Page 2594 - Week 07 - Thursday, 1 August 2019
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certainly incumbent on them to do so. Perhaps the Attorney-General will speak to that in his response.
The Law Society has raised a variety of other concerns. Their issues are around changes to definitions of “strangulation” and the fact that as drafted they believe the change could be applied in a way that is effectively retrospective. Similarly, a change to a provision in the Firearms Act could have a retrospective effect.
They also note that some of the assertions made in the explanatory statement of the bill are incorrect, and that any retrospective application of criminal liability would in fact be a breach of section 25 of the Human Rights Act. They have also made formal submissions to the government on these matters, and the Attorney-General may respond to those in his speech.
It is certainly important when drafting laws such as this that important legal principles such as those raised by the Bar Association and the Law Society are listened to carefully and responded to appropriately. I have been provided with the response provided by the government to the Law Society so I note that the matter has been responded to, but I am not saying that the Law Society necessarily agrees with that response.
I thank the legal profession for their submissions in this regard and raising these important matters which the opposition take very seriously. We will always be concerned by any matter that may touch on retrospectivity for criminal matters.
I also thank the Attorney-General’s office who provided my office with a briefing on this bill. I again acknowledge the hard work of Ian Hagan in my office in dealing with this matter and taking those briefings.
The consistent policy of the Canberra Liberals is to support laws which give police practical powers to combat organised crime and which support the victims of domestic violence. Noting the concerns I have made about the submissions of the Bar Association and Law Society it is my view that that is the intent of these laws, and we support this legislation.
MR RATTENBURY (Kurrajong) (11.38): As noted, the bill changes the operation of bail; gives effects to the intergovernmental agreement on the national cooperative scheme on unexplained wealth, clarifies the original policy intent for the definitions of “choke”, “strangle” and “suffocate” in the Crimes Act; allows the sale and consumption of low THC hemp seeds; allows certain police officers to take oaths or affirmations for affidavits of service in family and personal violence proceedings; and changes the onus of proof from a number of offences under the Firearms Act. I will speak briefly to a couple of these items.
I acknowledge the complexity of undertaking any amendments to the issue of bail and the operations of police. As described clearly in the explanatory statement, the amendments demonstrably engage several human rights. I recognise that these matters have been discussed in both the recent High Court matter and also directly with the ACT Human Rights Commission.
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