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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-10-13 Daily Xml
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Bills

Statutes Amendment (Sentencing) Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 23 September 2020.)

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Leader of the Opposition) (15:33): I rise to speak on this bill and indicate that I will be the lead, and in fact only, speaker for the opposition. This government, the Liberal government, engaged a retired Supreme Court judge, Brian Martin QC, more than two years ago to review sentencing discounts on a guilty plea. Mr Martin did good and thorough work: he called for public submissions and consulted with stakeholders; he reviewed cases; he examined the law and compared it with other jurisdictions; and he made detailed recommendations. The government published his report way back in June 2019. It has now been 16 months since Brian Martin QC had his report published.

Until very recently, on this issue the government did nothing. Labor moved a bill to fix sentencing discounts in July, before the winter recess. Again, the government did nothing. The government promised to introduce legislation immediately after returning from the winter break. We came back on 8 September, and again the government did nothing on the first day back. Why did they do nothing? What were the reasons given for the government's failure to protect the community? To justify their unacceptable delays in not supporting Labor's bill, the Attorney-General, the member for Bragg, Vickie Chapman said:

Regrettably, COVID-19 and other such activities have taken up Parliamentary time and has made some of our legislation a little delayed.

Further:

It's a complex body of work that needs to be 100 per cent right…poorly drafted legislation and amendments can cause chaos, so we're being thorough to ensure we get it right…

The Attorney-General went on to say:

We need to do it properly and that's precisely what we're doing.

Yet, the Attorney-General's own chief executive just this week publicly stated that COVID-19 had no impact on the development of this legislation.

The opposition has supported all the COVID-19 legislation, supports this legislation and has even offered to sit late to deal with this legislation. It is unconscionable that this government would use the current pandemic as an excuse for hanging out victims to dry.

Since Brian Martin QC handed down his report, they have made time for many other things as a government in the Attorney-General's area. They have made time to slash funding for the Victim Support Service by millions of dollars. The Attorney-General has made time—time in parliament and for personal briefings—on what elite lawyers call themselves. The Attorney-General has made time to repeal obsolete gift card legislation that is trumped by commonwealth law. But the Attorney-General did not make time to ensure that dangerous child sex offenders spend more time in gaol when that is what was recommended by the expert report.

This government, having not moved their bill on the first day back from sitting or given notice, moved it on 9 September and then realised they had completely stuffed it up. I will return to the Attorney-General's quotes for one of the various reasons, short of 'the dog ate my homework', that was given for the delay in this: 'It's a complex body of work that needs to be 100 per cent right,' the Attorney said, 'so we're being thorough to ensure we get it right'.

Well, one of the Attorney-General's excuses for the day was to get it right, but she got it wrong—so very, very wrong. It just exposes another of the hollow excuses for the delay in this. The Attorney-General's stuff-up left out a range of serious sexual and violent offences from the government's proposed bill.

The Liberal government had to amend their own bill. The Attorney assured us the huge delays were to ensure it was '100 per cent right'. Well, the Attorney-General had to amend their own bill after lecturing the opposition and refusing to support a Labor bill that did include those serious offences. The Liberal Party were prepared to let a range of violent and sexual offenders get off more lightly even after changing the law in their original bill.

In the Labor bill that we put before parliament as an opposition bill before the winter break, we made it easy by including a definition of serious offences in the bill that captured the relevant offences. But the government's twisted sense of pride meant that they could not simply do a cut and paste of a Labor bill. The price of their pride is more suffering for victims.

In her second reading explanation the Attorney-General was clear what a serious indictable offence meant. The Attorney-General said:

The bill provides that a 'serious indictable offence' is defined to mean a serious offence of violence, within the meaning of section 83D of the Criminal Law Consolidation Act 1935, and a serious sexual offence within the meaning of section 52(1) of the Sentencing Act for which the maximum penalty is or includes at least five years' imprisonment. Defined in this way, 'serious indictable offence' will include, for example, offences of murder, manslaughter, causing death or serious harm by dangerous driving, rape, maintaining an unlawful sexual relationship with a child, unlawful sexual intercourse, aggravated indecent assault and offences relating to the production and dissemination of child exploitation material.

With that definition I am not sure what bill the Attorney thought she was speaking about, but it certainly was not the bill she introduced to parliament. When the government introduced its bill in the other place on 9 September, along with their own amendments to fix the stuff-ups to the bill that they said they spent 16 months getting right, the opposition offered, again, absolute support.

The opposition wanted this done quickly. In the lower house we had just one speaker, we did not move amendments and we did not ask questions in committee. In contrast, the government had a conga line of speakers who wasted valuable time and delayed even further the passage of this bill in the lower house.

Not just that, but one after another they complained that Labor had told local voters in their local Liberal electorates that they, as the local Liberal MP, had voted against a bill that would cut sentence discounts for child sex offenders.

The complaints that were given, particularly by the members for King and Adelaide, included that Labor let people know that on Wednesday 22 July the Hansard records various members, including the member for King, Paula Luethen, and the member for Adelaide, Rachel Sanderson, voting to adjourn a bill that would have cut the amount of discount that was available for dangerous child sex offenders. There was a complaint that Labor had the audacity to let voters in their electorate know.

Let me assure the member for King that Labor will be constantly reminding the good folk in her electorate that she voted to delay a bill that would see dangerous child sex offenders locked up for longer. We will be reminding the member for King's, Paula Luethen's, voters that because of the way the member for King, Paula Luethen, voted, dangerous paedophiles might be on the streets in their community when they should be behind bars.

Be assured that we will continue to remind the people of Elder that because of the way their member, Carolyn Power, voted, dangerous paedophiles might be on the streets of their community when they should be behind bars. Be assured that we will remind the people of Adelaide that because of the way their member, Rachel Sanderson, voted, dangerous paedophiles might be on the streets of their community when they should be behind bars. Be assured that we will be reminding the people of Newland that because of the way their member, Richard Harvey, voted, dangerous paedophiles might be on the streets of their community when they should be behind bars.

