Bills

Statutes Amendment (Attorney-General's Portfolio) Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 24 February 2016.)

The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Justice Reform, Minister for Planning, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Child Protection Reform, Minister for the Public Sector, Minister for Consumer and Business Services, Minister for the City of Adelaide) (11:02): I guess I am just concluding the debate on this matter. There was a degree of hysteria at one point in the debate about the question of the way in which information which is held by the courts might be regulated.

As I made clear at the time of moving this bill, that request was made by the Director of Public Prosecutions in response to a very particular unsatisfactory circumstance that the director had encountered. Since that time, I have spoken with the director, and I have invited the director to consider whether other mechanisms might be sufficient to achieve the purpose that the director was concerned about in a different way, and I will consider that matter between the houses.

I do not in any way move away from the notion that somebody can be outraged and wringing their hands about the stupid behaviour of some employees of the health department accessing a health department computer to find personal information about somebody, and the very same people have the complete opposite opinion about busybodies going into court files to find exactly the same information about exactly the same people—I find that absolutely laughable, absurd, and typical of the sort of shallow thinking that arrives here from time to time.

That said, I am going to reflect on whether or not the quite laudable purposes the director had in mind can be achieved in another way. I will reflect on that between this place and the next, and we will see what, if anything, happens when the bill gets elsewhere.

Bill read a second time.

Committee Stage

In committee.

Clause 1 passed.

Clause 2.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I move:

Amendment No 1 [AG–1]—

Page 4, after line 9—After subclause (6) insert:

(7) Section 32A will come into operation immediately after Schedule 1 Part 1 of the YouthJustice Administration Act 2016 comes into operation, or on the day on which this Act is assented to by the Governor, whichever is the later.

This amendment provides for the commencement of amendment No. 2 in my name, which inserts section 32A into the portfolio bill. This amendment should not come into operation before schedule 1 of the Youth Justice Administration Act is proclaimed, so the commencement clause has the effect that, first of all, if schedule 1 of the Youth Justice Administration Act is proclaimed prior to this portfolio bill receiving royal assent, section 32A commences on assent. If schedule 1 of the Youth Justice Administration Act has not been proclaimed when this portfolio bill receives royal assent, then section 32A will not commence until the proclamation of the youth justice act, specifically schedule 1.

Ms CHAPMAN: In short, we will consent to this, but I do have a couple of questions of the Attorney. What is the progress of the Youth Justice Administration Bill, which is yet to be an act? I do not think it is listed in the other place; I am not sure where it is at.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: That is within the responsibility of another minister. I am not exactly sure where it is up to. I am told that it is in the upper house. That, of course, as one would be aware, is perhaps not a helpful piece of information, but nonetheless that is what I have been told.

Ms CHAPMAN: Is the minister aware of any reason why that bill is not being progressed by the government's person in charge of business for listing it as a priority bill? I appreciate that we need to have some consistency in the commencement date, I understand that, but I want to know why it has not been progressed. Is there some problem with the advance of that bill by the government (because it is up to your government, Attorney, to do it)?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: As far as I know, there is no problem at all but, as the honourable member would be aware, the government does not have control of the Legislative Council. The council does what it will do in whatever order it wants and take such time as it considers appropriate—for example, the planning bill took six months—so it just depends.

Both of us can make inquiries, but if the question is simply whether the government has the pause button on this, the answer is no. We are not trying to stop this or slow it down or do anything else. Where it sits on our list of priorities at any given moment in time is something I would have to check because, as Attorney-General, I understand I presently have something like 15 bills up there.

Good news: I have just been advised it has just passed. That is good news, breaking news. I was reading from an earlier bulletin. The current news is that it has passed and all is well.

Ms Chapman: So do we need this amendment?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Yes, because it has not been proclaimed yet. If the question is: why? I do not know the answer to that, but I can wait for another bulletin if there is one on that particular topic, off the interweb. We will see what we can find out for you, but thank goodness it passed during the course of debate. That was good.

