Page 1677 - Week 06 - Thursday, 23 July 2020
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responses to child sexual abuse, to do our best to ensure it is prevented, it is detected, it is investigated and it is prosecuted.
Again, I thank the team across the government but especially in the Justice and Community Safety Directorate for their amazing, their dedicated and their compassionate work throughout this term of government on this wide range of reforms. We are and we will be a stronger community because of their work. I commend the bill to the Assembly.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Bill agreed to in principle.
Leave granted to dispense with the detail stage.
Bill agreed to.
Coroners Amendment Bill 2020
Debate resumed from 13 February 2020, on motion by Mr Ramsay:
That this bill be agreed to in principle.
MR HANSON (Murrumbidgee) (5.14): The Canberra Liberals will be supporting this bill. Although it is not listed as a significant bill in the explanatory statement, this is obviously very significant for families and friends going through a coronial process. The bill makes changes to respond to the needs of those families and is also designed to make it easier for the coroner to implement restorative approaches to the daily practice.
The significant changes in this bill include an obligation that the coroner must, at the earliest opportunity, notify members of the immediate family about the inquest and the time and place of any hearings. It requires altering the definition of death in care to include those under mental health orders. It includes step-parents in the definition of immediate families.
The bill creates an error of correction power so that errors can be corrected without families needing to appeal to the Supreme Court. The bill clarifies notice periods for providing information to families in relation to hearings and gives the Attorney-General the power to issue further guidelines, particularly in relation to government responses to coronial findings.
The bill follows lobbying from stakeholders and feedback from families who have been involved in coronial inquests. I commend those who have pursued this issue to get this bill before the Assembly. The members of the Coronial Reform Group have been one of those key players. I have met with them and I believe that the Attorney-General has, and potentially others. I acknowledge their work in assisting the progress of this legislation. When I met with them, they raised a number of concerns,
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