Page 1608 - Week 04 - Thursday, 7 April 2011
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
However, the Greens disagree with the government on one critical aspect of the reforms, and as Mrs Dunne has spoken of, there will be important amendments moved in the future. I thank Mrs Dunne for her comments on the work that has been done there. I think the cross-party work that has been going on between the Canberra Liberals and the Greens on those amendments has been very effective, and I welcome that collaborative work because we believe it will deliver a better outcome for the community.
In contrast to this, I was somewhat surprised when I emailed the attorney late in February with a proposal that the Greens had prepared. It was a detailed proposal that took time to fully understand and one which we had spent time consulting the legal profession on. I emailed it through to the attorney at 3.35 pm on a Friday afternoon in February. My intent was to give the attorney and his department some time to go through the proposal in detail and come back with a considered response. The amendments did run to some many pages. You can imagine then that I was in for somewhat of a disappointment when, eight short minutes later, at 3.43 pm, the attorney replied to my email, thanking me for sharing the proposal but stating, in a single line, “It won’t have our support”; eight minutes consideration before the attorney had made up his mind, eight minutes to weigh up the competing interests of the century-old right to a jury trial against the need for greater efficiency in the ACT courts in the year 2011.
That was a disappointment—not that we would not get the support but that unfortunately there was such a lack of willingness to engage in a meaningful discussion. I do prefer the approach we have been able to put together with the Canberra Liberals on this one, who have seriously engaged in this important issue.
I would like to briefly cover the two uncontentious reforms proposed by the bill before returning again to the need for the amendments. Firstly, the existing family violence list in the Magistrates Court is upgraded to official court status with the formal creation of the family violence court and, secondly, the existing Circle Sentencing Court for Indigenous offenders is also upgraded and given official court status with the creation of the Galambany court. These two reforms reinforce the good work that is already occurring in the family violence list and the Indigenous circle sentencing scheme.
At the heart of these two changes is the principle that one size does not necessarily fit all when it comes to the justice system. What we have learnt over time is that if we rigidly apply legal processes to vulnerable groups we run the risk of our justice system becoming counterproductive.
Victims of family violence and Indigenous offenders are two key examples of where the criminal justice response in the ACT has been able to be tailored to reflect specific vulnerabilities. This benefits society overall and the Greens very much support the amendments in principle contained in the bill.
Returning to the remainder of the bill, the third and final reform proposed by the bill is to enlarge the jurisdiction of the Magistrates Court to divert cases away from the
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video