House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-10-27 Daily Xml

Contents

SERIOUS REPEAT OFFENDERS

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg) (15:20): Will the Attorney-General advise how many adults have been declared serious repeat offenders since the Criminal Law (Sentencing) Act became operational in 2003.

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON (Croydon—Attorney-General, Minister for Justice, Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Minister for Veterans' Affairs) (15:20): Far fewer than I would like. In fact, I was talking about this issue to a judge not long ago and he said that he did not use the declaration provisions because he gave them a just sentence, independently of using those provisions. Is the opposition advocating that I compel the judges to use the serious repeat offender provisions? We are dealing with a parliamentary Liberal Party which is unrecognisable to those people who used to support it. Just when the Democrats were going out backwards from state parliament, the parliamentary Liberal Party adopted the Democrats' criminal justice policies.