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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 09 Hansard (Tuesday, 17 August 2004) . . Page.. 3756 ..

the penalty is ridiculously low and I do not think that it is sending a particularly good message in itself to anyone who is aware of that.

A pretty simple bill is again being knocked off by the government simply because it is being perverse about it and because of some amazingly spurious logic by Ms Tucker, whom I do not think was listening to what was being said, and Ms Dundas. Ms Tucker and I disagree on lots of things. I heard what she said today about both serious drugs and minor drugs. I would totally disagree with most of it. I agree with the comments of the Chief Minister on the Criminal Code (Serious Drug Offences) Amendment Bill. I think it is just a shame that the government cannot have the graciousness to concede that perhaps there is merit as well in the opposition’s bill. Perhaps they simply forgot to do it themselves or there was a bit of an oversight, but they cannot give credit to the opposition. I think that is sad because there has been some pretty good legislation passed in this place over the years from both sides of the Assembly, opposition and government.

Either Ms Tucker or Ms Dundas, maybe both of them, said in regard to my bill that it was just a law an order response, a hang them high response. What arrant nonsense! We are talking about infringement notices. We are talking about increasing an infringement notice to $200 and reducing the period for payment. I do not resile from the fact that I believe that people who commit serious offences and endanger the community as a result should be treated seriously, should do time in jail, and major drug offences are the most serious and insidious offences you can possibly get. I see the Chief Minister nodding; he and I are as one.

I do not resile from the fact that I get concerned when I see, on the figures for 2003-04 supplied to me by the Chief Minister and Attorney-General, that seven people were dealt with by our Supreme Court for supplying, possessing and manufacturing drugs and only two of the seven actually went to jail. I think that is an amazing result and an appalling result. It also makes an absolute mockery of some of the issues raised by the Democrats and the Greens today about people being up for 10 years imprisonment under the other bill. That is nonsense.

The courts, the police and the DPP all use their discretion to ensure that that simply does not happen for not very serious offences. Of concern with our system is that not much happens either for serious offences. I hope that, if nothing else, as a result of what the government has done today and we have supported with the major bill, we have sent a clear message to everyone in the community, especially major drug dealers, that we are getting tougher at the serious end. I hope that we have sent a clear message to the courts that locking up only two out of seven people for supplying drugs to others simply is not good enough and that, if people commit serious offences, we expect them to be dealt with very seriously by the justice system.

At the other end of the scale, if people get caught, especially young people, with a bit of cannabis, we do need to send the message that that is illegal, that they are going to pay some sort of a penalty, and $200 is a small and quite reasonable penalty. Maybe it is too low, but the opposition thinks that, after such a passage of time, it is quite reasonable compared with the penalties for other infringement notices and the scheme should be the same as for other notices in terms of time to pay. It may bring home the message that possession of even small quantities of cannabis is illegal and they are going to pay some penalty as a result thereof. I hope that that will bring home to young people that this drug

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