Bills

Criminal Law Consolidation (Human Remains) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 8 September 2022.)

Mr ODENWALDER (Elizabeth) (11:01): I rise to speak on the Criminal Law Consolidation (Human Remains) Amendment Bill 2022 and, of course, indicate my support for the bill. I look forward to its passage through the house as soon as possible because it is an important bill and it does continue what I believe is the legacy of the Labor Party, certainly over the last 20 years, of being the natural party in this state of law and order.

We have seen time and time again that it is the Labor Party, the party currently in government, who has pursued strong law and order policies, not only for their own sake, not only in terms of punishment, but in terms of looking after the victims of crime. The current Attorney-General and the current Premier are certainly very strong on putting victims of crime firmly at the centre of our criminal justice system and pursuing policies to that end.

The previous Labor government, under Premier Rann and then under Premier Weatherill, pursued many reforms in this area under their respective attorneys-general. Initially, the establishment of the Commissioner for Victims' Rights enhanced the existing role of the coordinator of victims' rights and gave them more power, and certainly a stronger voice to government, and enhanced victims' propensity to have their needs met by the criminal justice system.

We also introduced mandatory minimum sentences for murder. Mandatory minimums are brought up from time to time for other offences. It is a very vexed area of law and it is very complex. Mandatory minimums for any offences are very complex and throw up all sorts of legal problems. We thought and we still believe, and we were supported by the opposition at the time, that murder itself is a serious enough offence that it does qualify for mandatory minimums.

On top of that, we substantially increased the penalties for many offences, and all the time the impetus for this was the protection of victims and the potential protection of victims along the way. On top of that, we also dramatically increased the number of active sworn police officers in this state, so by the end of the term of the Weatherill government we had the highest number of police officers per capita of any state in Australia—a number we are very proud of and I know we are very protective of and, to their credit, one the previous government pursued as well.

The end result of all this was that there was a 40 per cent reduction in the volume of crime certainly over the last 10 years of the Rann-Weatherill government. On most measures, it has continued to decline since then. Of course, COVID was the big interrupter, as it was for many things, but the 40 per cent reduction in volume of crime over that 10-year period is something we are still very proud of.

In opposition, we continued our approach to law and order in a similar vein. We often ignored the naysayers in terms of pursuing policies that we thought were correct and that we thought were victim centred, and it does not matter whether that victim is an ordinary member of the public or indeed an emergency worker or a police officer.

From opposition, and against the wishes of the government at the time, and against the votes of the government, we pursued a policy that ended up giving us the strongest assault police laws in the country—the highest penalties for assaulting police officers—and then we expanded it out to other workers: emergency workers, transport workers and so on. That is a legacy we are very proud of and it is a legacy that both the Premier and the Attorney-General wish to continue in government. We have already started to do this, and there is a big agenda coming in terms of all these measures. We have already started to legislate in this area, and a primary example is the Statutes Amendment (Child Sex Offences) Bill, which passed this parliament a month or two ago.

In summary, this bill progresses two important election commitments made by the government: to increase penalties for a range of child sex offences in the CLCA and also amend section 139A of the CLCA—commonly known as Carly's Law—to help police hunt online predators by strengthening existing laws and clamping down on offenders who see the internet as an avenue for their offending. It also updated the list of registrable offences under the Child Sex Offenders Registration Act.

By way of illustration, in terms of increasing offences, I will list some of them. Unlaw sexual intercourse with a child aged 14 to 16 went from 10 years to 15 years. Indecent assault went from eight and 10 years to 10 and 15 years. Sorry, sir, I should have been aware of the gallery. Acts of gross indecency with or in the presence of a person under 16 went from three years for a first offence to 15 years for any offence, regardless of a first or subsequent offence.

Child exploitation material, which for a long time I believe was not addressed properly by parliaments, went from 10 years to 15 years. That is the production and dissemination of child exploitation material. Possessing and accessing child exploitation material went from a first offence of five years and then graded up to 12 years, regardless of the age of the child. Possessing or producing or disseminating child sex dolls went from 10 years to 15 years.

Procuring sexual activity by a child or grooming a child went from 10 years and 12 years for a child over 14 to 12 years and 16 years for a child under 14. The use of children 14 years and over in commercial sexual services went from nine years to 15 years. Asking a child to provide commercial sexual services went from three and nine years to 12 and 15 years. When I am talking about the age gaps, there is an arbitrary age cut-off of 14 years in these figures. Financially benefiting from commercial sexual services went from two and five to four and 10 years.

The government is also currently investigating ways to ensure that victims' views on the impacts of crime are presented to the court unedited and unfiltered. At present, when a victim impact statement includes material that could be deemed inadmissible, that content may be edited out of the statement. Clearly, this is not good enough. The government has begun consultation with the legal sector and with victim advocates on changes to the Sentencing Act to remove any ability to edit a victim's statement, regardless of its content. We believe, and the Attorney-General—

Mr TEAGUE: Point of order.

The SPEAKER: The member for Heysen is seeking the call.

Mr TEAGUE: I am interested in the course of the debate more broadly in relation to criminal justice measures to hear about the government's program. It is a point of order pursuant to standing order 127(1), however. In the course of this debate, which has been confined to—

The SPEAKER: Member for Heysen, I think you have already spoken on this debate, but you are raising a point of order?

