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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-09-12 Daily Xml
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CHILD SEX OFFENDERS REGISTRATION (MISCELLANEOUS) AMENDMENT BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 25 July 2013.)

The Hon. S.G. WADE (16:06): I rise on behalf of the opposition to speak on the Child Sex Offenders Registration (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill 2013. The bill amends the Child Sex Offenders Registration Act 2006. It was introduced into the House of Assembly on 4 July by the Attorney-General. The act requires child sex offenders to register with the Commissioner of Police. These people are known as registrable offenders. Registration is mandatory for eight years, 15 years or life if a person commits a class 1 or class 2 offence as specified in the act. We are advised that there are approximately 1,400 registrable offenders in South Australia.

Under the act, registrable offenders are required to make an initial report to South Australia Police of certain personal information. They must report annually and they must update SAPOL when certain information changes. The government has been working for about two years to review the act, I am advised. In that sense, the bill draws on a range of sources. Firstly, it draws on the comparable legislation in other states and territories. Secondly, it draws on the 2012 Victorian Law Reform Commission report and, thirdly, it draws on the findings of the Debelle inquiry.

The opposition welcomes the fact that it does draw together these streams of ideas but finds it strange, considering the relatively long gestation period since the tabling of this bill, that we are having a rash of amendments.

The key elements of the bill itself are: to strengthen reporting requirements under the act; to create a new category of serious registrable offender for whom the Commissioner of Police will have enhanced monitoring powers; amend the Bail Act so that, unless a bail authority is satisfied that a person accused of a child sex offence poses no risk to the safety and well being of children, the accused will be subject to a bail condition that they cannot engage in child related work; to ban all registrable offenders from working as taxi or hire car drivers; to update the list of commonwealth child sex offences that trigger operation of the state act; for a limited category of child sex offenders, to empower the Commissioner of Police to modify the operation of the act; to strengthen provisions so that a person charged with a child sex offence, or suspected of committing a child sex offence, must provide police with details of their employment; and lastly, to empower police to contact employers to verify the information provided by the accused and notify the employer of the charge.

The bill proposes to create a new category of offender called a serious registrable offender, a serious registrable offender being a person who has committed on at least three separate occasions a class 1 or class 2 offence; on at least two separate occasions, a class 1 or class 2 offence against a person or persons under the age of 14 years; or has been declared to be a serious registrable offender, such a declaration being appealable to the Administrative and Disciplinary Division of the District Court.

After a person has been declared a serious registrable offender by the Commissioner of Police, he or she is liable to have their premises searched by an authorised police officer, more frequent reporting and a condition that they wear or carry an electronic tracking device. The Commissioner of Police has the discretion to specify a period of time that this declaration remains in force.

As I indicated before, given the two years' gestation of the bill and that it has now been tabled, I was surprised that further significant amendments have been foreshadowed. The Attorney-General introduced more amendments at the committee stage in the House of Assembly. The amendments vest the commissioner the power to publish on a website any or all of the personal details of a registrable offender if satisfied that the registrable offender has failed to comply with any of his or her reporting obligations, has provided information that is false or misleading in a material particular and is at an unknown whereabouts.

It is up to the commissioner's discretion to remove any or all of the personal details of an offender from the website, but the commissioner must remove the personal details of registrable offenders who subsequently report their whereabouts to the commissioner. The commissioner is exempt from any criminal or civil liability attached to the publishing of information which is done in good faith under this part.

The registrable offender's noncompliance with their reporting requirements and the fact that their whereabouts are unknown significantly increases the risk profile, and we accept that it justifies publication of the person's image and name if it is in the public interest as an effective measure to lower this high risk profile. The Labor government has derived these amendments from similar provisions in Western Australia.

The Child Sex Offenders Registration (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill places more discretion with SAPOL and the Police Commissioner to tailor reporting requirements and conditions around the circumstances of individual offenders. This would support a risk management approach and allow resources to more efficiently target high risk offenders. In doing this, the bill rests significant discretion in the police in circumstances which have been traditionally exercised by a court.

Police have the power to declare who is a serious registrable offender and impose additional reporting requirements upon this person, specify the length of the declaration, modify the reporting requirements, decide whether to allow a registrable offender to change their name and direct where an offender is to make their annual reporting obligations.

It is up to the Commissioner of Police to decide who is a serious registrable offender and to develop those reporting regimes. The decision of the commissioner to approve a registrable offender's application for change of name is not subject to appeal. It is also at the commissioner's discretion to serve written notice of the declaration on the registrable offender as soon as practicable but does not specify the period before the declaration takes effect. We are certainly sure that the police will be sensitive in the exercise of those discretions and I think parliament needs to be alert to the impact of these laws.

