Page 4614 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 27 November 2019
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MR RAMSAY (Ginninderra—Attorney-General, Minister for the Arts, Creative Industries and Cultural Events, Minister for Building Quality Improvement, Minister for Business and Regulatory Services and Minister for Seniors and Veterans) (11.30): This government is committed to protecting police and emergency service workers who provide such vital services to the ACT government and the ACT community. There is no excuse for violence against these brave people who work so hard in difficult conditions to keep our community safe. All of our ACT workers should be safe at work. That is why we introduced the Crimes (Protection of Police, Firefighters and Paramedics) Amendment Bill 2019 into this place, to recognise the vulnerability that police officers, firefighters and paramedics face while protecting the community.
The government bill sends a very strong and very clear message to everyone in the ACT that abuse and violence against these officers will not be tolerated. The government bill was carefully drafted to ensure that it achieves these important objectives and, at the same time, make sure that it does not unnecessarily and unreasonably limit human rights in our criminal process.
We as a government are not in a position to support the bill that is before us today, as presented by a member of the opposition, as we must ensure that it does strike this right balance. As the first law officer of the territory, I must ensure that all bills that are introduced in this chamber carefully consider the human rights issues and do not undermine fundamental principles of our criminal law.
I have key concerns about this bill, including its impact upon the presumption of innocence. This principle should be displaced only in rare and exceptional circumstances where a reverse burden can be very clearly justified. I am also concerned about the provisions in this bill which could make a range of crimes become aggravated offences with much higher penalties if the victim of an assault is classified as a frontline community worker under the bill.
The prosecution would not need to show that the defendant was aware, or should reasonably have been aware, that the person assaulted was a frontline community worker. Instead, the full legal burden is placed upon the defendant to prove that they were not aware of this fact. People in health care and other settings who may dress in plain clothes may well be indistinguishable from members of the public. To increase penalties in those particular circumstances, without the prosecution having to prove that the person in some way identified themselves as a frontline community worker, in my opinion goes too far and unreasonably limits human rights in criminal proceedings.
There is no doubt that all of our health workers provide a vital service to our community and should never face violence in the workplace. However, extending the scope of people protected to all healthcare workers in hospitals and imposing higher penalties may have a disproportionate impact on patients in mental health facilities, where persons are distressed and unwell, and may be more likely to get into confrontations with health staff. These groups are, therefore, likely to be disproportionately impacted by the aggravated offence and assault offence provisions in the bill. I do not believe that the bill, as it currently stands, contains adequate
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