Page 3124 - Week 10 - Thursday, 18 October 2007
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MR SPEAKER: It is inappropriate to deliver the same speech twice.
DR FOSKEY: There was no intention. I did not deliberately, and I apologise to members for boring them with my tedious repetition.
MR SPEAKER: No, I was not bored, but I had not heard it. I did not remember it in the past, but Mr Mulcahy obviously—
DR FOSKEY: Mr Mulcahy no doubt was listening to every word the first time.
Mr Mulcahy: I was; otherwise I wouldn’t have called the standing order.
Mr Barr: The only reason it twigged with me was that last time you called me the Attorney-General—and I am not—and you did it again then, with the same—
DR FOSKEY: I hate it when we adjourn debates.
MR SPEAKER: I think Dr Foskey has acknowledged that it is the same speech, so I will proceed from there.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (12.13): I suppose to some extent this will be repetitious but not in relation to this. It is stating the Liberal Party’s position about absolute and strict liability offences. The idea that there would be such substantial punishments for a strict liability offence is completely—
Mr Barr: You said this last time too.
MRS DUNNE: I have not spoken in this debate but I do speak on this matter on a fairly regular basis. Dr Foskey put forward the idea that for the most part there are nefarious employers out there and if you take away the strict liability offence they will get away scot-free. The thing is that what we actually—
Dr Foskey: I do not think that is what I said at all.
MRS DUNNE: That is the quick summation of Dr Foskey’s rather tedious and repetitious speech—that, because it may be difficult to prosecute people or it may be inconvenient to prosecute people, we will not; we will just use strict liability offences.
Let us talk about what these things are. A speeding fine is an absolute liability offence. You have done it, there is evidence you have done it and you have to go and prove to the court that you have not; otherwise you pay the fine. But a speeding fine does not send you to jail and it does not bankrupt you.
There is a range of strict liability offences, and we have debated those in this place on a number of occasions. On occasions the government has seen the merit of the argument we have made in relation to strict liability offences and has qualified its blanket strict liability offences to say, for instance, in, I think, some of the environment legislation—I think the plant or animal diseases legislation—that, if somebody in the course of their business should have known these things, that was a strict liability offence but it was not a strict liability offence for other people.
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