Bail Violations

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD (15:14): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking questions of the Attorney-General regarding bail violations in South Australia.

Leave granted.

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD: Recently, members would be aware that The Advertiser reported that it has discovered a secret online Nazi group chat whereby accounts in the names of senior National Socialist Network figures from that network appear to be communicating despite specific bail conditions ruling that out.

Although the former group chats on the Telegram program that they are using ceased operating following the bail conditions being imposed by the magistrate, following the investigations by The Advertiser—and kudos to them for discovering this—the investigations have found that a new Telegram chat subsequently emerged featuring accounts using pseudonyms of the various members. To put it simply: the point is that the chats appear to have continued in breach of the specific bail conditions. My questions to the Attorney are:

1. How has adherence to the bail conditions by these members been monitored—and if the Attorney doesn't want to answer on the specific case more generally, does the Attorney have confidence that these methods are adequate in light of the evidence that has been found by The Advertiser?

2. What action has been taken by the state government in response to the discoveries made by The Advertiser, and what are they going to do to fix it?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector, Special Minister of State) (15:15): I thank the honourable member for his questions and his ongoing and sustained interest in community safety in South Australia. There are a number of elements to the questions that he has asked, in particular in relation to a couple of recent incidents we saw in South Australia.

I do acknowledge that we have not seen examples of the frequency and the extremism of behaviour we have seen interstate, but we did see earlier this year a couple of examples of those who espouse views of intolerance and hatred towards others that are completely at odds with the views of nearly all South Australians in what is a pretty tolerant and multicultural society.

This parliament has taken a pretty strong stance. We have banned things like the public display of Nazi symbols and Nazi salutes, and I understand that some of the actions that we saw last month saw those laws being used and people arrested for those sorts of behaviours. We are very clear as a parliament and I think as a society that this sort of behaviour won't be tolerated and is unacceptable.

The other parts to the question relate largely to making sure that when there are conditions placed on any person, particularly bail conditions about how people communicate with each other, how enforceable is it and what authorities do to enforce that. The law enforcement authorities are very proactive in monitoring these sorts of groups. They work very closely with their federal counterparts in monitoring these sorts of groups. But it is true that technology changes and evolves rapidly and that law enforcement agencies adapt to those circumstances.

We have seen very successfully in recent history law enforcement agencies from around the world using technology, particularly with the many Ironside arrests that have been made—with the AN0M tech messaging technology law enforcement were able to use to investigate and make those arrests. But it is an ever-developing field. Law enforcement agencies have shown a very strong ability to be able to adapt, to be able to change what they do as technology changes and emerges, but technology is changing more rapidly as time progresses so it is something law enforcement agencies are continuing to adapt to. I think that was one of the questions.

I have confidence in our law enforcement agencies, in what they do and how they go about detecting and monitoring breaches of the law, and breaches of bail conditions are breaches of the law.