Page 4113 - Week 13 - Thursday, 6 December 2007
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New South Wales has a very good provision in relation to someone who has to pay $70 in this instance. If they are in prison—these are the most serious offences—why should they be exempt from this scheme? Their crimes invariably involve more serious trauma for their victims, and my amendment means that if a person is in prison, the chief executive can deduct any unpaid levy from money held in trust by the chief executive under the Corrections Management Act. Prisoners receive some income from their time in prison, and this amendment will ensure that the levy could be deducted from that income, thus helping victims. That is for the most serious of offences.
People often complain in this place about people who should be jailed not being jailed. You can rest assured that when someone is jailed in the ACT it has been for a pretty serious offence or multiple offences. Invariably, with serious and multiple offences, you have got lots of victims who are really hurt. Just as other jurisdictions have, I think we need to have regard to that. It is very unfair that someone who commits a really nasty offence and gets 18 months in prison does not to have to pay anything towards the victim. That is very unfair when someone who might be caught travelling 5 kilometres over the speed limit has to pay. That is the inequity of this system. I commend the amendments to the Assembly.
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (5.41): While I support the bill, I can only support one of the amendments, which I suppose means that I cannot support any at all, because we are not voting on them like that.
Mr Stefaniak: Just as a matter of interest, which one is that?
DR FOSKEY: Amendment No 3. The major point I would like to make is that we have not had time to give these amendments the consideration that they deserve, because they were only tabled this morning. My staff would have appreciated a visit from Mr Stefaniak and/or his staff. We had developed our position on the bill, as would be expected of an office in this place. I believe it is reasonable to have a $10 levy. I do note that it is the first time that there has been such a direct, clear and transparent hypothecation and that that is a precedent which perhaps could be extended to other matters. It is always preferable to cover government services, such as victims of crime services, out of core funding. I think it is disappointing that we need to extract another $10 from people. We do need to remember that in some cases the people who will be fined will themselves ironically be victims of crime. That is the way it goes.
Members should also remember that there are people in our community who have a very difficult time paying their parking fines. They should not have been doing what they did, they should not have been speeding, but it is something that seems to happen across the board. For some people those fines are a small matter, but for others they are a very large matter. I note how difficult it is to ensure payment of the fines; it requires quite an effort. We have had constituents who have been quite desperate and unable to get a hearing. But, nonetheless, I will be supporting the bill. If Mr Stefaniak thinks that his amendments should be followed through, then perhaps a bill could be tabled at a later stage.
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