Page 5191 - Week 12 - Thursday, 27 October 2011
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The approach to aggravated offences sends the message that this government really is not comfortable with these increases in penalties. Despite being asked by the DPP to make a stand and send a message because of issues that have arisen in the courts, what the attorney is doing here today is asking us to send a very mixed message. It sends the message that the upper end of the penalties is only to be used for aggravated offences. Immediately what this does is discount the tariff for these offences, effectively, by 30 per cent.
The attorney knows, just as well as I do, that one of the problems with the ACT’s current criminal offence penalties is that they are out of step with other jurisdictions. The ACT Court of Appeal has said that they can take no guidance from sentencing practices in other jurisdictions because the ACT’s offence penalties are not comparable. If the attorney gets his way today, they will continue not to be comparable because we will have effectively discounted the penalty before we have even started. The attorney’s bill seeks to introduce further confusion and complication to a problem by taking a discriminatory approach to some aggravated offences compared to others.
Aggravated offences are those committed against pregnant women. In those cases two lives are at stake. But the government are trying to unpack the aggravated offence provisions of the Crimes Act and they are doing it by stealth. The Canberra Liberals have a bill on the table which seeks to increase a range of penalties and there is considerable agreement between what is in the Canberra Liberals’ bill and what is in this in relation to the base penalties.
If the attorney had not been so foolish as to take this approach in relation to aggravated offences, I would have been quite happy to have supported this bill here today. In one case the attorney is proposing a maximum penalty of 14 years and I am proposing a maximum penalty of 15 years. I would not quibble over one year. But I will quibble—more than quibble; I will stand up for—over keeping our statute book consistent and sending a consistent and strong message.
The Canberra Liberals cannot support this bill today because it does not send a strong message. The government immediately go out and say: “We want to send a strong message to the judiciary and the community that we think these are serious crimes, and in the same breath we are discounting immediately the seriousness of these crimes by saying that the higher level should be maintained for aggravated offences.” This is not the approach. The attorney has really messed things up by taking this approach. He has made it impossible for the Canberra Liberals to support his legislation today.
But this is not the end of it. There is still a bill on foot. I will be happy to hear from the attorney any suggestions that he might have for progressing that bill. I know that the bill that the Canberra Liberals introduced has some elements that are not in the attorney’s bill in relation to offences and the attorney’s bill has a larger list of offences than is in the Canberra Liberals’ bill. I will be happy to discuss with the attorney a coherent approach and a coherent way forward. I think that there is general, at least stated, agreement from the attorney that he wants to oblige the prosecutors in the ACT and address these issues of the apparent weakness of our penalties.
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