Page 4111 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 15 November 2005
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remanded in custody. Under Mr Stefaniak’s proposal, that offender could, for example, whilst at the Belconnen Remand Centre, telephone, write to or even send someone around to visit or otherwise contact that victim because the order would have been automatically suspended. This, the government believes, would be highly undesirable.
Mr Stefaniak’s proposal to create an offence for the contravention of non-association and place restriction orders in proposed new clause 24B is contrary to government policy. The structure of the sentencing reform package is to avoid piecemeal approaches. Under the government’s approach a breach of a non-association or place restriction order will amount to a breach of the total sentence imposed on the offender. This is consistent with an approach that allows the customisation of sentence to the offence, the offender and the circumstances of the offence. It allows some flexibility in the imposition of any number of orders as part of a whole sentence and removes the confusion and conflict that can arise where an offender is on a number of different orders. For these reasons the government does not support these amendments.
Proposed new clauses 24A, 24B and 24C negatived.
Clauses 25 to 32, by leave, taken together and agreed to.
Clause 33.
MR STEFANIAK (Ginninderra) (12.18): I move amendment No 4 circulated in my name [see schedule 1 at page 4176].
I foreshadowed this amendment while explaining my amendment No 2. Currently clause 33 (1) reads:
In deciding how an offender should be sentenced (if at all) for an offence, the court must consider whichever of the following matters are relevant and known to the court:
I think I explained earlier why I believe my amendment is better than clause 33 (1). I do not think I need to elaborate. I will just rely on what I said earlier.
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (12.19): This amendment seems to reflect dissatisfaction with the expression “in deciding how an offender should be sentenced (if at all)”. It seeks to substitute “in deciding the sentence to be imposed”. Given the overall intent of these amendments to present a tough on crime attitude, the Greens are not comfortable supporting the amendment. We are actually pleased that the legislation reminds us that a sentence may not be imposed if the courts deem it to be inappropriate.
MR STANHOPE (Ginninderra—Chief Minister, Attorney-General, Minister for the Environment and Minister for Arts, Heritage and Indigenous Affairs) (12.20): The government will not support this amendment. The amendment proposes a change to remove the adverb “how” from “in deciding how to sentence an offender”. The government’s position, on advice from the Office of Parliamentary Counsel, is that this is an issue really just of language and style. The structure of the clause is as recommended and drafted by the parliamentary counsel’s office, and the government is inclined to accept the advice of the parliamentary counsel on this matter.
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