In that context I think it is quite timely that only yesterday in the House of Assembly the honourable member for Fisher highlighted an unintended consequence of this very legislation in relation to a school boy in the southern suburbs. The Attorney-General on this morning's radio indicated that he understood it was nobody's intention that this legislation would have caught a young person in that situation. I think that just highlights the need for parliament not simply to pass legislation and hope that it works, but to maintain active monitoring to make sure the legislation actually has the intended impact.

Members of the opposition in the other place express concern that the proposed amendments may inhibit an individual's chance of successful rehabilitation and reintegration into the community. This concern was also raised by the Australian Lawyers Alliance which takes the view that these provisions may create further stigmatisation of registrable offenders and alienate them from the community and increase their risk of offending. I think these concerns of the alliance reiterate the need for monitoring of the application of the legislation.

Since the legislation was considered by the House of Assembly, the government has foreshadowed a third wave of amendments in the media but has not tabled them. This demonstrates either yet more policy on the run or a focus on media management rather than orderly parliamentary consideration. The inability of this government to manage itself is shown by today's priority list by the government. The Attorney-General's office told us on Monday that it did not intend the legislation to go through this week, yet the government has issued a priority list today which says that this bill is to go through. I remind the council: how can it go through when the government has, on a front-page story, said it is intending further amendments and those amendments have not even been tabled?

It may well be that, following the discussion in the media over the last couple of days, the government may be able to introduce amendments to deal with the unintended consequences to which the Attorney-General was referring in this morning's media. We look forward to discussing further in committee the amendments we have and the amendments we are yet to receive.

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (16:16): I rise on behalf of the Greens to indicate that we support the Child Sex Offenders Registration (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill. This bill has been covered by both the minister and the opposition and amends the Child Sex Offenders Registration Act 2006, tightening the reporting requirements under the act. It also creates a new category of 'serious registerable offender' and enhances the power of the Commissioner of Police to monitor offenders, including the power to order electronic tracking, search their premises and require more frequent reporting.

Further, it amends the Bail Act so that a person accused of a child sex offence is subject to a bail condition that they cannot engage in child-related work. It also further bans all registrable offenders from working in occupations such as taxi drivers or hire-car drivers, where the risk may be enhanced. It empowers the Commissioner of Police to modify the operations of the act. It strengthens provisions so that persons charged with a child sex offence, or suspected of committing one, must provide police with details of employment, and empowers the police to contact that person's employer in that particular situation.

I note that they are recommendations 28 and 29 in the report of the independent education inquiry undertaken by the Hon. Bruce Debelle. However, in the briefing we received on this bill we were informed that, while that was a happy coincidence, in fact the processes were already in place to ensure they would be in this bill, regardless of that particular inquiry.

The bill lifts the penalties to create a more serious offence where a breach of the act involves working with children or reportable contact with children, and this offence will attract an increased penalty of five years' imprisonment and a fine of up to $25,000. Possibly the most controversial part of the bill I believe is, for those registrable offenders who are noncompliant, the ability for the Commissioner of Police to put them on a website.

Certainly, in some cases that may lead to undesirable outcomes, where a community perhaps may see a website such as that used in a way that is not conducive to public order and potentially could vilify people. However, I think that the way this proposal has been structured, and certainly looking at the WA example, which was the first in Australia to operate in a similar way, there are many protections in there to ensure we are not going to see that website unnecessarily infringe upon people's rights and certainly unnecessarily create situations where there are mistaken identities or create community fear. The website in Western Australia was recently introduced. I note that Edith Cowan University is currently reviewing that website, and the Greens will be paying close attention to the outcome of that review.

As I have said, it is of some comfort that it is indeed those noncompliant registrable offenders of the most serious order who will potentially find themselves on that website. Indeed, the website has been used to effectively ensure that people then become compliant with the requirements that are expected of them. Indeed, family members of the offenders, in the case of Western Australia, have been noted to have then assisted police to ensure that those people are within the system rather than beyond the system.

Child protection is such an incredibly serious concern to which, I do not doubt, all of us have a firm commitment, whether it be government or opposition benches or the crossbenches. The Greens support the bill.

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT (16:21): Of course, I will be speaking in support of this bill on behalf of Dignity for Disability. First, I thank the Attorney-General and his departmental staff, in particular, Kim Eldridge and others, for a comprehensive briefing on this bill. It certainly sounds as though research and work on this bill has been undertaken comprehensively in the development of this legislation.