Mr TEAGUE: It is a point of order.

The SPEAKER: Very well.

Mr TEAGUE: I have indeed already spoken on the second reading, as have others who have confined themselves to the subject matter of the bill, so we are nearly there. I just ask that you direct the member to the subject matter of the bill.

An honourable member: What number is that?

Mr TEAGUE: 127(1).

The SPEAKER: Order! I will listen carefully. Some context, of course, is permissible.

Mr ODENWALDER: My interest is to contextualise the bill in terms of a broader suite of measures that really began 20-odd years ago, when the then Rann government decided that the criminal justice system should be more focused on victims. This is simply an extension of all those things I have mentioned, so I am hoping to contextualise, and I will get to the substance of the bill before us shortly.

Just briefly on victim impact statements, they are a victim's opportunity to present the impact of a crime on them, and there is no particular reason why that should be edited or filtered through other processes before it reaches the court. The court can, of course, decide what is admissible and what is inadmissible, but we certainly believe that the presentation of the initial victim impact statement should be a statement of that victim.

Reforming the current practice around the editing of statements will go a long way to supporting victims during their engagement with justice proceedings and, as I said, judges and magistrates are well placed to decide the admissibility or not of evidence. The bill before us today builds on this legacy of putting victims at the centre of our criminal justice system. It also builds on Labor's legacy, as I said in my initial remarks, as the natural party of law and order in this state.

It is remarkable to me that until now there have been no specific offences in South Australia that prohibit a person from concealing or interfering with human remains. It is remarkable. In opposition, we did listen to the families of victims. They are already dealing with untold grief, and their passage through the criminal justice system should, under the circumstances, be made as easy as possible. Under the current legislation, if someone does conceal or hide the body of a loved one, it extends the horrific aspects of the criminal justice system potentially eternally. In opposition, we pledged to help them and to address this failing.

The changes in this bill will ensure that offenders no longer benefit from hiding a body and thereby impede the criminal investigation process by destroying valuable evidence. Hiding or concealing a body can have a significant impact on the ability of police to prepare a full case for prosecution.

The Criminal Law Consolidation (Human Remains) Amendment Bill introduces four new offences into the CLCA. It should be noted—and others may have noted this—that this is almost a duplicate of what was introduced in the last session of government by the then opposition and, I believe, was supported and indeed amended by the then government.

The first offence is probably the most serious, that is, of concealing, mutilating or otherwise interfering with human remains when the intended or actual outcome is that remains are more difficult to find or to conceal the commission of an offence. This clearly has an impact on the ability of police to gather evidence and it can, in some cases, mean the difference between a successful prosecution and a potential miscarriage of justice. Appropriately then, the maximum penalty for this offence is severe, with 15 years' imprisonment.

Another important aspect of this legislation is that, when the offence is committed by the person who caused the death of the victim, the penalty for the offence will be served cumulatively, that is, on top of any other sentence the offender has received for causing the death of the victim. Of course, when the penalty is life that provision is largely redundant.

In the case of life sentences, the appropriate non-parole period that must be served by the offender would be informed by any additional suffering. Again, in some cases that gets back to the victim impact statements and also any suffering that may have been caused by the act of concealing, mutilating or otherwise interfering with human remains, where the intended or actual outcome is that the remains are more difficult to find.

The bill also contemplates a more general offence of concealing, mutilating or otherwise interfering with human remains for any other reason than that described above, and it also carries a maximum penalty of 15 years' imprisonment. The bill further creates a new general offence that, if a person finds a human body or human remains, or what they suspect to be human remains, and fails to report this to police, they are committing an offence.

Clearly, there must be an expectation that a member of the public, whether they are an actual offender or not, has a duty to report the finding of a body to allow police to properly investigate and ascertain whether an offence has indeed been committed. Should this bill pass, this deliberate omission will be punishable by a maximum of five years' imprisonment.

Finally, and related to the previous offence, this bill creates an offence of finding human remains and then acting to conceal those remains. That also carries a maximum penalty of five years' imprisonment. So the measures in this bill, which of course I support and I hope the opposition supports, serve two purposes: they substantially assist police and prosecutors in identifying and investigating murders of similar offences, and they are also unapologetically aimed at limiting the unimaginable suffering of the families of murder victims. These measures are aimed at both murderers and those who, for whatever reason, conceal or do not report the actions of murderers because an offender need not have been the killer of the deceased for them to be prosecuted for one or more of these offences.

I am advised that the bill has the support of the Homicide Victims Support Group. I have had the opportunity to meet with the Homicide Victims Support Group on several occasions, along with the member for Florey. It has the support of the Commissioner for Victims' Rights, a person for whom I have a great deal of respect, and of course it is supported by SAPOL. Additionally, the families of Daniel Hind and Allison Nitschke have been advocates for reform in this area for quite some time.

As I said from the outset, this bill not only continues Labor's legacy as the natural party of law and order in this state but also consolidates our position on this side of the parliament as the party of victims' rights and of putting victims squarely at the centre of the criminal justice process. I commend the bill.