Page 378 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 17 February 2015
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tragic Monash University shooting is perhaps the most notable example, where the perpetrator had become an approved holder of a Victorian handgun licence. The result is that shooters face a higher regulatory burden for the privilege of possessing a handgun.
The changes made by this bill can be characterised as minor and administrative and do not impact on the important community safety goals of the firearms regime. One amendment will give authorised instructors a general authority to use club-owned firearms while they are instructing instead of having to use the specific firearm registered to them. A second allows licensees to use their firearms on club shooting ranges where they are registered for genuine reasons other than club use. There are genuine examples where this is necessary—for example, as the explanatory statement notes, to sight the firearm, develop and refine self-loaded ammunition and be certified for employment circumstances.
A third amendment adds clarity to the act, specifying that a young person must be 12 years or older before possessing or using a firearm for the purpose of receiving instruction on a shooting range. This places on shooting ranges an age limit that otherwise did not exist. I agree it is an improvement. The limit parallels the existing limit in the act on when a person can be issued with a minor’s licence, which is also 12 years of age.
To conclude, I support the bill and welcome the improvements to law that are being made by it.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Deputy Chief Minister, Attorney-General, Minister for Health, Minister for the Environment and Minister for Capital Metro) (11.47), in reply: I thank members for their support of this important bill today. As members have highlighted, the bill makes a number of amendments to the criminal law in the ACT. The amendments result from issues that have been brought to the government’s attention by a range of justice stakeholders, including the Director of Public Prosecutions, ACT Policing, the Aboriginal Justice Centre and the Victims of Crime Commissioner.
As members have highlighted, there are a number of key amendments in this bill. I will briefly, in closing, address the issue of most interest to members, which is in relation to the protection of ACT residents from voyeuristic acts. These acts include behaviour commonly known as upskirting and downblousing, as Mr Rattenbury has referred to. They include recording or taking photographs of people in a private place or engaged in a private act.
New technologies present significant opportunities but also substantial risk. They allow quieter and more surreptitious ways of invading another person’s privacy. Mobile phones can be used to take illicit photos to embarrass and intimidate victims. There are websites dedicated to furtive upskirting and downblousing photos of unidentified women. Wearable cameras make clandestine photographs, videos and observations easier. The proposed offences aim to protect the community from the worst of these behaviours.
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