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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-07-24 Daily Xml
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Child Protection

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:36): Supplementary: has the government given any consideration to having the suppression order lifted?

The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Justice Reform, Minister for Planning, Minister for Housing and Urban Development, Minister for Industrial Relations) (14:36): First of all, we don't lift orders: courts do and, secondly, no.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: No. I mentioned this this morning on the radio. The point is basically this: at this point in the investigation we would obviously as a government be very mindful of any request or advice that we receive from SAPOL. So, for example, if SAPOL were to come to the government and say, 'Look, we think it would be in the public interest for some information to be made available and we think that would assist in the investigations', or something of that nature, then quite possibly an application might be considered, but that has not happened.

I am also mindful of the fact that the main reason that these laws are there is to ensure that neither direct nor indirect suffering is caused to victims or their families by the publication of details. At this point in time, the important thing is that the police are able to get on with their job and collect the evidence, speak to whatever witnesses they need to speak to, and prepare their case to be presented to the court in respect of the person who presently is just an accused person.

If the media or anybody else wishes to disturb that state of affairs, as a result of amendments made to the Evidence Act a year or so ago, they are entitled, like anyone else, to go down to the courts and ask for variations or amendments to the suppression orders. I think at this point in time all of us should be thinking, most importantly, about what is in the public interest, what is going to enable our police to be doing the best possible job they can do to collect all of the evidence and prepare an appropriate brief to be handed to the Director of Public Prosecutions to ensure this matter is properly dealt with in a fair and reasonable way in the courts. That is our priority at the present time.

As others have said to me on several occasions, things that are in the public interest and things that are of interest to the public are not always the same. At the moment, our priority needs to be fixed very, very firmly on the public interest, which is the appropriate and absolutely scrupulously fair preparation of evidence for the proper conduct of this matter. Nothing would be more horrific than if it were to transpire that, because of some information being made available contrary to the wishes of the police, either evidence disappeared, witnesses disappeared or, even worse, there was some suggestion that a fair trial (in the event of that ultimately being required) could not be had.

The SPEAKER: Supplementary, the leader.

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