Page 795 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 20 March 2019
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offence carries a maximum penalty of three years imprisonment, a $24,000 fine or 150 penalty units or both.
A range of exceptions to a charge of consorting will apply whereby the court must disregard consorting in certain situations if it was reasonable in the circumstances. Provision is also made for the ACT Ombudsman to review and report on the operation of the legislation after two years.
Our primary concern with anti-consorting laws and similar legislative responses in other jurisdictions is their disproportionate impact on vulnerable members of our society. Mr Hanson has been very clear about his bill being based on the anti-consorting legislative regime in New South Wales. A New South Wales Ombudsman review into those laws found that they were disproportionality used to target vulnerable groups not affiliated with organised crime, particularly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, people experiencing homelessness, and children and young people.
I know members in this place are very concerned about the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in our justice system. Members have heard me speak about this on numerous occasions, and I know that this is something the Canberra Liberals are concerned about as well given their recent policy launches.
The over-representation of Aboriginal people in our criminal justice statistics creates a substantially increased risk that they will become subject to anti-consorting laws. The New South Wales Ombudsman found that around four out of every 10 Aboriginal men will fall within the definition of a convicted offender—40 per cent—and any person who associates with these men could be issued with a warning for consorting. The Ombudsman further found that 37 per cent of all people subject to the consorting law during the review period were Aboriginal. Half of the women issued with warnings or charged under the legislation and 60 per cent of children and young people were identified as Aboriginal.
Anti-consorting laws are put into perspective by looking at the first individual charged under the New South Wales anti-consorting legislation, about which the attorney spoke about earlier. He was not a member of an unlawful motorcycle gang; he was a young man with an intellectual disability charged while out shopping with friends and sentenced to nine months jail. Fortunately the conviction was later overturned.
Anti-consorting laws are contrary to the types of freedoms we expect as a society, particularly freedom of association. The laws criminalise people associating with one another, and that even includes phoning or emailing, before they have committed a crime. The crime is the association.
They are certainly not helpful for helping people with criminal convictions who want to reintegrate into society. Remember that anti-consorting laws do not just apply to people with convictions associating with other people with convictions; they can be used to prevent anyone, with a conviction or not, from associating with a person with a conviction. So much for the idea of, for example, people with convictions joining
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