Page 4161 - Week 11 - Thursday, 17 Sept 2009
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Question so resolved in the negative.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (11.35): The reason I sought an adjournment was that I think it is useful to consider this both in the context of the history of the bill and also where we are up to with it today. This proposed change to significantly expand the definition of murder was a single line in Labor’s last election statement. When it was tabled, it came with a short, one-page explanatory statement made to the Assembly in support of the government’s bill. Both the Liberal Party and the Greens voted together to send the government’s bill to a committee, which the government, I might note, did not support. I find it interesting in itself that the government thought it had it so right the first time round that it did not need the committee process and it vehemently opposed it.
The committee process was a very useful one and it had the opportunity to draw out some of the evidence and explore this bill in some detail, which I think was a valuable process. Whilst I am not on the justice and community safety committee, I was able to attend one of the hearings—I missed the second, unfortunately, but I read the Hansard—and that process of going to the committee was very enlightening. It drew out that the stated community concern on which the government was justifying this amendment to the murder provision was actually quite a different thing.
What we learnt from the committee process was that the real concern in fact lay largely around sentencing issues. A large number of the witnesses that came in used cases from the ACT over the last decade roughly—certainly some of the most recent cases—where they were agitated by the apparent leniency of the sentencing in light of the facts of the case. This was quite instructive for the committee, because it showed us where the point of community concern lay.
When the committee reported, they noted that there may be issues with the scope of the operation of the bill and proposed the adoption of an alternatively worded Western Australian murder provision to guard against some of those potential concerns. They also made a number of recommendations about sentencing, reflecting the evidence that I have already spoken about. The committee basically found that the maximum sentences for manslaughter were seen to be too low and that that was the source of community concern.
In light of that committee report, which the Greens at the time said we support, we waited to see what the government’s response was. Since late last week we have been contacting the attorney’s office asking what the government intended to do in response to the committee’s report, particularly once we saw that the Crimes (Murder) Amendment Bill 2008 was on the program for this week. We could not get answers from the attorney’s office. They put us off: “Yes, we’re amending it. No, we’re not amending it. We’re not sure. The minister’s overseas. We’ll get back to you.” Finally, on Tuesday we discovered that in fact the government was tabling a response to one part of the committee’s report. So on Tuesday afternoon, less than 48 hours ago, the government tabled a very substantial response to one part of the committee’s report.
I think that is a thoughtful paper, and I appreciate the government tabling that response and the accompanying letter from the DPP. That has been very handy for us
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