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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2008-06-03 Daily Xml
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CRIMINAL LAW (SENTENCING) (VICTIMS OF CRIME) AMENDMENT BILL

Final Stages

Consideration in committee of the Legislative Council's message.

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: I move:

That the House of Assembly's disagreement to the Legislative Council's amendments be insisted on.

Mrs REDMOND: These amendments, of course, were passed by the other place with the support of the Liberal Party and, although I think we expressed in the debate in that place some concern with some of the wording, I think the intention was taken to be good. In moving his amendment, Mr Darley indicated that the difference between his amendment and the clause proposed by the government (this is in relation to the first one) is that it provides a wider definition of a prescribed summary offence. He also changed the reference to 'total incapacity' to a reference to 'serious harm'. I think, in essence, the government's position in the other house was that this would open the floodgates and there would be far too many people who would get the benefit of this legislation. The rest of the legislative councillors did not share that view and thought the floodgates argument was not a viable one.

The second of the amendments was one about which I had some misgivings, and I think again the Hon. Stephen Wade in the other place expressed a little concern about some of the wording. I think it was well-intended, although I can understand why the government would seek to avoid this provision. What the amendment sought to do was say that, if the court was going to impose an order of community service on an offender or impose a condition that someone perform community service in a bond and the court had been advised by the victim, in essence, that the victim would like the defendant to be required to perform community service in accordance with the section, the court could consider. I think the ultimate difficulty with the section was that, whereas we supported the fact that the court may make an order about what the community service should be in light of the victim's suggestions, the government took the view that it was going to allow just a bit too much input by the victims.

So, whilst I support the thrust of what the Hon. John Darley sought to move, and we supported it in the other place, there is certainly an argument to say that maybe it could have been better worded to achieve that intention, because I think it is not unreasonable to allow a victim to have some input in terms of suggesting what would be appropriate community service, and I think it needs to be obviously restricted not to doing it on private property—for all sorts of insurance reasons, if nothing else. Also, my experience of victims is that they actually do not want the offender anywhere near them, in any event. So I would expect the most likely outcome of allowing this sort of thing would be that victims would suggest, for instance, if they had been the subject of a graffiti attack, that the person would be required to spend some time cleaning off graffiti, or something like that. That does not mean that because the bill does not have this provision the court cannot order that, in any event. I think it would have been reasonable to allow the victims a little more input in the issue but, nevertheless, I understand that the government certainly has the numbers to control the vote in this house, and I will not take any more of the committee's time.

Motion carried.

Conference

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: I move:

That a message be sent to the Legislative Council requesting that a conference be granted to this house respecting some amendments in the bill, and that the other place be informed that, in the event of a conference being agreed to, this house will be represented at such conference by five managers, and that the Hon. M.J. Atkinson, Ms Ciccarello, Ms Fox, Mrs Redmond and Mr Williams be managers of the conference on the part of the house.

Motion carried.

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