Bills

Sentencing (Limits on Home Detention) Amendment Bill

Introduction and First Reading

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Leader of the Opposition) (16:36): Obtained leave and introduced a bill for an act to amend the Sentencing Act 2017. Read a first time.

Second Reading

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Leader of the Opposition) (16:37): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

This bill amends the Sentencing Act to do a very important thing: it removes the possibility of home detention for child sex offenders. This bill, in almost identical form, was moved last year in the lower house by the Labor opposition. It was moved in response to great community concern, particularly in the Pasadena area, and concern from victims of notorious paedophile Vivian Deboo.

Last year, Mr Deboo was found guilty of horrific crimes and applied for home detention to be served in lieu of a prison sentence. Under the Sentencing Act there are certain classes of offences, including murder and treason, that are excluded from the possibility of a sentence of home detention. The Labor opposition believes that serious child sex offenders like Vivian Deboo ought to be excluded from that possibility as well.

As I said, the Labor opposition moved this bill in the lower house last year and on numerous occasions the government has used its numbers in the lower house to prevent the bill being considered by the lower house. That is why the bill is before us now. Fortunately for the community, the court did not grant Vivian Deboo home detention but instead ordered that his sentence be served in prison. However, Mr Deboo has now appealed that sentence and is seeking on appeal to serve his sentence of imprisonment on home detention.

The one change that is made in the bill that is now before the Legislative Council to the bill in the other place is that the bill in the Legislative Council makes very clear that it applies no matter what stage of the process someone is up to, so it makes clear that this bill applies to Vivian Deboo, with his appeal pending to serve his sentence on home detention.

The people of South Australia expect their government to keep the community safe and, unfortunately, the Attorney-General, the member for Bragg, has not always fulfilled this promise in her first year of serving as Attorney-General. In this case, the Attorney-General has not allowed debate on this very important bill in the House of Assembly, which is why it has now been introduced in the Legislative Council, and we have seen it in other areas as well.

Many members may recall that in June last year a notorious paedophile, Colin Humphrys, was being considered for release. Colin Humphrys has a history of offending across five states over 30 years—horrific sexual offences against children. He was declared unwilling and/or unable to control his sexual instincts and ordered to serve indefinite detention. Colin Humphrys made an application for release, even though medical experts said nothing had changed in terms of his willingness or ability to control his sexual instincts.

We as an opposition thought that was unacceptable. We drafted legislation that required someone who is serving indefinite detention, who has been declared unwilling or unable to control their sexual instincts, to demonstrate to the court that that has changed, to make sure that such an offender has to demonstrate to the court that they are now able and willing to control their sexual instincts.

We had that legislation drafted, and on Monday morning in June of last year the Attorney-General went on radio and said that that legislation was not necessary. She said she would prefer to leave it up to the courts. She said, in effect, that she would gamble it, take the risk, and let the court decide, and if Colin Humphrys was released from prison, unwilling and unable to control his sexual instincts, well so be it. We thought that was an atrocious lapse in judgement, and I think that most of the Attorney-General's colleagues agreed. By the end of that day, she had to do a complete reversal of her view. I suspect cabinet had forced her into making a complete change of heart, and instead introduced legislation almost identical to that which the Labor Opposition introduced.

I think we can be thankful that the Attorney-General was forced into that capitulation to support Labor's views that a sexual offender, serving indefinite detention because they are unwilling or unable to control their sexual instincts, should have to prove that they are now willing or able to control their sexual instincts.

That Colin Humphrys matter was before court again only last week, where the government made submissions to court that they had one of two specialist medical reports required, but that they did not have the second report and that it would be a further six months before the second report would be furnished to the court. That matter was then adjourned for one week, where it was foreshadowed that Mr Humphrys' legal team would make submissions that he ought to be released because of the government's inaction and inability, after more than six months, to get the second report. It was an abject failure on the part of the government, which knew for half a year that a second report was required but had not furnished it to the court.

We learned that, at 7.17 this morning, the DPP informed the court that they would now have that second report, not finalised in six months as they previously informed the court, but by early March. That begs the question: if a report could be done in a few weeks, why on earth was the Attorney-General not doing her job properly and making sure that that report was done in the six or seven months in which she knew it had to be done?

The Attorney-General is spending her time fighting with judicial officers; disagreeing with the ICAC commissioner about who said what; making comments about the River Murray-Darling Basin commissioner, which led to apologies being requested; and, most recently, having an unedifying fight with the Chief Justice over her entertaining reintroducing the post nominal QCs.

These seem to be what the Attorney-General is concentrating on. These are her priorities. They are not the priorities, I think, of the community and not the priorities of South Australians. I think the community expects the first priority of an attorney-general is to keep the community safe and especially to keep the community safe from dangerous sex offenders. That is what our bill aims to do, and if the government is not prepared to debate the bill in the House of Assembly then we should have the opportunity in the Legislative Council so that the people of South Australia know that this parliament considers the safety of our children a very top priority.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. T.J. Stephens.