In the lower house, finally, after hours of navel-gazing and complaining, the government did not even pass the bill that day or that week. It will be interesting to see in this chamber if, like the Labor Party, the government decide to only have one speaker, or if they are going to have multiple speakers and further delay this bill. This will be a challenge for members of the Liberal Party in this place. If they want to speak further and delay the bill, they might get themselves on a Labor Party brochure that allows the good voters of South Australia to know about their delaying tactics, but that will be an issue for them.

After hours of navel-gazing and numerous speakers, unlike the Labor Party, who wanted the bill passed quickly in the lower house, the government did not even pass this bill that day, or even that week. Another two weeks went by before the bill was belatedly and finally agreed to in the other place. The bill was delivered to this council, but the delays continue. The government chose not to debate the bill.

It seems the Liberals have literally spent their time and effort dreaming up ways to delay this legislation and dreaming up excuses to describe to the South Australian public why they have not been serious about this. The Labor Party opposed the adjournment of the council when we last sat, so that we could sit as long as possible to pass this bill. The government voted this adjournment down. It gets worse—a lot worse. After failing to pass its own bill after a week, the government then cynically blamed the Greens in this chamber for their delays. It was an extraordinary and completely baseless attack on the crossbench.

The government may wish to refute this, but I understand the government had not even offered all members of the crossbench a briefing on such important legislation until the very last second, with no intention of actually debating it that week. They could not even offer a briefing before it was to be in this chamber. The opposition absolutely supports briefings for everybody on bills, but the government seems to be selective about when it is necessary or even a nicety.

Just today, the Attorney-General at a press conference invented another excuse for the delays on this bill. Keeping longer sentences will incur more prison costs, and keeping dangerous paedophiles behind bars could cost more was what the Attorney-General said today. It is said that a fool knows the price of everything and the value of nothing, and this Attorney certainly does not understand value in relation to this. What is the value of a victim knowing that their perpetrator will be properly punished? What is the value of a victim knowing that they will be safer for longer? What is the value of our community being in a safer place?

Since Labor moved the bill in the lower house that the government shut down, we have seen offenders rush to plead guilty to get less time in prison. We have seen a double murderer, who killed his son and his son's girlfriend, plead guilty to get the more generous discount. We have seen a drug kingpin seek to move up his court hearings so that he can plead guilty to get this Liberal government's more generous discount. Then, we have seen the sex offenders: in September and October we have seen horrific outcomes with sentences handed down that would have been longer had the government joined Labor and changed the law before the winter break.

An offender known as RW was caught in possession of crude and horrific images of children, they included children engaged in bestiality. He got a 30 per cent discount and may be free in under two years. Jason Lee Booth was caught chatting online to a police officer who he thought was a 13-year-old girl. He got a 30 per cent discount and likely will be free in a year. Hamzeh Bahrami abused a girl in a public toilet while his niece and daughter were outside. He got a 40 per cent discount and may be free in less than two years. Arnold Taylor raped a 12-year-old girl. He got a 40 per cent discount and may be free in six years.

Matthew James McIntyre raped a 13-year-old girl in state care who became pregnant and then underwent a termination. He got a 25 per cent discount and may be free in less than two years. Steven Mark Edwards raped a 12-year-old girl. He got a 30 per cent discount. Robert George Cronin raped a girl repeatedly from the age of nine. He got a 20 per cent discount, with three years wiped off his sentence. An offender known as AJH sexually abused his sister and his daughter while both were underage. The circumstances were described as like being in a cult. He got a 20 per cent discount and four years wiped off his sentence.

All of these had one thing in common: if the government had acted on their own review—on their own review—when they made it public, every single one of these people would be spending more time behind bars. I know that the government is fond of talking about the fact that these laws have changed over the years. Sentencing discounts originally were introduced when Labor was in power, and guess what? We think we got it wrong back then. We have said the law was wrong. We had a review done by an expert, who said that it is out of step with other jurisdictions, and compared it. When you get something wrong you move to fix it, and move to fix it quickly.

Every single one of these people will be out of gaol earlier because of the excuses and the inaction from the Attorney-General, the member for Bragg, Vicki Chapman, and the Premier, Steven Marshall. Every single one of these offenders will spend less time in gaol, and the community will be less safe because of the Liberals' inaction. I want to assure particularly the members for King and Adelaide, who complain in the lower house, that we will keep reminding the good people in their electorates of the type of offenders that their vote shows they chose to let out early. We will remind them right up until the election.

We will not just be reminding the voters in Elder, Adelaide, King or Newland, we will also be reminding the voters in Mawson that their member, Leon Bignell, voted to keep dangerous paedophiles in gaol longer. We will be reminding the voters in Badcoe that their member, Jayne Stinson, voted to keep dangerous paedophiles in gaol longer. We will be reminding the voters in Torrens that their member, Dana Wortley, voted to keep dangerous paedophiles in gaol longer. We will be reminding the voters of Wright that their member, Blair Boyer, voted in parliament to keep dangerous paedophiles in gaol longer, and we will certainly be reminding members in Liberal-held seats that, as a consequence of their votes on 22 July, dangerous child sex offenders will be out on the streets in the community earlier than they would otherwise be.

As the Labor leader said in the other place, a conga line of criminals danced past the Attorney and she did not bat an eyelid. Labor has been willing to move on this critical issue for months, but the government and the Attorney-General are incapable of allowing anybody else to do anything for which they might get credit. We have seen it over and again, and now we are seeing the same slow-moving train wreck on sentencing discounts.

If somebody else introduces a bill that has merit, it seems that the Liberals introduce a reason not to vote for it. On this one we have seen it from 'COVID held it up' to 'it needs to be got 100 per cent right, yet we will have a swathe of amendments because we stuffed it up'. Their ego and sense of entitlement leaves everything else in the shade. This includes victims of murder and victims of child sex offenders. Shame is not nearly a strong enough word to describe how the government should feel on this issue. The public has had enough of this government's excuses and attempts to blame others. This must end now, and we must pass this bill.

