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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2007-10-18 Daily Xml
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STATUTES AMENDMENT (VICTIMS OF CRIME) BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 17 October 2007. Page 973.)

The Hon. R.D. LAWSON (16:18): I rise to make a couple of comments on this bill. As my colleague the Hon. Stephen Wade indicated, Liberal members will support the passage of this bill. However, a couple of significant points ought to be made. The government claims to be interested in the affairs of victims of crime. This amendment is well overdue. It has in a couple of respects increased the compensation payable to individual claimants under the Victims of Crime Act. There seems to be no acknowledgment in government speeches in support of this bill that, as is so often the case, the government is walking both sides of the street on this matter.

On the one hand compensation to victims is increasing, but on the other, and unstated, is the fact that the levies chargeable for the victims of crime fund to persons who commit offences, mainly traffic offences, have increased far more. For example, the budget papers this year show that the amount collected by way of the levy in the past has not been expended on payments to victims. For example, last year it was budgeted that victims of crime levy collections by South Australia Police would be $3.7 million, but they managed to collect only two thirds of that, $2.6 million. Next year they hope to collect $5.9 million. The Courts Administration Authority last year collected $7 million; this year it proposes to collect $14.6 million. The Attorney-General's Department, through levies for fines and penalties, will in 2008 collect some $20 million. Payments to victims last year were only $9 million.

Notwithstanding the additional compensation that might be paid for pain and suffering, grief and funeral expenses (and it is likely that payments will increase), it is hardly likely that they will increase from the $9 million levied last year, so they are in fact proposing to double the levy, but the payments to victims are not expected to rise by much. For example, payments to victims this year were $12 million; it is budgeted that they will be $12.3 million next year, so the government is budgeting for increased payments of only $300,000, but it will collect another $11 million in levies through that source. The government is saying to victims of crime, 'We are concerned about you so we propose to increase the amounts you might be able to recover if you are able to jump through all the hoops already in the legislation which are not being removed. We the government will make $10 million out of our increase, but there will be only another $300,000 for payments to victims.'

Most of the amendments to the existing scheme are not important. For example, the declaration of principles in the legislation are slightly amended. Currently the act provides that the objects of the legislation are to give recognition to victims of crime and 'to establish principles governing how victims of crime are to be treated in the criminal justice system'. That is being amended by the deletion of the words 'treated in the criminal justice system' and the insertion of 'how they are treated by public agencies and officials'.

It is said that that is to emphasise the fact that some other organisations, which would not ordinarily be described as within the criminal justice system, are covered. The Attorney-General in his second reading explanation indicated that the sorts of organisations the government has in mind include government services such as domestic violence services and rape and sexual assault services. No evidence is provided to suggest that those services are not appropriately treating victims. I would have thought that, by this definitional change it might be better to leave the criminal justice system, which is normally said to be something apart from government agencies, and the persons who work in it something apart from government officials, but independent statutory officers, and that we are reducing the emphasis on the need for the prosecuting authorities, the police and the court system to treat victims appropriately. Of course, all victims should be treated appropriately. However, I believe this amendment will take the spotlight off the court system. At best it is window-dressing, albeit window-dressing that some victims organisations may have requested.

It is significant that this government has been talking about amending the victims of crime legislation for quite some considerable time—certainly well before the 2006 election. Although it made promises in that election, they were only a repetition of announcements that the Attorney-General had made previously. While better late than never is not a bad principle, it is a fairly slack one. There is no doubt that this government has been delaying, or has delayed, the introduction of not only this bill but also the cognate bill relating to the appointment of the commissioner for victims' rights.

I note that the shadow attorney-general in another place made a request to the Attorney-General that he give thought to a suggestion in relation to amendments to the Bail Act. She requested that he give thought to that matter during the passage of the bill to this council. Of course, on that occasion in response to that request we had a supercilious remark, 'I promise to think about the matter which the member for Heysen has asked me to think about', but there has been no response at all to that matter; so I will be pursuing that matter in committee.

Debate adjourned on motion of the Hon. B.V. Finnigan.

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