Page 4871 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 27 November 2018
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Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. It has been the Canberra Liberals’ policy since the royal commission published their report to support laws that give effect to its recommendations. That has been our position on previous proposals from the government in responding to the royal commission, and it is on this bill as well.
The bill makes amendments to a range of criminal laws. I will summarise them as follows: firstly, it creates a new offence in the Crimes Act 1900 of failure by a person in authority in a relevant institution to protect a child from the risk that a sexual offence will be committed against the child. The bill creates a procedural mechanism for charging offences as a course of conduct for child sexual abuse.
The bill amends the sentencing provisions in the Crimes (Sentencing) Act 2005 so that sentences for child sexual abuse are imposed according to current sentencing practices rather than the sentencing practice at the time of the offending. The bill amends the Evidence (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1991 in a range of procedural ways, and it makes consequential amendments to other legislation as a result of the changes to the Evidence (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act.
Some of the changes are substantive, such as the course of conduct clauses; some are procedural, such as the evidence clauses; and some are technical. On the substantive clauses, we support the changes introduced in this bill. We understand the trauma that can be created for victims by repeated trials and we support the commission’s recommendation that a way be found to reduce this harm.
On the procedural matters, we recognise that the processes of the trial itself can be improved to reduce the distress to those who are dealing with the impacts of very serious crimes, and we will support these changes. On technical matters, our consultations with the legal profession did raise a number of issues. We have raised these matters with the Attorney-General’s office and were provided with satisfactory responses, which the attorney can cover in more detail if he wishes to do so.
As always, we consulted with the profession and wider community as we considered this bill. I thank everyone who engaged with us for their considered and important responses. I would particularly like to thank Dianne O’Hara of the Law Society of the ACT and its criminal law team of experts for their comments and consideration, which, once again, were excellent. I would also like to thank the Attorney-General’s office for their open and consultative approach—obviously different from that with ClubsACT—in answering the questions we raised with them directly, and for the responses that they provided.
In conclusion, this is another bill arising from the royal commission into child sexual abuse. It is another example of this Assembly working together to help victims who for so long have found it difficult to get justice from the justice system. It is also another example of our working to build a system that might help ensure that these crimes do not happen to children in the future.
I foreshadow that we will continue that approach of working collaboratively with the Labor Party and the Attorney-General to achieve that outcome, which I am sure we all agree on. The Canberra Liberals support this bill.
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