Page 3621 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 25 August 2009
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approach to serious organised crime. To take up that opportunity and carefully plan the ACT’s response is the most desirable path to take. The alternative path, to quickly and blindly legislate without thinking through all the consequences, is irresponsible and risky. We risk such things as driving serious organised crime further underground and making the situation worse. That is one potential risk that the report identifies.
Taking an evidence-based approach to issues such as serious organised crime is not without its risks as well. The risk is one of being labelled soft on crime and being open to the accusation of making the ACT a safe haven for criminals. The benefit of an evidence-based approach is that it allows for a smarter approach and tackles the problem in a more targeted way. I feel the report demonstrates the worth of the evidence-based approach. We really are now much better informed than earlier in the year when we first talked about this topic. Any steps taken from here to act on the report will need to be equally well planned. We will be carefully monitoring the government’s response in that regard.
The context for the debate earlier in the year was dominated by the laws introduced in South Australia and New South Wales to create an offence by association. The report effectively rules out offence by association as a responsible option for the ACT. In making that point the report makes a number of significant findings. Firstly, such laws would raise a number of human rights issues. Secondly, such laws have a number of associated risks. Risks include pushing crime further underground and actually making the situation worse. There is international research on what actual effect such laws have had. I will not get into the detail of the theories and issues. I think the report canvasses some of those. However, it is fair to make the point that laws such as offence by association do come with risks. Thirdly, it is still very much too early to gauge the effect of the laws in South Australia and New South Wales. We do not know what the outcome of those laws will be yet and whether or not they are proving to be effective. Finally, there are a range of other existing ACT laws that could be used. They could be amended or expanded instead of creating the problematic offence of offence by association.
From the speech the Attorney-General made when tabling the report it is clear that he and his department are aware of the fundamental human rights issues that an offence by association provision raises. As the Attorney-General pointed out in that speech, any law that raises human rights issues needs to strike a proportional balance between competing rights and policy considerations. As I noted when we debated this back in April, the Greens are quite clear in our stance that a person’s guilt or otherwise should be determined by the offence they commit, not the group of people that they belong to. There are plenty of laws on the statute books which, in our view, are capable of penalising people on the basis of the offence they actually commit.
As it currently stands, there is little evidence that an offence by association provision achieves its stated objectives of reducing serious organised crime. The Greens would need to be provided with more evidence than is currently available in order to give our support to the creation of such an offence. The real value of the report is the way in which it identifies other legislative options for the ACT to tackle serious organised crime. Should the government decide to act in any of those identified areas, the ACT Greens will be assessing each proposal on its merits.
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