Amendment carried; clause as amended passed.

Clauses 3 to 7 passed.

New clause 7A.

Ms CHAPMAN: I move:

Amendment No 1 [Chapman–3]—

Page 6, after line 3—After clause 7 insert:

7A—Insertion of section 62A

After section 62 insert:

62A—Attorney-General must consent to minor being charged with offence against this Division

(1) A minor may not be charged with an offence against any provision of this Division unless the Attorney-General consents to the prosecution by notice in writing.

(2) In this section—

minor means a person under the age of 18 years.

This is a provision which comes to the parliament essentially while the Summary Offences Act is open, and will make provision for a requirement that if a child—that is, someone defined as under the age of 18 years—is to be charged with child pornography offences, that it be with the consent of the Attorney-General.

The reason this is before the house is because of the excellent work of the Law Society of South Australia in giving consideration to another bill which the parliament is yet to consider; namely, the Summary Offences (Filming and Sexting Offences) Amendment Bill 2016 which is, I think, to follow. That bill will deal with how we manage the use of images, including bare breasts and things of that nature, which are used in a circumstance commonly known as revenge pornography.

This usually arises out of what has been a happy and intimate relationship being fractured and people acting in a silly, at best, and offensive, at worst, manner. This is, therefore, to attract a new regime of penalty—fairly, I think, and I indicate that we will be supporting that bill—to deal with this phenomenon. It should be treated very differently from the behaviour that attracts, potentially, child pornography charges, which are very severe, for good reason, at that end.

The Law Society suggested this in order to reduce the likelihood of a young person being charged with the production or dissemination of child pornography—it might be a photograph of a naked teenager who had sent an intimate photograph of themselves to their boyfriend or girlfriend and then attempted to send it to the world. Certainly, our side of the house supports this. It would place responsibility on the Attorney-General to be the gatekeeper of this, so that we ensure we do not have children caught up in this situation.

I think it is fair to say that where we have criminal offences for conduct, and they are on a graduated basis, you can hit somebody and you get a certain level of offence, but if we go across to more severe assaults on people where there is a factor which attracts reasonably a greater penalty—namely, the victim is injured (the victim might be a vulnerable person, an aged person, a child, etc.)—we have a regime where there is a much stricter level of sentencing. In fact, overlaying that is provision where, if there have been repeat offences, they should attract even greater penalties. So, we have a number of structures that give a variety of offences.

Sometimes a piece of conduct by somebody could be prosecuted as an offence at a number of levels. This will be a measure which, if accepted by the government, will ensure that there is at least a gatekeeper to deal with a child in that circumstance and, in a way, assist in the protection of them being charged with something that is far beyond what really was intended.

Whilst we thank the Law Society for bringing the matter to our attention, the reason it is particularly concerning to us is that, during the course of inquiry and investigation of this bill and the other proposed legislation, we made the inquiry as to whether any child had actually been prosecuted in respect of sending text publications of naked ex-girlfriends or boyfriends to somebody and had been in the firing line under the laws we have already. The answer came back no.

What further inquiry elicited for us was the fact that there had been a young person charged with offences, quite severe I am told but, because they had turned 18 before we had asked the question about whether a child had been prosecuted in these circumstances, we of course got the sanitised answer, namely, no, without disclosing that in fact a child had been prosecuted. Without going into the detail of the nature of the offences by this child, it appears that that was quite severe in the conduct and reasonably attracted a child pornography charge. I do not even know whether it has been finalised, a plea has been entered, or whether there has been a change of prosecution—that is actually academic.

What is important is that if a child is going to be prosecuted for publishing this sort of material, then we have to be clear to ensure that, if it is very serious, yes, they need to take the consequences like anyone else, but we need to protect against that, and one way the Law Society has suggested is for the Attorney-General to have that responsibility. I am not usually rushing in here to give the Attorney-General extra areas of responsibility. I expect that this is a reasonable request and that whoever is the Attorney-General would have that responsibility.

