Page 1829 - Week 05 - Thursday, 16 May 2019
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calls that have been made by the Canberra Liberals but by members of the public, including, as I believe, Mr Jones. I ask that the Attorney-General not use this opportunity to take some sort of cheap shot and politicise this issue. That would be shameful.
MADAM SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr Hanson.
Mr Steel: On the point of order, the Canberra Liberals are members of the public.
Mrs Dunne: On the point of order, Madam Speaker, standing order 118(b) clearly says that the minister in answering the question should not debate the question. The minister was asked a straight question about whether he was reviewing the bail laws. This is not an opportunity to have a debate about what he thinks the Canberra Liberals’ opinion on the bail laws is but to be directly relevant to the question.
MADAM SPEAKER: Thank you Mrs Dunne. In the time you have left, minister, I ask that you come to the question of bail.
MR RAMSAY: Indeed I was seeking to come to the point of bail when I was interrupted along the way. Bail is matter of balancing, and that is the point I was moving to. It is a matter of competing rights, competing responsibilities. The Bail Act is complex. (Time expired.)
MS LAWDER: Attorney, what do you intend to change in the justice system to ensure that a case like this does not happen again?
MR RAMSAY: Again, this is an interesting one about how the justice system has worked in this particular case. We had a person who fabricated evidence and made a false claim to police and to the court. Other people have suffered as part of that. What has happened is that the person who made that false claim, which is a heinous thing to be doing in our justice system, has been found by police, has been prosecuted by the actions of the director of prosecutions, and has been taken to court. They have been tried. They have been convicted and they have been imprisoned.
It is important for us to see that it was the actions of the police and the DPP that not only resulted in the charges against Mr Jones being dropped but also resulted in charges being brought against the person who made that false allegation. Our rules of law do rightly allow a magistrate to remand people in custody before trial when there is evidence placed before the court—at that stage that the magistrate can determine, in the judicial independence that a magistrate has—that there are compelling public safety reasons.
This case also shows that people who abuse those protections for their own purposes, as was the case, will be held accountable, as was the case in this instance.
MR HANSON: Attorney-General, if, as you assert, there are no failures in the legal processes in this case, why are there so many internal investigations ongoing into this case?
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