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL (15:50): This bill is one of very many that I have seen on the vexed issue of sentencing in my 14½ years in this chamber. The Greens' position has always been to provide judges with as much discretion as possible in relation to sentencing, whilst acknowledging that it is the right and responsibility of parliament to fix maximum penalties and to set out criteria to be taken into account in the sentencing process.

We have mostly voted against minimum mandatory sentences because that offends the notion of judicial discretion and can lead to unjust outcomes in individual cases. We have supported maintaining the concept of proportionality in sentencing. In the words of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado, we want the punishment to fit the crime, and that is taking into account all of the sentencing considerations, including punishing offenders, keeping the community safe and encouraging rehabilitation.

I note that in the last sitting week of this chamber the concept of proportionality was removed for a number of sentencing considerations, which we feel was a backward step. In relation to sentence discounts for early pleas of guilty, the Greens have supported the codification of longstanding common law practice. In fact, I do not think any MPs have opposed making sentencing discounts available in all of the previous debates that we have had on this topic.

In fact, the only real debate has ever been the circumstances in which discounts might be available, the quantum of discounts—especially in relation to the most serious offences—the role of sliding scales of discount, and the degree of judicial discretion to allow or not allow discounts. I would note that even under the current bill the sentencing discounts proposed are maximum discounts and judges are able to offer lower amounts. That is judicial discretion at work.

This debate is no different. This is not a new and emerging issue; it is an old debate and its resolution is always complex and always contested. The views of stakeholders are important and all members of parliament should take care to familiarise themselves with the competing and conflicting arguments. This is basic lawmaking 101 and we need to do it properly.

Along with the shadow attorney-general, I also want to comment on the events of the last sitting week when the Legislative Council first received this bill. I take a slightly different approach to the shadow. Let me say at the outset that the confected outrage of the opposition in relation to the adjournment of this bill on the last sitting day of the last sitting week was partisan politics at its worst and it does no credit to the Labor Party's claim to be a responsible alternative government.

As the architect of the current system, they were so desperate to distance themselves from their creation that they were prepared to sacrifice proper lawmaking processes for a cheap headline: who can be the toughest on criminals; who can put more people away for longer? The shadow attorney-general's contribution just now made it very clear that as far as they are concerned this is pure politics. This is an election issue: which leaflets will go in which letterboxes of which local members of parliament in relation to how they voted.

I would remind the shadow attorney that this concept of sentencing discounts, the codification of 40 per cent discounts, is a decade or so old. The list of cases that he read out, he could have gone back and read out 10 years worth of cases, the period from, say, 2012 onwards (the last eight years)—if we take one of the early sentencing discount bills—10 years of cases where you can always find a crime that is abhorrent and the community is outraged by it, and then complain that the sentencing discount scheme resulted in that person staying in gaol for a shorter period of time. That overwhelmingly happened on Labor's watch, and using it as a pure political toy I do not think does them any credit.

Disappointingly, the Labor opposition dragged the government down into the gutter with them and so the Attorney-General blames the Greens for all of this as well. Well, I have a thick skin and I can cope with it. But at least, to the government's credit, they ultimately agreed that expecting a bill to be voted on in this chamber less than 24 hours after it was introduced was unreasonable, unless every member and every party was satisfied that it was urgent and therefore prepared to forgo any due diligence, any direct consultation with stakeholders and the opportunity to consider any amendments. The government got that right.

Whilst the government ultimately accepted the unreasonableness of their request—or, more accurately, the reasonableness of the Greens' request to look at this more closely—the opposition, smelling an opportunity to be tougher on crime than the other lot, reverted to type with histrionics and theatrics, dividing on the question of whether this house should adjourn on Thursday evening, even though the item of business that they said they wanted to debate, this very bill, had already been adjourned off until today.

When the government moved that all remaining orders of the day be made orders of the day for the next day of sitting, the opposition let that decision stand without dividing. Yet, like petulant children, the Labor opposition decided to punish the government by disagreeing to adjourn the day's sitting even though there were no remaining items on the agenda.

Not surprisingly, when both the old parties have had enough of getting stuck into each other, they turn on the Greens. So I do need to put on the record why the partisan positions of both Liberal and Labor were unreasonable. I will start with the agenda of the Legislative Council. This bill was introduced into the Legislative Council at 9.01pm on Wednesday 23 September. The second reading explanation and explanation of clauses ran to some five pages of Hansard. Of course, they were not available to members until 9am the next day, that is when they are in the Hansard and when the next day's Notice Paper is published.

So the government's request, and the opposition's demand, was that the bill and all the accompanying material should be digested, along with hundreds of pages of Brian Martin's report and related submissions, over the ensuing nine hours.

There were also dozens of pages of secret submissions that the government claimed were cabinet-in-confidence. I wanted to see them all, but I identified four that were of particular interest, and the Attorney eventually delivered three of these to me around midday on that last sitting day, because I had foolishly—and I will accept this—said I would do my best to get on top of the material before the end of the sitting day.

I will not be doing that again. Next time, I will follow the protocol strictly and I will refuse outright to even consider a bill like this that is unreasonably foisted on us at the eleventh hour. We do not vote on bills in the week that they are introduced unless they are urgent, non-controversial and every member agrees. If we throw that standard out the window, then we will absolutely rue the day. Our lawmaking will be the worse for it.

Part of the opposition and the government's criticism of the Greens is that we should have known that this bill was coming and that Labor's embarrassment at being the architects of the original scheme was so intense that they would be putting pressure to pass it immediately. So it was no longer a Labor law but becomes a Liberal law, and we should have known.