I can remember coming in here and asking for there to be a special provision for a former attorney-general who was in the position at the time to have a new role and right to allow the re-interment and/or cremation of the remains of a dead person (found without a death certificate, because the identification of the skeleton was unclear) without there being a death certificate. I thought that was a reasonable thing for an attorney-general to be able to do, and the then attorney-general accepted that responsibility and it was made into law. As a consequence, we were able to deal with that to the satisfaction of the living descendants of skeletons that had been found and to have them properly laid to rest.

As I say, it is not a common thing that I would be coming in here to do, but I hope that the Attorney-General will take this on. I do not think it will be onerous, and I suspect that he is likely to say to the parliament, 'We rely on our prosecuting authorities to do the right thing and our police to investigate and report matters; that, in this case, the DPP would take responsibility for prosecution at the senior level; and that he or she should be sufficiently expert and experienced to make the right decision and we should leave it entirely for them as to whether there is a prosecution.'

It does not interfere with ultimately the DPP proceeding with the prosecution, but at least the Attorney-General would have cast their eye over it so that we avoid the situation of putting children who do stupid things potentially at risk (we all know that and that is why we have a juvenile justice system) and who ought not be caught up in the grubby world of child pornography offences, which, sadly, from time to time, a minor does get involved in. I would ask the government to consider this as a worthy amendment and support the same.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I thank the deputy leader for her remarks. First of all, by way of some clarification, as a matter of fact it is the case that occasionally people who are minors do commit really serious offences. The fact that they are minors should not shield them from being prosecuted for those very serious offences, if that is what they are committing. Here I want to make clear that I am distinguishing completely between the disenchanted ex-boyfriend or girlfriend and people who are doing something far more sinister. There is a big difference between those two propositions.

It will remain the case that unfortunately from time to time people under 18 may well—almost perhaps inevitably at some point will—commit those terrible offences, and they need to be charged accordingly. That is point No. 1. Point No. 2 is that, according to my advice, there was a person (one person) who was convicted of such an offence who was under 18 at the time of their conviction and put on the child sex offenders register as a minor. That individual is now no longer a minor. Whereas at one point in time they were a minor on the register, they are now still on the register but no longer a minor because they are older. That might perhaps assist the deputy leader in understanding the information she received.

As to the primary question here, the question as far as I am concerned is: should the Attorney-General of the day have, in effect, a prosecutorial discretion in relation to this and only this particular little piece of criminal law? I do not personally think that it is wise to go around making exceptions to the general proposition that the independent Director of Public Prosecutions makes his or her determination about these matters and that that is where it should be done. If I am not mistaken (and I am sure somebody will correct me), the Attorney already has the power, if they choose to exercise it, to direct the Director of Public Prosecutions in respect of matters anyway. But it is a general power to direct and it is, in effect, a general power to overrule, if you like.

This case actually flips the whole thing around and the director cannot do anything without the permission of the Attorney. I do not think that is good public policy. I certainly do not think it is good public policy to make an exception of that type on a piecemeal basis for different pieces of legislation. I have been here long enough to know that sooner or later, once you have found one good reason to exercise an exception, people come forward out of the woodwork with other good reasons. I remember here, a while ago, in a very progressive piece of law we sought to protect police dogs. You might recall that pretty soon it included—

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: It could be Koda. But then we discovered that Valiant, Valiant the horse, had been belted during the course of a ride down Hindley Street one evening, and it included other animals. Then we got into a conversation about whether it should include guide dogs and other companion animals, and so on. The point I am trying to make is that once you create one of these exceptions, or these special circumstances, the question is: if that is so special, what about this? I have discovered that everyone has a good reason why their thing is special.

My view is that if we had an instance where the Attorney of the day was of the view that the director had made a mistake in prosecuting or intending to prosecute somebody for one of these offences, the Attorney does already have the capacity, in effect, to direct the director otherwise. I think that sort of extreme general proposition, which has certainly not been used in my time, is all that we need because I would rather trust in the prosecutorial discretion being exercised by those independent people.