I acknowledge, as I think we all do, that this is not an easy area of the law, nor is it easy to police. As Dignity for Disability has found in its three years in the Parliament of South Australia, there is a significant problem in this state with child sex offenders targeting children with disabilities, in particular, as victims. People with disabilities are far more likely to be victims of all types of abuse. The cases that have been brought to my attention, known as the Christies Beach bus case and the St Ann's case, to name two, are horrific and demand attention, resources and legislative reform so that we can protect some of our state's most vulnerable citizens—children.

Unfortunately, we find that some of our most serious predators are so expert, so covert, in their offending behaviour that they will never appear on a child sex offender register because they have never been charged. For all those who are charged and/or convicted, they can become highly skilled at working around the reporting requirements of being a registered offender.

Certainly, in many of the cases that have occurred, it is not teachers who are child sex offenders; it is the people who work in a more secondary role with children—instead, it is the bus drivers, taxi drivers, SSOs, out-of-school-hours-care workers, sporting coaches and extra-curricular activity officers who can—and I stress 'can'—be the offenders. This in no way suggests that the vast majority of people who perform these roles are not doing the right thing. I am sure that 99 per cent of these people do a fantastic job, but there is a small number who do these horrendous things and try to bend the system to suit their own criminal offending and abhorrent behaviour.

I appreciate that this bill attempts to solve some of the methods offenders have used and do use to work the system. Rarely does an issue evoke so much strong emotion in a community as child sex offences, and I think that strong emotional response is very well understood by everyone in this place today.

It is extremely difficult to balance a citizen's right to basic freedoms while also ensuring that vulnerable South Australians are protected and safe from some of our most serious alleged offenders—and I say 'alleged' because some of these offenders will remain that way forever so difficult is it to get a conviction when a child with an intellectual disability and/or communication disability, for example, is sexually abused, with the current limitations of our current justice system.

Of course, Dignity for Disability hopes that the disability justice plan, which we have been working alongside the Attorney-General on—not always agreeing, but working constructively—goes some way to resolving some of these matters. I realise it is not the place of this bill to resolve the many challenges our justice system presents, particularly to people with disabilities, but I do hope it is a step in the right direction.

In regard to this bill, I have a few questions I would like to put on the record for answers at some point from the minister. They are as follows:

1. How many people are on the South Australian child sex offenders register?

2. How many of the people on the register are known as 'young love' cases?

3. Is it possible to find out how many people on the register have committed offences against children with disabilities specifically?

Furthermore, I know that the Attorney-General is aware of the incident the Hon. Bob Such from the other place raised in the media regarding a 12 year old distributing an image of his genitals which could result in the young man being put on the register.

I am aware that the Attorney-General answered questions on radio this morning, and I appreciate that it is not the intention of this bill to see young people making mistakes ending up on the register. However, that does not change the fact that this child could indeed wind up on that register. We need to legislate so that we capture the people on the register we know to put our children at risk, without unintended consequences for those making silly or poor decisions, particularly as adolescents.

I also know that this bill is designed to give police the discretion to closely monitor the offenders they know need to be monitored while providing more freedom to those who are on the register but in reality provide little or no threat to the community. It will allow people who are on the register for so-called 'young love' reasons to have less onerous reporting requirements; however, it is not ideal that they wind up on there in the first place. I am not sure if there is a way we can use spent convictions legislation to deal with this, perhaps, but I would certainly hope so.

These are all my questions and comments for now. I look forward to working further on this bill in the committee stages and working on a very serious issue.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation) (16:27): There being no further contributions, I rise to close the debate. I would like to thank those members who have contributed to the debate on this very important topic. The bill is a result of the substantial body of work undertaken by the Attorney-General's Department and SA Police. These amendments to the Child Sex Offenders Registration Act contained within the bill ensure that this act is more targeted and effective, ensuring that SAPOL resources and enhanced powers are directed towards offenders who are sexual predators and who pose a risk to the safety and wellbeing of children.

The bill makes amendments to the act to significantly tighten and strengthen the reporting requirements for all registered offenders. Most importantly, the reporting of contact with children has been significantly tightened. The bill also makes changes to give the Commissioner of Police enhanced monitoring and search powers against a new category of registered offenders, to be called 'serious registrable offenders'.

This bill represents a substantial and important shift in how registered offenders are monitored by SAPOL. It is important that parliament supports SAPOL and the officers in the undertaking of this role, and I am very pleased with the indication of support provided to the council today. I commend this bill to members.

Bill read a second time.

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