Should we have known that this was coming and supposedly the most urgent reform on the Notice Paper? The answer is no and here is why. On the Friday before a sitting week, the Treasurer sends all members a letter setting out the government's priorities for the forthcoming sitting week. In that letter there was no mention of this bill. It was not a priority.

It is not an excuse that the bill was not in the letter because it was not yet on the Notice Paper, because the Treasurer's priority letter often includes items that are not yet on the Notice Paper but which we are expecting to be introduced or to receive from the lower house and which are a priority. This has been happening all year in relation to COVID response bills. We are told that they are coming, we are told what is in them and that they need to pass by a certain date. In those circumstances, we do not stand on protocol and we do pass them as a matter of urgency. But for this particular bill, there was no mention in the government's own priority letter.

On the Monday of a sitting week, representatives of all parties sit around the table and we determine the priorities for the week: how many speakers are likely to be on each item and whether it is likely to need an early start or a late-night sitting. It is a good process and it is handled far better under the current government than their predecessors. In this case, there was no mention of the fact that this sentencing bill was coming and was a matter of priority and that it had to be passed immediately. If it was a matter of urgency then it would have been raised then, and it was not. We are not mind-readers. We do not know what games other political parties are going to play.

So in all this process, we were led to believe it was a regular sitting week with an established list of priorities and bills that would be introduced and debated in accordance with the usual practice. In fact, it was only when the Labor Party started their stupid law and order auction that this became an issue at the very end of the sitting week. As I say, I am not at all happy about being the meat in the sandwich, but I am more than comfortable with the fact that the bill is now being considered in the sober light of day rather than as a knee-jerk reaction to partisan gameplaying.

I think it is important to remind the public that the report on which the bill is based has sat on the Attorney-General's desk for over a year. That is how urgent this is. The government sits on it for a year. So any alleged consequence that has flowed from not passing the bill in the last sitting week is precisely the same consequence as it has been for the past 12 months. If we go back to when Labor first introduced the 40 per cent discount, it has been a problem for all those years as well.

There is another indication, I think, as to why this debate has really been quite pathetic and a race to the bottom in the law and order auction. The shadow attorney-general referred to the fact that the bill was introduced into the lower house on Wednesday 9 September. It was not debated that day or the next day. In fact, it was debated in the following sitting week. If it was so desperately urgent to pass it, it would have been passed in the same week it was introduced. But the lower house, quite reasonably, took their time and they dealt with it in the next sitting week.

That is not a consideration or a respect that was shown to the Legislative Council. We get the bill at 9.01pm on one day and are expected to pass it by 6pm the next day. It is an appalling way to make laws and I think the South Australian public expects better of both the Liberal government and the Labor opposition. Personally, I am over these stupid games and I will not be sucked in again to only be thrown under a bus.

But I would like to deal with the merits of the bill. For starters, it is important to put on the record that this is an incredibly complex area of law and it is one that has occupied dozens of hours of debate over several bills in the last decade alone. I do not think it is a point of pride for a political party to stand up and say how few speakers they have and how they do not have any questions. This is an incredibly complex area of law. The issue of sentencing discounts for early pleas of guilty or for cooperation with the police has always been with us, whether it is part of the common law and the practice of the courts over many decades or whether it has just codified in this state in the last 10 years or so.

It is also timely to remind people that the concept of sentencing discounts is almost universally accepted by all stakeholders. If there were no prospect of getting a lighter sentence through a plea of guilty, then nobody would plead guilty. Why would you? You might as well put the prosecution to its burden of proof, cross-examine all the witnesses, including the victims, and with a bit of luck you might just get off. If you do not, well the penalty is the same anyway, so no harm was done. That is why everyone supports sentencing discounts.

In fact, it is worse. There would be great harm done if we did not have them, harm to victims forced to revisit their trauma and certainly harm to the budget with the expense of unnecessary trials. When we were looking at whether we could debate this in the last sitting week, one of the news reports was on the quite notorious murder trial in Western Australia, the Claremont killings. That trial cost $11 million.

Contested criminal trials are incredibly expensive. If every defendant pleaded not guilty the criminal justice system would probably grind to a halt and the maxim 'justice delayed is justice denied' would become reality. When you look at recent history of bills and debates over sentencing discounts, you find that reducing the backlog of cases in the courts is often the primary reason for encouraging early guilty pleas with sentencing discounts.

I did say to the Attorney-General in the last sitting week that I did want to take the opportunity to consult more with stakeholders and to consider the hundreds of pages of submissions that had been made over many years but most recently in relation to the Brian Martin review. I did contact the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement. I have had some communications with Cheryl Axleby and also another group that they are working closely with, the Change the Record organisation. I did receive some feedback and I acknowledge, as well as Cheryl Axleby, also Sophie Trevitt of the Change the Record organisation, who reminds us that:

…part of the original purpose of this bill was to facilitate access to justice. Too many people—particularly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples—were languishing in prison on remand due to backlogs in the courts. [The sentencing discount for early pleas] was one measure to reduce that backlog, which disproportionately affects First Nations people.

If the government reduces the incentives for early pleas, what are they going to do to address an already overburdened justice system—even more so now due to Covid or so I understand—and the substantial delays faced by people to have their day in court…

The opposition is proud of the fact they are not going to ask any questions. I am asking a question: if an inevitable consequence of this bill is that the delays in the court system will be exacerbated, what is the government's response to that? Does the government have a parallel package of measures to increase funding to the courts to reduce the backlog, or will we find more people—in particular, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people—languishing on remand because they are not even able to get their day in court? That is the first question for the minister.

At the heart of this bill is a provision that reduces the maximum available sentencing discount from 40 per cent to 25 per cent, and the rationale is quite simply that 40 per cent is unnecessarily large to achieve the purposes of the discount regime.

