CRIMINAL LAW (SENTENCING) (VICTIMS OF CRIME) AMENDMENT BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 12 February 2008. Page 1635.)

The Hon. M. PARNELL (21:36): The Greens will be supporting this bill, as we have supported the other bills in the suite of legislation dealing with the victims of crime. One thing that I want to put on the record is to state my disagreement with the Attorney-General when he said in the media last year that the Greens would be opposing a bill that recognised the victims of crime because that is the sort of thing that we do. I had a brief correspondence with the Attorney-General and reminded him that we had supported the other bills and that we will be supporting this bill, as well.

The nature of the criminal justice system is that we collectively prosecute crimes on behalf of the state, and I think that is important. If the victims were prosecuting crimes we would have very much private interests superseding the community interests. We prosecute crimes on behalf of the community, but that does not mean that the victims of crime have no role. They do need to have a voice in sentencing criminals. In judging the appropriate penalty, our courts need to be aware of the impact of criminal activity on individuals and groups in the community, and on the community itself.

This legislation acknowledges that those rights deserve to be entrenched in our sentencing laws and our criminal laws; and that is an appropriate place to insert those rights. It would not be appropriate to give the victims a greater right than the right to explain to the sentencing decision maker what the impact of the crime is. If we were to give victims a greater right than that, no doubt we would have the death penalty back, because the needs of individuals for retribution, their desire to see criminals punished, may be out of proportion with the needs and desires of the community as a whole to see criminals treated appropriately. With those words, the Greens will be supporting the second reading of this bill.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. I.K. Hunter.