Also, if you look at it from the perspective of the Attorney-General of the day, why would the Attorney-General want to get involved in a decision to prosecute or not prosecute an individual? This is politicising a prosecution.

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Well, it is. It is politicising the prosecutorial determination, which I think, as a matter of principle, is a bad idea. I just do not think it is a good idea. For that reason, I do not support this proposal. But, to the extent that the member for Bragg was saying that there are obviously some people who should be prosecuted for a minor offence because of the nature of their offending, I completely agree with her on that. Obviously that is right, and that is part of the reason we are doing this sexting bill. I entirely agree with that, but I am confident that the director and his team of people are perfectly capable of making those determinations themselves.

Ms CHAPMAN: I thank the Attorney for at least considering the matter. I just place on the record that it would be concerning to me that we progress to deal with a new level, a lower level, of offences to deal with a very contemporary and pressing problem and not act to ensure that we shield young people, particularly, against unfairly having the book thrown at them at the serious end.

The Law Society, I am sure, would have made clear to the Attorney that obviously we are dealing with a child offender. We have to accept that they are less mature. We have to accept that they do silly things and that they may frustrate and act in a manner which is rude and offensive towards law enforcement officers over a sustained period, for example, and get on the wrong side of them and be in a situation where they are charged at a serious level.

Now, that can happen, and I raise the question: how on earth would the Attorney know about it until we ended up in trials with a child who has been already charged? There would be no obligation even to tell the Attorney. Whilst he has advised the house—and I accept he is quite right—that the Attorney-General does have this power to direct a director of public prosecutions, at least by a majority decision, if my memory serves me, the former chief justice dissented on that ruling.

Nevertheless, it is law that the Attorney-General has power to direct. I think the basis of that case was to direct that there be an appeal against a sentence in a particular case. It may have been against the finding but, in any event, it was very controversial at the time. I am not aware of any circumstances since where it has been exercised. I think it has been threatened a few times and there have been calls on attorneys-general to direct the DPP to do certain things.

Whether it has actually been exercised or whether there has been some wise counsel extended, and a view of implementation by the DPP which is considered consistent with that, I am not here to debate. But I make the point that it would be too late after a 15 year old has been dragged through the prosecution process for a very serious offence to then have the Attorney-General come in at some later date to try to rescue the circumstance. I think that is unfair.

I think this is a worthy amendment. I am disappointed. We will have to trust that the law enforcement agencies will always act responsibly, which we obviously hope occurs, and it is a matter which we may need to revisit, if in fact there is a circumstance where that abuse that has been foreshadowed may occur.

New clause negatived.

Clauses 8 to 18 passed.

Clause 19.

Ms CHAPMAN: I move:

Amendment No 1 [Chapman–2]—

Page 7, page 8, lines 20 to 29 [Part 7, clause 19]—Delete Part 7

The position is, as we have canvassed in the debate, that the effect of this amendment and the two to follow is to remove the government's proposal to make it more difficult to have accessibility to court records. Each of these amendments deals with the District Court, the Supreme Court and the Magistrates Court, as outlined in the bill, in part 12 for the Magistrates Court and part 17 for the Supreme Court.

I will not traverse the reasons why it is necessary to maintain the position that we have, but I want to place on record what we already have in the Evidence Act, and I will do that in a moment. I just want to say initially that I am pleased to hear that the Attorney is prepared to review this situation. He makes the point, as we did in debate (and I think he initially made the claim in his second reading contribution) that this suite of amendments to restrict access to court records came about as a result of one case. It is very public. It has been on the front page of the paper and it related to the—

The Hon. J.R. Rau interjecting:

Ms CHAPMAN: Well, health department. I will just go as far as that. You have repeated that, again. We did in debate but, in any event, I do not need to make names about it, but the issue surrounded the right of the media and others to have access to superior court records and consequently a very public disclosure that a number of people had accessed health records, and they were being investigated, and the like, and there was much public discourse about this.

