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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2008-05-06 Daily Xml
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CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES (CONTROLLED DRUGS, PRECURSORS AND CANNABIS) AMENDMENT BILL

Committee Stage

In committee (resumed on motion).

(Continued from page 3152.)

Clauses 2 to 11 passed.

Clause 12.

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: I understand the member for Heysen's attitude to the specification of drugs and equipment in regulations. However, good legislative practice means that it is not right for legislation to contain a list of light globes of various kinds. For example, it must be said that, although the level of scrutiny for regulations is less than if it is contained in a bill, there is scrutiny through the Legislative Review Committee and the right to disallow in either house of parliament.

Mrs Redmond: Happily, I am a member of that committee.

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: And happily the member for Heysen is a member of that committee. So, I do not think that it would be appropriate to specify in an act of parliament, just to give some examples pertinent to this bill, metal halide, 400 and 1,000-watt globes; high-pressure sodium, 400, 600 and 1,000-watt globes; and mercury vapour, 400-watt globes.

I do not think that it would be appropriate to specify in an act of parliament, as the member for Heysen advocates, condensers; distillation heads; heating mantles; rotary evaporators; reaction vessels, including a reaction vessel under repair, or a modification of a reaction vessel; splash heads, including a splash head under repair, or parts for a splash head; manual or mechanical tablet press, including a tablet press under repair; a modification of a tablet press and parts for a tablet press; a manual or mechanical encapsulator, including an encapsulator under repair; or a modification of an encapsulator and parts for an encapsulator.

I hope that the committee can see that it would not be good legislative practice to include that in an act of parliament, that it is far more appropriate to include that in regulations and that, if the Parliamentary Liberal Party, the Greens or the Democrats think that such things should not be prescribed by regulation, they should move a disallowance motion.

If the member for Heysen had a little experience of being in government (and that has not yet been her good fortune, but it comes to those who wait), she would not be criticising the government for making provision for these things to be prescribed by regulation.

Fashions change in our drug community, and therefore what is put in an act of parliament could very soon be out of date, and it is very awkward to come back here and to move amendments to an act of parliament to keep up with what equipment criminals now use. I urge the committee to stick with this version that the government has put before it and to resist the argument of the member for Heysen that this kind of minutiae should be in an act of parliament.

Mrs REDMOND: I note first of all that there is no need for the Attorney to so enthusiastically urge the committee, because we have not moved an amendment. I was merely making a general comment about the legislation.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: She who is silent is saved.

Mrs REDMOND: The Attorney calls at me across the chamber, 'She who is silent is saved,' and I think his preferred modus operandi would be for him to introduce a bill and for me to stand up and say, 'Yes, we agree' and then we could be done with it. I actually like the alternative to 'She who is silent is saved,' which I was calling to the Attorney across the chamber in our previous session to the effect that 'Evil thrives when good men say nothing.' I think that that is equally—

Members interjecting:

Mrs REDMOND: I use the term 'men', member for Florey, because my high school principal enforced upon us all that in grammar the male form embraces the female form, and the Attorney and I, being the pedants of this house, will use grammar correctly so far as we are able to. I accept what the Attorney says, that in this particular case he has mounted an excellent argument in respect of why these things need to be in the regulations.

However, I would say that, as a general rule, it would be appropriate to at least indicate the types of things so that one could, for instance, put in the generic 'heating equipment, lights' and so on used for the production of cannabis, amphetamines or whatever it might be, and that you could put the generic into the legislation and the more specific into the regulations.

In general, I take the view that it is much easier to read legislation if we actually say what we are talking about in the legislation. When I want to read about a particular thing and I open a piece of legislation, the most frustrating thing of all is when the definitions are by reference to those appearing in other legislation, particularly commonwealth legislation, and then you have to go through the process of hunting down what the legislation said at the time when your legislation at state level was passed, and whether there have been any changes and whether those changes are thereby incorporated.

I think that there are some inherent problems with legislation not being able to stand by itself and be read and understood by itself. That said, I accept what the Attorney says about the need to specify, because there are changing nomenclatures, there are changing fashions, and there could be different things which would need to be prescribed with reasonable regularity. I simply reiterate that there is no need for anything to be urged because we are not proposing any amendment. I simply made a comment about the nature of the legislative draft in general.

