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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-10-17 Daily Xml
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STANDING COUNCIL ON LAW AND JUSTICE

The Hon. S.W. KEY (Ashford) (14:35): My question is directed to the Attorney-General. Attorney, can you inform the house about the recent Standing Council on Law and Justice meeting in Brisbane and what was on the agenda for that meeting?

The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Planning, Minister for Business Services and Consumers) (14:35): Yes, and I thank the honourable member for her question. Members of the house may be interested to know that there was recently a meeting in Brisbane of the state and territory attorneys, followed up by a meeting of all attorneys including the commonwealth Attorney. The State and Territory Attorneys-General (STAG) meet as a result of an initiative that we put forward some time ago in South Australia because many of the things that are of concern to us in South Australia are also of great concern for people in other parts of the country, and attorneys-general around the country from the territories and states have a great deal in common, irrespective of whatever political affiliation might be attached to their particular government.

Indeed, we make a regular practice of discussing things that might be of assistance to one another, and I have to say the level of cooperation between the state and territory attorneys has improved considerably since we have been having these STAG meetings. What has happened is that we are receiving very useful assistance and advice from other states and they are receiving and gratefully accepting it from us.

Just to give you some idea of some of the issues that were dealt with at the STAG and subsequent SCLJ meeting, they include topics such as antisocial behaviour and its management; ways of minimising alcohol fuelled violence, which is a matter of concern to all of us and people here may be interested to know that New South Wales has done a lot of interesting work in that area; ways to combat the use of social media that facilitates antisocial behaviour; organised crime, and in particular interjurisdictional issues relating to that; domestic violence; and the prevalence of synthetic drugs, and in particular synthetic cannabinoids.

The attorneys also discussed how the justice system can better respond to the considerable challenges presented by new technology and the new media when this coincides with antisocial behaviour such as gatecrashing, cyber trolling, hate groups and also the impact it has on the capacity of the courts to deal with things like suppression orders. I am sure that most people here would be aware of the difficulties that Victoria was presented with a few weeks ago when that appalling murder occurred and social media meant that there was a whole range of things put in the public domain which may ultimately make it difficult for a person to get a fair trial, but that is a matter we will see in due course.

These meetings have been very productive and the across-jurisdiction cooperation is excellent and it has been very useful, and South Australia benefits from this because we do actually receive assistance from our colleagues in other states, irrespective of their political colour.

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