Page 557 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 10 February 2009
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needs to be an explanation why the government wants to go back down this path. This is something which is more than an election-time press release, something where we look hard at what is being suggested by the government and work out whether this is the best way ahead.
The scrutiny of bills committee has, like the ACT Bar Association and Civil Liberties Australia, raised serious concerns about the bill. It seems to be common for the Attorney-General to cast aside these criticisms. He has eventually answered the scrutiny of bills committee in a lengthy, four-page letter that I received midway through the morning. The extent of his comments is hard to digest on a busy sitting day with other calls on one’s time. There are, it seems to me, some issues that the minister has addressed, which are pertinent and to the point but I think that these matters would be best canvassed in a committee inquiry.
All of that said, the opposition is willing to give the bill the benefit of in-principle agreement. I repeat the opposition’s commitment to keeping our laws under review to ensure they remain contemporary, meet the needs and expectations of the community and are effective in their intentions. However, we believe it deserves a great deal more consideration, not the least of which should be consultation with key stakeholder groups, such as the legal fraternity, legal representative bodies and organisations such as Civil Liberties Australia.
On that basis, the opposition is prepared to support the bill in principle. I foreshadow that when we get to the detail stage I will be moving a motion to refer the bill to the Standing Committee on Justice and Community Safety for inquiry and report.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (8.04): I share many of the concerns raised by Mrs Dunne in her speech. Similarly, the Greens will be supporting this bill in principle, but we feel there is great value in taking some time to put this through the committee process to examine the consequences and the detail rather more closely.
I particularly have serious concerns about any amendment which would potentially remove or seriously water down the existing element of intent in the crime of murder. The greatest moral and social condemnation attaches to the crime of murder. I share the reservations of the scrutiny of bills committee about the level of public support for these particular amendments. If passed in their entirety, these amendments would submerge a large part of what is now defined as manslaughter. I do not believe there is a community expectation that a person should be found guilty of murder if they neither intended to kill another person nor were they reckless or indifferent as to whether their actions could reasonably be foreseen to cause the death of another person.
The critical element in the crime of murder is intent. The government’s amendments as they stand would remove the necessity for the Crown to prove that critical, subjective element to an acceptable standard. Adopting both limbs of the ACT Criminal Code definition of serious harm would make it far more likely that a person will be convicted of murder in a situation where they neither intended nor could reasonably be expected to have foreseen that their actions could have caused the death of another person. That would be a terrible outcome.
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