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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-11-13 Daily Xml
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STATUTES AMENDMENT AND REPEAL (BUDGET 2012) (NO. 2) BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 1 November 2012.)

The Hon. I.F. EVANS (Davenport) (12:13): The Treasurer will be happy to know this will not take long. This is the reintroduction of the Statutes Amendment and Repeal (Budget 2012) Bill with a couple of very obvious amendments. One is that the biosecurity levy that was outlined in the previous bill is not in this bill, having previously been defeated in the upper house.

The budget matter in relation to the housing grants was subject to another bill and, therefore, does not appear in this bill. The remainder of the bill is the same as previously debated, so I am not going to hold the house redebating something we have already debated, which really leaves simply the one matter which the opposition has opposed on two previous occasions and will be opposing on this occasion, that is, the matter in relation to police court costs.

I thank the Treasurer for arranging briefings the other day, and I apologise to the officers for putting them through two briefings due to a misunderstanding by my office. I apologise to the officers for taking up twice the amount of time than they probably needed to in regard to briefing the opposition on this matter.

In relation to the change to court costs in this bill, you might recall, Mr Deputy Speaker, that over the last couple of years there has been a number of attempts to bring in recovery of court costs. In the 2011 bill, there were amendments to establish a presumption that costs would not be awarded against police in a summary prosecution, and that was defeated. This year, in the 2012 bill, there was provision that would have provided that costs would not be awarded against any party to the proceedings for an indictable offence except in special circumstances, and that was defeated. This is the third iteration of this matter. I am not going to hold the house long because, ultimately, this will be sorted out in the other place and all the rest of the bill has been debated significantly.

We understand that as of today the Legal Services Commission advice to the shadow attorney is that, in the last 18 months, there has been no consultation with the Legal Services Commission by Treasury regarding the impact of this on the Legal Services Commission. That is why the shadow attorney has suggested that the net saving to the budget may be smaller than the Treasury predicts because, the Legal Services Commission being publicly funded, if there is an impact on the Legal Services Commission's funding, they are going to have to get extra money from the public purse and therefore the saving is less, unless of course the Treasurer is intending to impose whatever that cost is onto the Legal Services Commission as a savings measure.

There are a number of interesting points regarding this particular proposal. Citizens are presumed to be innocent until proven guilty, and the court costs allowed under this bill are capped at $2,000. The preparation of some defence cases may be complex, and the shadow attorney advises me that they may well exceed the $2,000 cap. A trial in the Magistrates Court can cost between $3,500 to $5,000.

The Legal Services Commission suggests that the meaning of the word 'dismissed' in the context of the amendments is not clear and may include where the trial proceeds to acquittal and the charges are therefore dismissed. In that case, the allowable amount of $2,000 would be insufficient to meet the cost of the full trial (which is the Legal Services Commission's comments to the shadow attorney, as I understand it).

The bill lays down criteria which are required to be considered before a court order is made. It would be 'virtually impossible for either the defence or the court to ascertain whether or not the prosecution had breached any of the criteria' (that is what the Legal Services Commission suggests) and they would, 'appear to make it difficult for a defendant to get any costs order in their favour' (which is what the Law Society of South Australia suggests in relation to that point).

There is concern raised by some that it will encourage prosecutions without merit. There is an issue in relation to whether there are actually greater prospects of cost savings through efficiencies with police prosecutions. The Legal Services Commission says that cost reductions should be achieved through stricter adjudication of matters brought to trial by the police, thus avoiding court orders rather than transferring the cost of the inefficiency to other parties. Interestingly enough, the Law Society endorses those comments.

In the briefing by police to the shadow attorney on the bill, they indicated that over the last six years the proportion of briefs attracting costs orders had increased from about 0.7 per cent to about 1.8 per cent of briefs. The costs ordered increased from around $747,000 to about $3.137 million, a real terms increase of some 351 per cent.

Other than that, I have been briefed by the officers and the only questions I really have to the Treasurer (and I do not need to go into committee for this: the Treasurer can just answer it) are these. Why has the Legal Services Commission not been consulted on these matters, and what is the financial impact on the Legal Services Commission? If there is a negative impact on the Legal Services Commission, is it the intention of the government to provide extra budget to the Legal Services Commission so it is not financially worse off, or is it the intention that it be made to find that savings out of its normal budget allocation?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Treasurer, Minister for Workers Rehabilitation, Minister for Defence Industries, Minister for Veterans' Affairs) (12:20): I thank the opposition for expediting the passage of the bill. With regard to consultation, my understanding is that there has been consultation undertaken at an officer level between the police and the Legal Services Commission over the various manifestations of this savings attempt that has been brought. It is something that has been consulted on at an officer level, I am advised.

Secondly, the annual report of the Legal Services Commission indicates that the revenue to the Legal Services Commission from these awards of costs is in the vicinity of $150,000. I do not have at hand the total budget figure that is provided to the Legal Services Commission every year, but it is certainly in the many millions of dollars, so we are talking about a tiny fraction of the total revenue received by the Legal Services Commission.

In any case, I am advised that the overwhelming majority of the award of costs that are received by the Legal Services Commission are well within the vicinity of the $2,000 cap that I am proposing. I would expect that this will absolutely have no impact whatsoever on the Legal Services Commission budget. The very maximum would be a $150,000 impact, presuming that they would never ever receive anything in costs ever again, but that is not what I am proposing. What I am proposing is setting a $2,000 cap, so my expectation would be that the impact on the Legal Services Commission budget would be zero.

The savings that this measure will provide to the police budget will be relatively small, but what it will do is take pressure off a part of the police budget that there has been greater call upon. As the shadow treasurer pointed out, the police have advised the opposition and the government that this is an area that has been expanding in recent years. If there is an analysis of the success or otherwise of prosecutions undertaken by the police, it does not indicate an increase in the frequency of acquittals from police prosecutions. The success rate has been relatively constant and yet we have seen a substantial increase in costs being awarded against police over recent years.

Those costs are basically paid by taxpayers and they result in a diversion of resources from front-line policing to these payments of costs. I think what has been proposed is an elegant compromise and I certainly trust that we will see passage of this budget bill unamended through the other place.

Bill read a second time.

Third Reading

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Treasurer, Minister for Workers Rehabilitation, Minister for Defence Industries, Minister for Veterans' Affairs) (12:24): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.

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