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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2019-12-04 Daily Xml
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Justice System

Mr TEAGUE (Heysen) (14:34): My question is to the Attorney-General. Can the Attorney-General update the house on her justice agenda and the targets that have been met to date?

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General) (14:35): I thank the member for Heysen for his question. He is very active in law reform, and I appreciate both his advice and interest in this matter.

Ms Hildyard interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Reynell is warned.

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: For the benefit of members, however, there are six components to the justice agenda: protecting South Australians, strong penalties and effective solutions, a court system built to last, modern liquor and gambling laws, supporting consumers, and keeping the law and our policies current and relevant. As parliament wraps up for the year, I am proud that we have continued to implement our reform agenda to keep South Australians safe and modernise our laws, with the key achievement of the past year being further laws aimed at tackling the scourge of domestic violence.

Some of those reforms underway this year included allowing police bodycam videos to be admitted to court as evidence in domestic violence matters, giving authorities stronger powers to tackle repeated intervention order breaches and serious offenders, extending the domestic violence disclosure scheme until the end of June 2020 and supporting more victims of domestic violence to access legal support through the Women's Domestic Violence Court Assistance Program delivered by new providers, namely, the Legal Service Commission. Support has also increased for those who have experienced sexual abuse, with the state formally signing up to the National Redress Scheme and implementing other legislative changes earlier this year. Thank you, Premier.

As members are aware, the findings of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse were truly shocking, and we continue to make the necessary legal changes to better support those experiencing this trauma in South Australia by removing the statute of limitations for compensation claims. I am also very proud that the government has moved to strengthen the public's right to know, introducing laws to lift the veil of secrecy on those charged with sex offences in South Australia. We are also looking to update the state's freedom of information laws to strengthen transparency in government.

Other public safety initiatives coming into effect this year include new legislation to better protect emergency services workers; implementing tough antiterror measures, giving police additional powers in a terrorist incident; extending the public precinct and police powers in the West End; reducing the backlog of post-mortems and additional funding put towards a new CT scanner for Forensic Science SA; new offences to ensure that those who manage to promote websites featuring child exploitation material can be prosecuted; providing police the relevant powers to access encrypted or password protected material in child exploitation cases; and funding South Australia's response units for both the royal commissions underway.

Furthermore, the government has moved to cut the red tape and implement laws in respect of consumer protection, passing laws to better protect both residents and park owners in residential parks, increasing accountability and introducing a licensing scheme for property managers, and there will be welcome news for consumers, for motorists shortly, as we work to address the cost of living concerns in this area. A lot of work has been dedicated to bringing South Australia's legislation in line with modern expectations and with the rest of the country, such as surrogacy laws making it easy for singles and couples, including same-sex couples, to have a child of their own.

Outside the justice agenda, a number of other priorities met during 2019 include the introduction of stronger trespassing laws to better protect our farmers and food producers, introducing labour hire laws to only capture industries with a high risk of exploitation and expanding the role of the South Australian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

I would like to thank members and say to them that we have had a very busy year. We are going to have another busy year—be ready for it—with the introduction of legislation in the coming year.

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