Page 4680 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 19 October 2011
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to improve the effectiveness of sentencing imposed in the ACT in meeting the purposes of sentencing.
One could be positive about the intent of this bill when taking its aims on face value. There certainly is a gap in our justice system currently with data collection, and reviews can be very useful tools in finding better ways forward. But the ACT is in need of sentencing reform, not more reviews. In considering sentences for convicted criminals, ACT judges quite correctly seek guidance from a range of sources. This can be local and interstate case law and it can be local and interstate offence penalties set out in legislation.
Indeed, in the recent Creighton appeal, the Director of Public Prosecutions asked the Court of Appeal to consider the sentences handed down in the Supreme Court and to look at the sentences in the light of what may have occurred in New South Wales. The Court of Appeal declined to do so because the ACT’s penalties were not comparable with those applied in New South Wales legislation. The penalties in New South Wales are considerably higher. On this basis, the court concluded that the ACT legislature did not consider the offences to be as serious as they were considered by the New South Wales legislature.
This is a very simple test and one that my office has been considering carefully over some time in a process of reviewing the offence penalties that currently apply in the ACT. Another simple test is the public view, so often expressed in the media. Victims of crime in particular can be very vocal about the adequacy of sentences handed down by courts. We saw such response in the Creighton matter, which I have referred to earlier.
The only gap in garnering the kind of guidance I have been referring to is the views of jurors when they hand up their decisions and come to a view as to the adequacy of sentences handed down by presiding judges. Perhaps Mr Rattenbury is seeking to undertake a similar exercise as happened in Tasmania where some research was undertaken along these lines. According to Mr Rattenbury’s presentation speech, the results of such research was that jurors in that state are fairly equally divided as to the severity or leniency of sentences. He concluded on the basis of this information that sentencing judges were “hitting the place exactly”.
The Canberra Liberals consider there is enough evidence to suggest that our offence penalties need to be reviewed upwards. Indeed, the JACS committee in its inquiry into the laws relating to murder offences said as much. In particular, it called for manslaughter penalties to be increased and made recommendations about that at the time and for the government to consider a more general review of penalties. The government in its final report tabled in the Assembly only in May this year largely declined to pick up those recommendations, giving only highly qualified undertakings. Nonetheless, barely weeks later, the government introduced a bill partly in response to a bill I introduced and partly in response to the Creighton case, seeking to review culpable driving offences and also to reduce the range of aggravated offences. I understand from the attorney that this will be brought on for debate next week.
In short, I believe the work has largely been done to warrant a comprehensive review of offence penalties in the ACT. In the main, these bills are driven by response in the
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