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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2007-10-18 Daily Xml
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ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOUR ORDERS

Mr HANNA (Mitchell) (15:29): I speak today about ASBOs. When I say very clearly and strongly that we should stop ASBOs coming into this country, I am not making a statement about immigration: I am referring to a phenomenon in the legal and civil society in Britain called the antisocial behaviour order or ASBO for short. Its genesis was in the late 1990s when the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 was brought into being, and the ability of community members to go to a magistrate and have antisocial behaviour orders taken out against their fellow neighbours and fellow citizens was created. The ASBOs were designed to protect communities from annoying, harassing, distressing behaviour which might not actually have been criminal at the time.

There are several types of ASBOs. They can relate to either civil or criminal matters. There can be interim ASBOs as well. They can apply to adults or children, and, indeed, many have been applied to children as young as 10. Over the eight years that ASBOs have been applied in Britain, about 5,500 have been brought into being—just under 800 per year—but the rate is rapidly increasing. Nearly 900 were granted between January and March of 2007. The breach rate at the end of 2003 was 42 per cent; so, people do not seem to be able to keep to them very well.

By 2005, 55 per cent of adults and 46 per cent of youths who breached their ASBO were taken into custody immediately. One of the fundamental objections is that we are talking about behaviour initially which is not criminal, and yet it can say readily result in incarceration. The burden of proof has not been proof beyond reasonable doubt; it has been judged on the civil standard of behaviour. Generally, one person's say-so can be enough to have someone receive an ASBO and therefore be a risk of breach and hence incarceration. There are considerable concerns in New Zealand about the targeting of racial and religious subgroups. There are also huge sentencing discrepancies across the country. For a example, in Manchester there were five times more ASBOs issued than in Liverpool and London. Camden issues eight for every one that its neighbouring borough of Islington issues. We do not want this sort of thing here.

Let me give a couple of examples. There was a chap called David Boag, who liked to watch the movie An American Werewolf in London, then jump around his living room howling or dancing with his Christmas tree. He breached an ASBO that said he should not howl, and got locked up for four months. There was also a prostitute who was issued with an ASBO which had stated that she should not carry condoms, and the punishment for being caught with one could be five years in prison. There was a 27 year old woman who received an ASBO for answering her front door in her underwear. This offended her neighbours; they were also offended by her gardening in her backyard in a bikini. I wonder why they were looking over the fence.

There was also a Bristol publican, Leroy Trought, who received a two-year ASBO for a sign that said 'The porking yard' after local Muslims found the reference to the flesh of swine objectionable. There was also an 87 year old man who earned an ASBO for using sarcasm. When it was it was alleged that he had breached the ASBO, the magistrate fortunately found that the breach was not sufficiently serious to warrant incarceration—or perhaps he was not being sufficiently sarcastic.

It is almost fantastical. You can not believe this sort of thing is happening in a society which generally has some regard for human rights and due process under the law, but it is a fact in Britain. And we do not want it here. I sound today this note of caution. I am sure that articles or proposals have come across the desk of the Attorney-General. Please do not be tempted, I would say to any member, to entertain thoughts of having that sort of rubbish in Australia. It would be a backward step.

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