Bail Conditions

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD (15:14): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking questions of the Attorney-General regarding the monitoring of bail conditions for alleged rapists and other criminals here in South Australia.

Leave granted.

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD: On the weekend, it was reported that an 18-year-old man faced the Adelaide Magistrates Court charged with two counts of rape and breaching his bail conditions. The man previously had six other charges with the same circumstances surrounding his alleged offending in every instance, including the most recent where he allegedly lured victims to his home under false pretences via social media apps. The accused was on bail when he allegedly committed his latest crimes whereby one of the conditions of his release was that he refrain from using social media or dating apps, which he simply ignored. My questions to the Attorney-General are:

1. What measures are in place to ensure bail compliance here in South Australia?

2. What percentage of offenders breach bail conditions in South Australia?

3. How much longer will we tolerate such blatant bail breaches?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector) (15:15): I thank the honourable member for his question. Certainly, bail and their conditions is a method that is used for a number of reasons, but one of its primary functions and the reason we have bail and conditions is to ensure future attendance when someone is due to come to court. The other option, when someone is charged with a crime, if not bailed, is to be remanded in custody and be incarcerated prior to a hearing for a determination of guilty or not guilty.

There are a number of ways that people are given bail conditions. Police bail is one way, another is court-ordered bail. The authorities in both cases impose conditions and take into consideration—based on legislation that, over many decades, parliaments that have seen governments of both Liberal and Labor have implemented and modified over time.

These sorts of things, like imposing bail conditions, like imposing sentences once someone has been found guilty and a sentence imposed, is balancing the considerations under various pieces of legislation. I think the police, in monitoring and providing for police bail and enforcing court-ordered bail, and the courts themselves, in deciding on bail conditions, do an admirable job of balancing the considerations that we as a parliament, both now and parliaments of the past, have set down on those sorts of conditions.

I am concerned when I see someone breaching a bail condition. I don't think any magistrate, any judge or any police officer, when contemplating bail conditions, wants to see someone breach those conditions. I have confidence, when they are breached and are detected, that they are dealt with appropriately by the authorities: the police or the court that ordered the conditions themselves.