SERIOUS AND ORGANISED CRIME (CONTROL) (MISCELLANEOUS) AMENDMENT BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 15 February 2012.)

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg) (15:53): It is with pleasure that I indicate that I will be representing the opposition as the lead speaker and contributing to the debate on the Serious and Organised Crime (Control) Act. This legislation, as has been set out by the Attorney some week go, is to effectively remedy the defects of the legislation that emanated from 2008.

At that time, the Serious and Organised Crime (Control) Act and the Statutes Amendment (Public Order Offences) Act were part of the government's response to outlaw motorcycle gangs. While the Liberal Party had supported those bills, we said that we would monitor the implementation and support an early review of legislation as we were, firstly, yet to be convinced that the regime would be effective in controlling serious and organised crime and, secondly, concerned to ensure that the regime did not unnecessarily impact on law-abiding Australians. Indeed, in those debates, those of us in opposition were successful in insisting on the inclusion of a sunset clause and a review of the act.

The key provisions of the Serious and Organised Crime (Control) Act were, as we now know, struck down in the High Court, in the Totani case, in November 2010. In August 2011, the government released a consultation paper and draft bills to both repair the control act and to expand the range of offences. We, of course, dealt yesterday with the offences aspect in other legislation.

The control bill that we are now discussing seeks to amend the anti-association regime that was introduced into the 2008 act to remove provisions found to be invalid by the High Court decision in Totani and later, in mid last year, in Wainohu. The control bill is similar to the anti-association bills tabled by the Western Australian government on 23 November 2011 and a New South Wales government bill tabled on 16 February 2012, the day after the South Australian legislation was tabled.

All the anti-association bills (that is, here and in those other jurisdictions) are founded in the principle that organisations which primarily exist to conduct crime have no right to exist (that is, there is a zero tolerance of that conduct) and, further, that it is appropriate to limit the rights of citizens to freedom of association to try to disrupt or dissolve criminal organisations. That is a rationale that the opposition entirely supports—that is, they have no right to exist—and we do need to use methods which will impinge on the rights of citizens to freedom of association to deal with it.

However, we do not take the view that this model necessarily will be effective in doing that, as presented by the government, and there are aspects of it that we consider will need to be remedied. As I outlined in the preceding debate, in yesterday's bill, the opposition has established an anti-gang task force. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.