As I have said, this is not at all a new argument. I went back through the archives to have a look at what the Labor Party had to say about this when this chamber considered the Criminal Law (Sentencing) (Guilty Pleas) Amendment Bill back in 2012. The Attorney-General's second reading explanation, delivered in this chamber by the Hon. Gail Gago, states:

The figures for the discounts in the Bill are not intended to be overly rigid or mechanically applied. They merely provide the upper limit at which a discount for a guilty plea can be set. Though there may be debate as to what should be the precise upper limits, the figures in the Bill are not overly generous. They are consistent with existing sentencing practice. What the Bill achieves is the codification of the rule that the earlier the guilty plea, the greater the discount. It places some limits on the freedom of the courts in providing discounts in sentencing.

The Bill is not radical or revolutionary. Its major effect is to make transparent and regulate what already happens or, at least, what should be happening, in the State's criminal courts on a daily basis. There has been strong support in both Australia and overseas amongst law reform agencies, judges, academics and legal practitioners for a statutory scheme to encourage early guilty pleas and regulate discounts for guilty pleas. Such a reform helps tackle delay and thus assists all parties in the criminal justice process, especially victims and witnesses.

The minister went on:

The present Bill represents a sensible and balanced model. Furthermore, contrary to some assertions, the present Bill should not result in the granting of unduly lenient sentences for offenders through excessive discounts. The figures for the maximum discounts in the Bill for a guilty plea are consistent with existing common law guidelines.

The minister later went on:

A great deal of effort and preparation going over several years has gone into the Bill. The Opposition's approach has been unhelpful and obstructive. It is a bit rich of the Opposition to talk about alleviating the pressures on the criminal justice system and helping victims when all it does is seemingly oppose anything concrete that the Government comes up with. Whenever the Government makes a move to legislate to try and improve the effectiveness of the criminal courts, to tackle delays and assist victims and witnesses, maximise the use of prosecutors' time and minimise the amount of time defendants have to frustrate the system, the Opposition comes up with new arguments to oppose whatever the Government is proposing to do.

Nothing changes. That is eight years old. It is exactly the same debate that we are having now. I just remind members that that was the bill that introduced 40 per cent discounts for people who pleaded guilty at the earliest possible opportunity. I will read the final comment from the Labor government back then:

The Bill contains an overriding provision for any court to be able to decline to provide all or part of a discount for a guilty plea within the ranges in the Act having regard to public interest considerations, namely where the gravity of the offence and/or the circumstances of the defendant are such that the sentence that would arise from conferring the discount would be so inadequate as to 'shock the public conscience'. This expression is not new and is consistent with that already used in governing prosecution appeals against sentence. It is expected that the use of this provision will be rare but it is a necessary provision to make very clear that the courts' discretion is to award up to the level of the discount—it need not award the level of discount, especially for the most repugnant offender or offences. In fact, it need not award a discount at all if the circumstances demand such a course.

None of that has changed, all they are doing is tinkering a little bit with the numbers. That general principle that the parliament is setting a range or a maximum has not changed. You still have judicial discretion, and as I have said the Greens support judicial discretion.

The review undertaken by the Hon. Brian Martin, AO QC, was announced by the current government back in September 2018. The Attorney-General said at the time:

However, the response to some recent matters from victims, their families and the broader community would tend to indicate that discounts given on sentences may not be in line with community expectations.

Sentencing is an integral part of our criminal justice system—it serves as a punishment to the offender, a deterrent to others, and a signal to the broader community that the interests of justice have been met.

It is a complex equation, which is why I have asked Mr Martin to look at whether the level of the discount available to offenders gets the balance right in delivering benefits to the community while ensuring the level of punishment is appropriate.

It is a complex matter and that is why the Attorney went to a prominent former Supreme Court judge, a prominent barrister, to actually do that complex analysis. Compare that approach to the one that has been suggested in this place, that we should automatically just sign off within 24 hours of whatever law reform is put in front of us.

I will refer to some sections of the Hon. Brian Martin's report, because it actually shows that the government did not entirely accept what Mr Martin came up with. Certainly, Mr Martin was far more nuanced than the opposition has been in relation to this issue. At paragraph 361, Mr Martin says:

As to the maximum percentage reductions available at various stages, not only is 40% significantly higher than the maxima in other jurisdictions, there is a widespread view within the community that, put simply, 40% is too high. This is a major source of distress for victims.

In other than rare and exceptional cases, I agree that a reduction of 40% from the appropriate sentence, purely for pragmatic reasons, is too much. It detracts significantly from the fundamental principle that the sentence should appropriately reflect the criminality of the conduct, considered in the light of the offender's personal circumstances. It possesses the capacity to compromise the fundamental purpose of protecting the public and the potential to undermine public confidence in the administration of [criminal] justice.

What I have read is Mr Martin's justification for the government's bill. That is the basis on which they have said, 'Yes, we agree; we agree with the former judge, 40 per cent is too high.' However, His Honour then goes on and says:

Notwithstanding this general view, I recognise that there may be cases involving rare and exceptional circumstances in which a 40% reduction is not only justified, but is in the best interests of the community. For example, with specific exceptions, 40% might be appropriate in the case of a first offender who not only pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity, but from the outset provided complete and valuable assistance to the authorities in respect of other offenders or serious criminal conduct. The mental capacity of an offender might be such as to place the offending in an exceptional category.

So even His Honour is not black and white about this. He says, 'Yes, generally times have moved on; 40 per cent when the Labor government introduced it may have been the standard, it now appears things have changed,' and he is prepared to agree with what the government is proposing. That is, 'Yes, that's probably on the high side now, let's drop it down a bit.' His Honour goes on:

It is apparent from my conclusions that, in my view, the sentence reduction scheme is not meeting community expectations and is a source of disquiet among reasonably minded members of the community. Further, in respect of major indictable matters, the scheme has not achieved the appropriate balance between the benefit to the community of an early plea of guilty, and the need to ensure that offenders are adequately punished and held accountable to the community. However, it must be recognised that the disenchantment with the current maximum percentages is primarily experienced in cases of serious crimes. For example, the application of 40% to sentences for summary offending does not attract adverse attention. In my view there is a good case for maintaining the existing maximum of 40% for summary matters.

