of acts. I note that these sections simply replace existing legislation that already has the transfer of fault elements between a principal and their agents and that these amendments do not affect the operation of the existing law, so they are not perhaps as radical as they first appear on reading the bill before us. I recognise that both the government and the opposition are happy with these changes, so I will not waste the Assembly’s time by bringing forth amendments in the detail stage.

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