Page 617 - Week 02 - Thursday, 17 February 2005
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takings for a period and then, in the main, there is a bounce and the poker machine playing returns pretty well to normal.
As I have said, we have strong legislation and a code of practice in place. It will continue to remain under review, but at this stage the government has not moved to the point of banning smoking outright. Therefore, we do need to accommodate those enterprises that actually want to provide for smokers. It is urgent in as much as it is probably our own fault. We do have quite complex planning regimes, which are criticised for delaying from time to time, but they are generally regimes that most Canberrans want in place—consultation processes, review processes and challenge processes that most of the residents want. They do lay governments open to criticism from time to time because they do cause delay. Nevertheless, there are clubs and other enterprises that do want to get on with providing for the particular structures and they do need legislation in place and they do need the regulations.
Up in the gallery we have officers from the department of health who are, I am sure, working flat out and making sure that the regulations will come forward to this place as soon as is humanly possible, so that everybody knows where we stand and we can get on with effectively banning smoking within pubs and clubs, providing a giant step forward for public health, without being totally dictatorial over every individual. I thank the house for its support.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Bill agreed to in principle.
Leave granted to dispense with the detail stage.
Bill agreed to.
Crimes Amendment Bill 2004 (No 4)
Debate resumed from 9 December 2004, on motion by Mr Stanhope:
That this bill be agreed to in principle.
MR STEFANIAK (Ginninderra) (4.58): Mr Speaker, as the Attorney-General said in his introductory speech, Australian criminal law requires that the test of criminal responsibility must involve an element of fault based on a sane mind. Likewise, our law presumes that an accused person is mentally fit to plead to a charge. Of course, there are two fundamental elements in proving a criminal offence: the physical element, namely, the result, conduct or circumstances caused by the act, for example, the death of a person; and the fault element of an offence, namely, the intention, the knowledge, recklessness or other attribute of the mind of the accused person.
Fitness to plead and mental health issues go back in criminal law to the 1840s—the McNaughton rule that first established whether someone basically was insane. If they did not have any idea of what they were doing, did not have the ability or the mens rea, as it was then called, to form a criminal intent whilst they had committed the crime, they could not be convicted of it. Usually, in that case, people were then detained at her
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