In terms of the stakeholders, there were actually three rounds of submissions: two rounds were called for by Mr Brian Martin, and the Attorney-General also called for submissions as well. Interestingly, the submissions that were made to Mr Martin are publicly available; they are on the Attorney-General's website. The submissions on this bill to the Attorney-General herself are not publicly available. When I asked for them, I was told that I could not have them because they were cabinet-in-confidence.

The Hon. C. Bonaros interjecting:

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL: That is what I was told: cabinet-in-confidence. Ultimately, as I have outlined earlier, the Attorney-General did rock up to my office at about lunchtime on the day that we were expected to debate this bill, and she did produce some of those submissions. In my view, they should all be publicly available. I think that whenever the government calls for submissions on a draft bill those submissions should routinely be available to the public. Making them available certainly makes for more efficient lawmaking—we do not have to chase things up.

I will quickly outline some of the submissions. I will start with the Law Society. The Law Society points out in paragraph 9 of their submission:

The Society conveyed to Mr Martin during the consultation for Review in November 2018, that the current sentencing discount scheme was operating well and had been extremely effective in encouraging defendants to plead guilty at an early stage. Even with respect to charges such as murder, where defendants were previously unlikely to plead guilty at an early stage.

At paragraph 12 they state, in relation to the bill:

The reduction in the discount regime is likely to further disincentivise people to plead guilty. For example, this is particularly relevant in relation to the offence of indecent assault, which is often a very useful tool in resolving child sex offences and spares a child complainant from the trial process.

So despite the outrage of the opposition—and we are all outraged at these terrible cases—the Law Society is pointing out that the availability of pleas can avoid retraumatising victims of crime. I think the case of victims of child sex offences is particularly noteworthy. In paragraph 14 of the Law Society's submission they state:

Further, the Society notes that one of the few recommendations from the Martin report that was not adopted in the Bill is Recommendation 5(a). Recommendation 5(a) provides that if the maximum percentages were lowered for cases of more serious crimes, the court could be empowered to increase the percentage reduction by up to 5% over the percentage otherwise available, if satisfied that the additional reduction is appropriate by reason of rare and exceptional circumstances attaching to the offender and/or the offending.

15. There has been no explanation for the omission of this recommendation. The Society strongly urges you to adopt recommendation 5(a) and ensure that a discretion remains for the court to increase the percentage reduction where there is good reason to do so.

If the bill did contain that, then we would be talking not about 40 versus 25, we would be talking about 40 versus 30. But at the end of the day, there is a lot of fiddling around the edges, the effect of which I think has been overstated by some members in this place. I refer also to the submission of the Bar Association. Their president, Mark C.J. Hoffmann QC, in his letter of 7 April this year to the Attorney-General says:

It is noted also that 'serious indictable offences', which include serious sex offences and offences against the person, are those where long waiting periods for trial are likely to have the greatest impact on victims. The public interest in early resolution is heightened for these matters, and a scheme which significantly erodes the existing incentives for offenders to plead guilty to serious offences at an early stage does not achieve the appropriate balance between encouraging early pleas and ensuring offenders are appropriately punished.

Further, the Court has always been empowered to reduce the maximum discount from 30%per cent or 40% if it would 'shock the public consciousness'. [The South Australian Bar Association] notes that this test was amended recently as to set the bar lower if the 'percentage contemplated would be so disproportionate to the seriousness of the offence, or so inappropriate in the case of that particular defendant, that it would, or may, affect public confidence in the administration of justice.'

The [South Australian Bar Association] considers that these existing discretions are sufficient to achieve the appropriate balance that the Bill is intended to address.

I know it is taking some time to put these on the agenda, but if we followed the opposition's approach of having the smallest number of speakers speaking for the shortest possible time and asking no questions, none of this material would be on the public record in relation to this legislation that we are debating.

I will conclude, in terms of the submissions, by going to SAPOL—the police. That is probably a submission that members would expect would be one that would be on the harsh side when it comes to sentencing discounts, but interestingly the only police submission that is on the public record is the submission that SAPOL made to Brian Martin. The submission that police made to the Attorney-General has not been made available, and I will have a bit more to say about that in a minute.

What Grant Stevens, Commissioner of Police, told Mr Brian Martin, AO QC, in his submission back on 20 November 2018, nearly two years ago, was:

All things considered there is the general sense within SAPOL that the present (and former) arrangements for sentencing discounts bring efficiency benefits to SAPOL and, by extension, the courts.

SAPOL, with other stakeholders in the criminal justice system, is attempting to meet the challenges brought by major indictable reform, the foundations of which are built on an assumed continuation of the slightly earlier efficiency reforms, including sentencing discounts. SAPOL has a strong interest in ensuring that this delicate balance should not be upset so early in the implementation of the later reforms.

The submission from SAPOL to the Attorney-General in relation to this bill has not been made available. Again, the Attorney-General cites cabinet confidentiality. It was suggested to me that I was free to approach SAPOL myself if I wanted to get a copy of their submission, but of course that would not have been possible had we been rushing this bill through in a matter of hours in the last sitting week.

In the end, I will just say that I have received assurances from the Attorney-General's advisers that the effect of the SAPOL submission is that they do not have concerns with the current bill. I do not know what the exact words were, whether they were 'support' or 'not object', but anyway they are certainly not hostile is the advice I have been given from the Attorney's advisers, and I am happy to accept those assurances.

But it does highlight the fact that when, for whatever reason, a government declines to provide submissions on law reform, especially submissions on bills that are coming before parliament, it does have us scratching our heads. It should ring alarm bells with members, particularly when, as is often the case, stakeholders have serious concerns. Those submissions I read out earlier would not have been on the public record if we had not had the opportunity to get them and to refer to them and to incorporate them into Hansard.