I am disappointed in relation to that, that the government has not actually acted to ensure that we better protect our health records. I think that there are some legislative reform opportunities there, and certainly on our side of the house we are considering that. In essence, this was a case where an application had been made to have access to records. The DPP's opposition to have access to court records had been met with a response by the court to allow access to material but not the publication of it. That is not an uncommon way of dealing with matters, particularly if there are pending procedures in a superior court of a criminal nature.

The DPP, I suggest, had the opportunity to have that matter reviewed at a higher level under the appeal process. If he had elected to do that, he may have received a remedy different from what he got or failed to get. As a consequence of this one case, the DPP has contacted the Attorney-General and said, 'I want this fixed. I want this resolved,' as a result of one case. I suggest that he had other options to have it dealt with if he had followed that properly.

It seems that when the government, through the Attorney, comes into the parliament and says, 'We need to deal with busybodies going into court records', understand this: we have a court system which is supposed to be open and transparent. The very way in which we run our courts—except in exceptional circumstances—is that they are open to scrutiny, and the best way of doing that, just like us here in the parliament, is to allow people to know what is going on.

We do not have star chambers in South Australia in respect of court prosecutions. We may have parts of evidence that is given with the public excluded, etc., and we have restrictions on publication of material, and all those things, but we start with the premise that they are open courts. They always say that sunshine is the best disinfectant, but it is very important and it is a very important principle.

Just in the last breath of the Attorney-General on the previous amendment, we had, 'I'm not going to have exceptions. I'm not going to make a law in relation to just one situation. I'm not going to breach the independence, etc., of the DPP or police prosecuting matters and have some executive interference in that,' yet here in the next breath he is acknowledging that he is introducing legislation as a result of one case, which, frankly, should have been dealt with in a different way. If the DPP is not happy with the decision of the courts, he has his remedies.

To rush down here through the Attorney-General and ask to have the law changed for everyone because he was unsuccessful in what was, in his view, inappropriate publication of material, ultimately leading to the discovery and disclosure of another scandalous situation, is a problem for him and the government, not for the legislature. That said, I still say that at least the Attorney has recognised that there may be some other ways to deal with this. He is prepared to have a look at it between the houses, and I thank him for that.

For the sake of the record, I want to record for the parliament that, under our Evidence Act of 1929, there is already provision under division 10 for sensitive material. Section 67G of that act provides that dealing with access to sensitive material can be actually viewing it, copying it, having it electronically conveyed or, indeed, transmitting it, and there is considerable authority as to a procedure for its protection.

Under 67H—Meaning of sensitive material, an image of a person is sensitive if it is of a person engaged or apparently engaged in a private act, or if it is of a victim, or alleged victim, of a sexual offence or an offence of stalking under section 19AA of the Criminal Law Consolidation Act or it is taken or made after the person's death. Section 67I then prescribes procedures for the restriction of access to sensitive material. The process there, in short, allows for applications to be made to protect it and to ensure that it is not published. It may be that we look to some amendment to that; we would certainly consider it. There are also, obviously, penalties for the improper dissemination of sensitive material.

It seems to me that, at the moment, we have a process that allows for courts to operate in an open and transparent way and for people to find out who has been prosecuted, what they have been charged with and the circumstances as to the pleadings in relation to that conduct, and we are dealing only with criminal matters here. People do have the right to know that. These people might be employed in an environment where other workers might be at risk. There may be family members who need to know if somebody has been charged with certain offences, etc.

That is why we have an open and transparent court system and we have a set of structures which give a number of powers to the DPP and the courts to protect sensitive material or material that might otherwise prejudice other proceedings and the like. Use them: we have them. We will look at some other amendments if the Attorney comes up with them, but to simply use this case to expel people from access to that material through the proper process is wrong and I look forward to seeing his alternative model.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I have said a bit about this before, so I will not labour the point. I agree absolutely that we do need to be in a society where our courts are open, and that means you can find out whether a person is charged by looking at the cause list. You can find out what is going on in the case, if you are that interested, by picking yourself up, wandering down to Victoria Square and dropping yourself in the courtroom. You can listen until the cows come home and hear any evidence that is led in the court and you can report on it as much as you like. I do not have a problem with that at all.