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: The member for Heysen felt compelled to speak—

The Hon. K.O. Foley interjecting:

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: It is like Sumner and Griffin in the old days. And, in speaking, the member for Heysen advocated that the legislation should be expressed in terms of 'equipment that is used for'. And there the member for Heysen stumbles because, in prescribing in the act 'equipment that is used for', it then casts on the police and the prosecution the burden of proving beyond reasonable doubt the purpose for which the equipment is used. That is what we are trying to avoid by this bill and our proposed course of conduct with the regulations.

Clause passed.

Clause 13 passed.

Clause 14.

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: As we have seen with the Nemer case and the question of parole for convicted murderers, the member for Heysen leads the Parliamentary Liberal Party into a position that the government should not direct appeals against what the government believes are manifestly inadequate sentences—or at least the Attorney-General should not so direct—and that the government should not in Executive Council advise the Governor to reject a recommendation of the Parole Board to release a convicted murderer, no matter what the circumstances.

Here we see the member for Heysen leading the Parliamentary Liberal Party into a position that we should not as a government or as a parliament interfere with judicial discretion. I disagree with her. On the question of whether traffickers of amphetamines should be sentenced at the mid-range of penalty or at the high range of penalty, the Rann government has a view. The Rann government is putting to the parliament a view that the practice of judges sentencing amphetamine offenders in the mid-range of penalty is wrong and that those offenders should be sentenced in the high range of offending.

The Rann government thinks that amphetamines, ecstasy and ice are a scourge. We disagree with the Hon. Sandra Kanck, who believes that ecstasy ought to have been offered to the victims of the Port Lincoln bushfires so they did not feel so blue. We believe that parliament should give the judges instruction on this in broad terms. We believe that is the function of the parliament. Actually, I think most judges would agree with me. It is very strange, indeed, that the member for Heysen leads the Parliamentary Liberal Party into the position that parliament should not be telling the judges what it—parliament—thinks is appropriate sentencing.

We know that the member for Hammond recently was telling parliament that it and the government should not respond to the complaints of members of the public about manifestly inadequate sentences. The member for Hammond is on the record as saying that for a government to do that is like responding to a spoilt, crying child at the checkout. Well, respectfully, I disagree with the member for Hammond. This bill gives judges an indication of the range in which they ought to be sentencing for amphetamines, ice and ecstasy. We should do it, and neither the member for Heysen nor the member for Hammond should quibble with it.

Mrs REDMOND: Once again, I am compelled to respond to the strange remarks by the Attorney-General, who seems to want to make something out of my comments that was never said, let alone intended. I draw the attention of the Attorney-General to his comments in the second reading explanation on this bill. I point out that, in fact, there is virtually nothing said about what he now tells me is the case. I will read what the second reading explanation says about this issue—and the issue we are dealing with is what the courts must not take into account, and that is the thrust of my comment in the earlier discussion. What the second reading explanation delivered—theoretically delivered, at least—by the Attorney-General—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: I always make some remarks before seeking leave. I do that as a courtesy to the house.

Mrs REDMOND: The Attorney correctly states that he always makes some remarks before seeking leave to insert the remainder of his speech in Hansard, and therefore this particular bit probably does appear as part of what he said before seeking leave. It is at the very beginning. He talks about changing the law in accordance with some election pledges, and he says:

In particular, it increases the penalties against the cultivation of hydroponic cannabis and requires the courts to treat amphetamines alongside the most serious category of illicit drugs.

So he says that at the very beginning: that is in the second paragraph. A little lower down there are three dot points under the heading 'Election Promises', and the second dot point states:

Legislate to ensure courts treat the manufacture, sale and distribution of amphetamines, ecstasy and similar drugs at the upper level of the penalty range rather than the middle.

When one reads through the rest of the explanation, there is no further reference to that whatsoever.

Progress reported; committee to sit again.


[Sitting suspended from 13:02 to 14:00]


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