The final issue I want to deal with is in relation to alternatives to this bill. In my briefing with the Attorney-General's advisers, I asked the very simple question that if prosecutors believe that an inappropriately lenient sentence has been delivered, what else can they do about it?

The answer is pretty obvious. One is that we could do what we are doing in this bill, we can adjust the legislated maximum sentencing discount. Other methods? The obvious one is that the prosecution can appeal. The prosecution can go to a higher court and they can claim that the sentence handed down is manifestly inadequate. You hear about that all the time. You see those cases, they are reported on the news—the DPP appealing against sentences on the basis that they are manifestly inadequate.

Whilst that is not as common as an appeal against a guilty verdict by a defendant, prosecution appeals are possible and they are by no means rare. They are guided by the DPP's guideline 14, Prosecution Appeals. I will refer to one paragraph of that guideline:

The prosecution's right to appeal against sentence should be exercised sparingly and it is the policy of the Director of Public Prosecutions not to institute such an appeal unless it can be asserted with some confidence that the appeal will be successful. In considering a prosecution appeal against sentence it is to be borne in mind that the sentence for a specific offence will vary according to its nature, the circumstances of its commission, the antecedents of the prisoner, and the effect on the victim. Consequently, for any given offence there exists a range of legitimate penalty options. An appellate court will not interfere with the exercise of a Judge's or Magistrate's sentencing discretion unless an error in the exercise of that discretion can be demonstrated. In practical terms, the Court must be satisfied that the sentence imposed falls clearly outside the appropriate penalty range and may consequently be characterised as manifestly inadequate. Mere disagreement with the sentence passed is insufficient. The High Court decisions are clear that there must be a matter of principle to be established by the appeal in relation to the matter of the sentence—

and it refers to the High Court case of Everett and Phillips v The Queen.

I then asked the Attorney-General's advisers: how many of these appeals does the DPP institute against manifestly inadequate sentences? They went away and came back with some figures, and what they advise me is that there have been 81 such appeals since March 2013; that is, over seven years, 81 appeals, or 11 or so year.

When we look at the outcomes of those appeals, more often than not the prosecution is successful. In other words, in more than 50 per cent of cases the appeal court agrees that the sentence is manifestly inadequate and they bump up the sentence. In fact, the figures are (and I will just round the percentages): cases that are abandoned, withdrawn or lapsed, 15 per cent; cases where the appeal was allowed and the sentence was increased, 52 per cent—more than half.

Only 31 per cent of cases were dismissed and 2 per cent were victories for the DPP, but in a slightly different category. What that tells us is that, yes, this bill is one approach, but it is not as if it is the only approach. The prosecutors have always had the ability to go back to court and say that sentence is not quite enough.

It is probably no surprise that my contribution today was a little longer than it would have been had we been forced to debate this bill effectively within 24 hours of it being introduced. I am grateful to the Legislative Council that the council did comply with the long-established precedent that we do not rush important bills through unless there is a particular matter of urgency and that every member and every party agrees. I acknowledge that the government did the right thing in the last sitting week.

I am not happy with the Attorney's press releases naming me as the cause of the problem. I think history will show that this will not be the last time that we look at this. It has been before this chamber every other year, just about, certainly since 2006, when I was elected. This probably will not be the last time we look at it, but I am certainly grateful for the opportunity to consider the bill in a lot more detail, and I am pleased to have been able to put on the record the fact that, despite the apparent unanimity of opinion now between the government and the opposition, there are some other views out there. I think it is important that the record shows that those stakeholders did have an important contribution to make as well.

The Hon. C. BONAROS (16:29): I rise to speak in support of the Statutes Amendment (Sentencing) Bill 2020's second reading and echo some but not all of the sentiments of the Leader of the Opposition, and perhaps more of the sentiments that have just been expressed by the Hon. Mark Parnell. The bill addresses the growing anger in the community in relation to maximum sentence discounts to offenders who enter guilty pleas in cases of serious offending. As we know, it introduces a two-tiered system on the back of the recommendations made by retired Supreme Court Justice Brian Martin, AO QC, in his 2019 report on the scheme.

The scheme itself, as has been highlighted, is a legacy of the former Labor government, introduced in 2013, to save resources and reduce delays within our criminal justice system; in other words, to deal with an entirely inappropriate backlog of cases. Statistics show that the introduction of the scheme had an impact on those things. Before its introduction, early guilty pleas in the Magistrate's Court were about 20 per cent; in the following year that figure rose to about 27 per cent. The criteria for each increment was tweaked as part of the major indictable reforms commencing in March 2018. In the last six months of 2018 guilty pleas reached 44.1 per cent.

But, as Justice Martin found in his inquiry, the balance is not right, and again I give some but not all credit to the opposition for acknowledging that the reforms they introduced went too far. But that is as far as I will go, again for some of the reasons that have been outlined by the Hon. Mark Parnell. I will not comment further on the politics of the debate, mainly because I was not here on the day, so this is not a debate in which I took part when these issues were thrashed out.

Let me focus instead on what our community really cares about, and that is lenient sentences—lenient sentences that have been handed down to offenders who have admitted to committing the worst type of crimes. The community expects that vile sex offenders who have, for example, admitted to abusing children, quite often in their care, receive just sentences for their crimes. A brief perusal of last month's District Court sentencing remarks show just how rife, how disturbingly rife, these types of cases are.

The court handed down a number of sentences on men who had pleaded guilty to maintaining unlawful sexual relationships with children: a 44-year-old man who sexually abused his stepdaughter over a nine-year period received a 20 per cent discount; a 30-year-old man who sexually abused his 12-year-old stepdaughter received a 30 per cent discount; and a man who sexually abused his own sister when she was aged between four and 15, and then abused his own daughter, received a 20 per cent discount. This was part of a broader set of sickening offending for which he received additional penalties.