What I do have a problem with—and what I think is unfair—is busybodies wandering down to the court records and pulling things out and reading them in circumstances where those things are never, perhaps, a matter for an open court hearing. They are behind-the-scenes things which may never get out, and I would ask the member for Bragg this question. There is one court that I know of where proceedings are secret, basically, and for damn good reason.

Ms Chapman: Youth Court.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Family Court. Why is it that all of those proceedings are not there for everyone to see? The answer is obvious, and we do not seem to have a problem about that. Not being able to say anything about what goes on there does not render the Family Court or the Youth Court a Star Chamber. By the way, I support both of those things. I completely agree with that. It would be outrageous if we were to be reporting what goes on in either of those places, for very good reason.

All I am saying, and all this was attempting to deal with, was the fact that in our other courts if something is not actually in court and you are too lazy to sit in court yourself and listen to it, or get hold of the transcript or whatever it is, but leave that aside, it is not—

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: It's not even in court—not even in court. It is just being a busybody and in circumstances where the person about whom you are being a busybody is not even told that you are seeking to intrude into matters which might be very sensitive indeed from their point of view. It could include, for example, medical records. It could include all sorts of information which is very personal to that person and may ultimately not be necessary to be led in court.

I think it is an entirely reasonable point but, as I indicated before, I am prepared to look at alternatives. If we can find an alternative way of providing some sort of decorum for people, albeit people who are charged with criminal offences, then I think we should try to do that, but let's see how we go between the houses.

Amendment negatived; clause passed.

Clauses 20 to 23 passed.

New clause 23A.

Ms CHAPMAN: I move:

Amendment No 1 [Chapman–1]—

Page 9, after line 35—After clause 23 insert:

23A—Substitution of section 11

Section 11—delete the section and substitute:

11—Duration of intervention orders

(1) A final intervention order remains in force—

(a) for a period of 5 years or such lesser period as may be fixed by the Court—

(i) that confirms the interim intervention order as a final intervention order under section 23; or

(ii) that issues the final intervention order under section 23 in substitution for an interim intervention order,

(as the case may be); or

(b) until it is revoked in accordance with this Act,

whichever occurs first.

(2) An interim intervention order remains in force—

(a) until confirmed by the Court under section 23; or

(b) until it is revoked in accordance with this Act,

whichever occurs first.

(3) Subject to subsection (4), this section applies to an intervention order—

(a) that was issued before or after the commencement of subsection (1); or

(b) that was continued in force under clause 37 of Schedule 1; or

(c) that was issued pursuant to the Bail Act 1985, the Criminal Law (Sentencing) Act 1988, the Youth Court Act 1993 or any other Act.

(4) An intervention order issued more than 5 years prior to the commencement of this section will, by force of this subsection, be taken to be revoked on the day falling on the 6 month anniversary of the commencement of this section (however nothing in this subsection prevents a person from applying for another intervention order in relation to the same defendant).

I indicate that this is a replica of the legislation which was before the house as a private member's bill. As I indicated during the course of the debate on this bill, I have now sought to transfer that proposition in the same terms as the amendment while the legislation is open. This relates to the Intervention Orders (Prevention of Abuse) Act 2009, which is now open for consideration.

In short, this provides for a fixed term, essentially, for intervention orders. The reform in this area when we debated the matter back in 2007, 2008 and 2009 was to allow for the intervention orders just simply to continue in force without having any automatic expiry date. I am pretty sure it was the Courts Administration Authority annual report that recommended that this situation ought not continue and there ought to be a time frame. It suggested that, for the final order, that be up to five years. Of course, that means you can apply to revoke it in the meantime, but the consequence of us having undetermined intervention orders is that a large number of them have accumulated and are clogging up the system.

