DRUG CONVICTIONS

In reply to the Hon. D.G.E. HOOD (25 September 2007).

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY (Minister for Police, Minister for Mineral Resources Development, Minister for Urban Development and Planning): The Attorney-General has provided the following information:

On 25 September, 2007, the Hon. D.G.E. Hood MLC asked two questions of the Minister for Police on behalf of the Attorney-General, arising from the case of Mr Hue Van Le who had been sentenced the week before for the offence of possessing heroin for sale.

The honourable member’s first question, ‘When will South Australian judges stop handing out pathetic sentences to convicted, hard-core, repeat-offending drug dealers and actually put them in gaol where they belong?’ is plainly rhetorical and does not seek an answer from any minister. It is an expression of the member’s own personal opinion and nothing more.

As for the honourable member’s second question ‘If South Australian judges are too soft or incompetent to put convicted drug dealers in gaol, when will the government intervene with legislation that will force them to do so?’, the government has no plans to amend the Criminal Law (Sentencing) Act 1988 to impose a mandatory sentence that would see all drug dealers gaoled regardless of the circumstances of the crime.

The Criminal Law (Sentencing) Act 1988 appropriately gives sentencing courts discretion to take account of the circumstances of the particular case. In the case of Mr Hue, His Honour in sentencing took into account the defendant’s history as a refugee, his schizophrenia, his addiction to heroin and attempts to overcome that addiction, as well as the small quantity of heroin involved, that is, less than one-tenth of one gram. His Honour noted that the defendant had initially spent 15 days in custody and since then had been on bail for almost two years, during which time he had complied with bail conditions, including reporting weekly to police.

His Honour said:

The offence to which you have pleaded guilty is a serious one. However, your offending is at the very lowest end of the scale. The offence occurred, as I have said, at a time when you were addicted to heroin. Two of the packages of heroin contained only traces of powder. The total weight of the material found in the eight balloons was less than 1 gram. Of that only .06 of a gram was heroin. The drug had been cut to the extent where it was very low grade. The extent to which the drug has been cut is often an indicator of the level of commerciality in which a person charged with this offence is engaged. I accept the submission put on your behalf that this was at the very lowest end of the offending of this nature.

Nevertheless the offence is one which calls for a sentence of imprisonment. The effect of drugs in the community is well known and there is a need for general deterrence to seek to prevent commercial dealing in drugs.

His Honour sentenced the defendant to 12 months’ imprisonment. The sentence was suspended upon the defendant’s entering into a good-behaviour bond for two years, the conditions of which included that the defendant not use illicit drugs, be supervised by a community corrections officer and comply with directions as to treatment, counselling and urinalysis to detect drugs.

There will always be sentences that strike some members as too lenient or too harsh. I do not believe, however, that the case to which the honourable member has referred discloses any fault in our sentencing legislation.