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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 08 Hansard (Wednesday, 4 August 2004) . . Page.. 3456 ..

penalties higher does not address the causes of the crimes and it is really very unlikely to act as a deterrent. I understand further that the courts do not usually apply the maximum penalties currently available. I understand to some extent the argument that penalties indicate the seriousness with which an offence is regarded, but I am not prepared at this stage to support increasing these penalties.

Ms Dundas’s amendment relating to mandatory psychological assessment before sentencing has some potentially serious implications for the operation of the courts. I am not comfortable with straying into the territory of requiring a particular sentence for a particular offence. However, it would be very useful to have the psychological issues drawn to the attention of the court and others involved in animal abuse offences, and Ms Dundas’s first amendment would achieve that.

I will be moving an amendment to Ms Dundas’s amendment changing the word “must” to “may”. This retains the effect of bringing to the fore the option of psychological assessment and the option of sentencing to include counselling programs such as anger management or drug rehabilitation. This kind of approach gets at the underlying issues of the crime.

Animal welfare organisations have been circulating reports of studies showing links between domestic violence offenders and animal welfare offenders. They are putting the argument that violence against animals often leads to violence against people. This bears further investigation. This amendment will remind the courts of the option open to them to try to get something in place to help the offender to deal with underlying issues and thereby reduce the chance that they will offend again. I will not be supporting Ms Dundas’s second amendment as it also increases penalties.

MR STANHOPE (Chief Minister, Attorney-General, Minister for Environment and Minister for Community Affairs) (4.59): The government will not support the Animal Legislation (Penalties) Amendment Bill to amend penalties determined under the Animal Welfare Act 1992 and the Animal Diseases Act. The bill proposes that some, but not all, animal welfare offences under these two acts are increased fivefold.

The nominated increases seem to be arbitrary, without consideration of the adequacy of existing penalties as well as consistency with other penalties in the ACT statute book. The bill puts the maximum penalty available to a magistrate for an animal welfare offence at $50,000 and/or five years imprisonment. This is more than double the present maximum penalty available to magistrates for a common assault against a person.

As a matter of principle the government cannot support an increase of the maximum penalties for an offence against an animal to a greater level than an assault against a person. The bill attempts to increase what has been described by Mr Stefaniak as woefully inadequate animal welfare penalties.

At 5 pm, in accordance with standing order 34, the debate was interrupted. The motion for the adjournment of the Assembly having been put and negatived, the debate was resumed.

MR STANHOPE: It may be of interest to the Assembly to know that presently the ACT imposes the fourth-highest monetary maximum penalty within Australia and the

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