Bills

Criminal Law Consolidation (Assaults on Prescribed Emergency Workers) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 2 May 2019).

Mr TEAGUE (Heysen) (20:22): I rise to make some brief remarks to support this bill enjoying a speedy passage through the house. This is a bill that all of us in this house should wholeheartedly endorse, promoting as it does better recognition for and more thorough penalisation of those who would contravene the rights of, our emergency workers in this state.

The bill would seek in a practical way to protect the interests of prescribed emergency workers by, to some extent, increasing the penalties that apply by rendering certain offences to be aggravated offences and in part by introducing new offences into the Criminal Law Consolidation Act. I will take a moment to spell out the categories of workers who are covered by the bill because it is important, in my view, that we recognise that there are people engaged in emergency work across a wide range of fields in this state. They are carrying out their work in both paid and voluntary capacities and they do so throughout the state both in city and rural areas.

Prescribed emergency workers are defined to include, firstly, police officers; secondly, prison officers; thirdly, employees in a training centre, that is, a training centre within the meaning of the Youth Justice Administration Act 2016; fourthly, members of the SA Ambulance Service; fifthly, a member of the SA MFS, the SA CFS and SA SES; and, sixthly, law enforcement officers and also those persons engaged in any occupation or employment that may be prescribed by regulation are otherwise to be included in the definition.

As I have indicated, those workers come from a whole variety of areas across the state and they work in both paid and voluntary capacities. The intent in this regard is that the category of person who is covered as a prescribed emergency worker is inclusive and so there is a capacity for that range of prescribed occupations to be expanded as may be appropriate by regulation over time.

I want to emphasise in these remarks that the bill is setting out to protect as wide a range of those engaged in this important category of work as is possible. That is for the reason that we see, through statistical analyses throughout Australia and indeed internationally over a sustained period of time, that those workers who are engaged in this range of emergency work are vulnerable to assault and being on the receiving end of similar offending in a way that far exceeds those working in other fields and indeed those members of the general public.

The statistics abound. We see published statistics indicating that there may be, for example, in relation to paramedics, a very high annual incidence of assault each year. There have been comparative treatments of the experience of those working in the UK in the NHS environment, which compare in similarly unfavourable terms with the experience of paramedics in Australia. This is a matter that has become somewhat of a uniting factor for those engaged in these fields of work throughout the world. It is something that I think we have come to hear from paramedics, police officers, prison officers and others over many years now, that this is a blight on and a constant risk in their day-to-day work.

This bill sets out to acknowledge that people working in this range of employment ought to be the subject of a special category, and it is recognised in two ways by this bill. The first is that the aggravating circumstances of offending will now be broadened to include an offence that is an offence against a victim who was engaged in one of the prescribed occupations that I have indicated earlier, and particularly in circumstances where the offender committed the offence knowing that the victim was acting in the course of their official duties at the time. So there is an aggravating element that is now introduced, and we see that in clauses 4, 5 and 6.

Secondly, we see in clause 7 of the bill the introduction of new offences that are specifically directed to the use of human biological material against emergency workers. This is particularly vile behaviour, of course, and concerning conduct that emergency workers find themselves uniquely in the path of in the course of their duties. The new offence provision, which will be introduced by way of the insertion of new section 20A, will introduce an offence constituted by a person committing a prohibited act involving human biological material against a prescribed emergency worker acting in the course of their duties.

'Human biological material' is defined to include, unsurprisingly, blood, saliva, semen, faeces or urine. A prohibited act involving that material is constituted by the intentional causing of human biological material to come into contact with the victim or, alternatively, by the threatening of such conduct, that is, the threatening to bring human biological material into contact with a victim. This is an expansion of the scope of offending that may bring about sanction. They are very serious penalties that may be incurred by people who engage in this sort of conduct against emergency workers.

The penalty provision provides, in the case of actual harm being caused, for imprisonment of five years and, in any other case, imprisonment for four years. 'Harm' is defined to include both physical and mental harm. An important part of this new offence provision, unsurprisingly, is the element of knowledge. It will be a defence for the defendant to prove that they did not know and could not have reasonably been expected to know that their victim was a prescribed emergency worker.

Of course, we are talking about those workers who are often engaged in work around the clock at odd hours. These are people who almost invariably are conducting their official duties in uniform. The circumstances in which they are at risk of being the victim of an offence of this kind are very often, it might be expected, in circumstances where their duty, their responsibility and the nature of their work are very obviously portrayed. One can think of examples of how that is plainly obvious.

The nature of the bringing of biological material into contact with a victim, again unsurprisingly, contemplates involving spitting, throwing material, deliberately applying it to a person and conduct of that kind. That is set out in new section 20AA(4). I adverted at the commencement of my remarks to the extension of additional penalty provisions in relation to assaults and unlawful threats. Importantly, new section 20AB of the Criminal Law Consolidation Act will provide for an alternative verdict in the event that an offence contrary to section 20A not being proved. It will be open to find that an offence may be proved against section 20 as an alternative—that is, the section dealing with assaults.

As a result of these amendments, there is a necessary amendment to the Criminal Law (Forensic Procedures) Act 2007 so as to include an offence against new section 20AA for the purposes of defining a 'prescribed serious offence'. That is so as to ensure that the relevant forensic procedures can occur in the circumstances so as to prove the offence.

Secondly, it is important to note that the result of the amendments and the introduction of the new aggravated offences, as well as the new offence that is the subject of section 20AA, is that the current offence of assault police that is provided for in the Summary Offences Act will no longer be necessary. This will no longer be a summary offence.

As I set out at the outset, police, being the first category named as one of those prescribed emergency worker categories, are covered by the definition, covered by the new offences and covered by the new aggravated offences. As a result, the currently prescribed offence of assault police that is the subject of section 6(1) of the Summary Offences Act will be overtaken by the offences that are the subject of this bill.

Such assaults will now, and properly in my view, be brought in within those serious offences that are the subject of the Criminal Law Consolidation Act. As a result, section 6(1) is deleted and that is the subject of part 3 of the bill. With those remarks and again emphasising the extraordinary work that our emergency workers do for us in this state, I thank them and I commend this bill to the house.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. J.A.W. Gardner.

At 20:43 the house adjourned until Wednesday 5 June 2019 at 10:30.