What is actually happening, and this was something that was the subject of some discussion at the time, is that although the intention was to relieve the victim, or the person seeking protection under an intervention order from having to go back to the court to continue to extend orders, the victim may move; in fact the person who is the subject of the intervention order may move address or state, or the circumstances may change and it is just simply left there and is of no actual benefit any longer. There is not any action by either the victim or the offender to go and seek relief from it, but it still sits there in the system. The recommendation comes from the Courts Administration Authority, and I would ask the government to consider supporting the same.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: The deputy leader raises a very important issue, and I actually share some of her concerns about this matter because there is no doubt that at one end of the spectrum there are completely redundant orders that are clogging up the system. I have no doubt about that whatsoever.

The question is: are they all redundant orders after five years? The answer to that question is almost certainly no. That then raises the question: how does one sort the first group from the second? Is the utilisation of an arbitrary time period, although not ridiculous, the appropriate way to do that? I am not convinced at the moment that that is the case. I do acknowledge, and agree with the deputy leader, that this is an issue. It is something we need to grapple with. I do not think it is satisfactory that what happens presently should continue indefinitely to happen, because what we are doing is building up a mountain of these orders and eventually there will be trouble caused by that.

We are in the process of preparing a discussion paper on domestic violence. The matter that has been referred to in this particular amendment is one of the topics that that paper will seek to agitate. I would like to see what a broader community exposure to this brings up. There are people in this space who view things from a perspective of ideology, and there are people who view things from a perspective of practicality, common sense and so on. I am not sure at the moment what the practical common-sense answer is to the undoubted problem that the deputy leader raises.

There would be some who would say, 'Well, so what? Just let them mount up.' I am not in that camp. I do not agree with that. That said, I am not yet sufficiently sure of my ground to be confident that this is the correct way to address that problem. I oppose it, but I do not oppose it completely and conceptually and philosophically. I oppose it simply because, at this point in time, I do not think we have sufficiently teased this one out to get the best possible answer. This may be an answer, but I am not satisfied it is the best possible answer at this point in time. Obviously, any step we take in this area will require the courts to change the way they do things. You would not just bring this in as an interim proposition for the fun of it. For that reason, I oppose it.

Ms CHAPMAN: I note the Attorney-General's indication that this matter will be canvassed in his forthcoming discussion paper. I look forward to receiving a copy of the same. Let's hope the matter can be resolved in that orderly manner.

New clause negatived.

Clauses 24 to 32 passed.

New clause 32A.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I move:

Amendment No 2 [AG–1]—

Page 12, after line 26—After clause 32 insert:

32A—Amendment of section 79A—Rights on arrest

Section 79A(1a)(c)—delete 'a person nominated by the Chief Executive Officer within the meaning of the Family and Community Services Act 1972' and substitute:

a person, or a person of a class, nominated by the Chief Executive within the meaning of the Youth Justice Administration Act 2016

This is a consequential amendment to section 79A of the Summary Offences Act, and it was sought to be made by the Youth Justice Administration Act. However, as a result of a drafting error, the amendment as it appears in that act will be of no effect. This amendment is in exactly the same terms as the section in the Youth Justice Administration Act. This portfolio bill already amends the Summary Offences Act, and the amendment will be inserted into the right part of the portfolio bill under the right heading.

By way of background, the amendment was and is part of a series of amendments consequential to the commencement of the Youth Justice Administration Act, which broadly speaking transfers powers and responsibilities undertaken by the minister and the chief executive within the meaning of the Family and Community Services Act to the minister and chief executive within the meaning of the Youth Justice Administration Act.

Ms CHAPMAN: We support the amendment.

New clause inserted.

Remaining clauses (33 to 37) and title passed.

Bill reported with amendment.

Third Reading

The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Justice Reform, Minister for Planning, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Child Protection Reform, Minister for the Public Sector, Minister for Consumer and Business Services, Minister for the City of Adelaide) (11:58): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.