The maximum discount of 40 per cent was applied to the sentence of a man who, at the age of 40, began a 2½ year relationship with a 13-year-old girl he was living with in a shared house arrangement. He could be out of prison in little over three years. Just last week, a 43-year-old man was handed a 30 per cent discount on a head sentence of 18 months, with five months non-parole, for communicating with the intention of making a child amenable to sexual activity. Thankfully in that case the defendant was actually communicating with a police officer and not an actual child, but the intent was the same.

These discounts are not in line with community expectations. No other Australian jurisdiction offers a defendant the chance of a 40 per cent discount for their early admission of guilt in cases of serious offending. We recognise that it has long been the practice of defence counsel to draw the attention of the court to the fact and timeliness of a guilty plea. As when it operated under common law, the current scheme leaves the discretion to the judge to determine in all of the circumstances the appropriate level of discount to be applied. For the record, SA-Best too supports overwhelmingly judicial discretion. But the discounts on offer for serious offending are too great. In an effort to deal with a judicial system that was severely stretched, this parliament went too far under the opposition's watch. Like the Hon. Mark Parnell said, why else would these offenders plead guilty?

I acknowledge the concerns of the ALRM and Change the Record and agree with many of their concerns in relation to this bill, given the disproportionate incarceration rates of our Aboriginal community members in particular. But the bottom line is what it usually comes down to, and that is one of funding. Unless and until successive governments appropriately fund our judicial systems there is no doubt in my mind that the reasons this bill was introduced all those years ago, the reasons this bill continues to appear on the Notice Paper will, as the Hon. Mark Parnell said, continue to resurface time and time again.

Turning to the bill itself, it enshrines the circumstances when a lesser discount can be applied by the court, such as where a defendant has not shown genuine remorse or has intentionally concealed the commission of the offence. The integration of Justice Martin's recommendations also includes circumstances where the defendant has had an adverse finding at a disputed facts hearing before a magistrate, and in circumstances where the prosecution case is so strong it would or may affect public confidence—a modern play on the historical 'shock the public confidence test'. This adds to the discretion the court already has in having regard to any other factors it deems relevant.

One very important provision in this bill, in my view, is that it gives extra time to defendants who have been unable to obtain proper legal advice due to their location, their itinerant lifestyle or communication difficulties, and that flexibility is extremely important given the vulnerability of some accused people.

One final aspect of the bill I want to touch on is the repeal of the option of up to 10 per cent discount for pleading guilty after a trial has commenced but on account of the defendant's compliance with pre-trial disclosure and procedure. If this option was left on the table it might be an incentive for a defendant to roll the dice. In the recent District Court case of R v Dickson the defendant pleaded guilty to raping his 15-year-old niece. That plea was not entered into at his first trial—where the jury was unable to reach a verdict—but just prior to his second trial which was listed a further six months down the track.

In that case he received the benefit of a 10 per cent discount for procedural compliance, albeit with no opposition from the prosecution. There is a very good argument that it does not make sense to keep this incentive on the table when a defendant could potentially only receive a 5 per cent discount just before the commencement of trial within the new regime.

There has been community outrage in recent months over the way the courts have been exercising their sentencing discretion when considering guilty pleas. Take, for example, the recent sentencing of the paedophile Hamzeh Bahrami. Bahrami entered guilty pleas to four counts of aggravated indecent assault, and one count of false imprisonment after sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl in a toilet block at a Blair Athol playground in 2019. He was sentenced to four years and nine months' imprisonment with a three-year non-parole period. With time served he could be walking the streets again in April 2022.

The DPP is appealing the manifestly inadequate sentence—and so they should. It was offending of the worst kind. There was solid DNA evidence. Bahrami lured the victim into a toilet block and performed unspeakable acts while his own child was on the other side of the toilet door. He then stood back while his brother was arrested. Fortunately, the DNA resulted in his brother being cleared. The only positive to come out of the incentive to plead guilty was that his young victim did not have to relive her traumatic experience in court. That is not something that can be downplayed in terms of its importance in terms of victims being revictimised after the original offending.

This is one aspect of the scheme that I think the media and the general public sometimes overlook when focusing on the punishment above all else, and why some incentives do need to remain in place. Where possible it is important to protect victims of rape or serious sexual offences from the stress of giving evidence at trial, so we must be mindful not to eliminate any incentive at all. We do not want defendants rolling the dice because they feel they have nothing to lose or for victims or their families to endure further suffering because of it.

The sentencing of Matthew McIntyre in the District Court on 14 September is another example of the application of the current sentencing discount scheme rightly sparking community outrage. Following his guilty pleas for communicating with a child for a prurient purpose, with the intention of making a child amenable to sexual activity and unlawful sexual intercourse with a person under the age of 14 years, McIntyre was facing a maximum penalty of 10 years and life imprisonment respectively.

The facts of the case are deeply disturbing. McIntyre was 34 years old when he had sex with and impregnated a child under the care of the Minister for Child Protection after making contact with her via a teenage dating app. The facts, again, were apparently indisputable. The victim had an abortion and the DNA evidence proved the case without a doubt. In her sentencing remarks, Her Honour Judge McIntyre said:

You entered your pleas at the earliest opportunity and you are entitled to a discount of up to 40 per cent on penalty. I do not, however, consider it appropriate to award the full discount.

Whilst you have avoided the trauma of a trial for the victim, and by doing so you have demonstrated remorse, the case against you on both counts was overwhelming.

It could be argued that your pleas represented no more than a recognition of the inevitability of conviction. In those circumstances, I will discount your penalty by 25 per cent.

I think that goes to the heart of the point the Hon. Mark Parnell has just made in his contribution.

That discount reduced a head sentence of five years to three years nine months' imprisonment, with a non-parole period of a mere one year and 11 months. It beggars belief a man can receive a penalty of less than two years for this type of heinous offending. The community expects more from our justice system, as it should.

We have not been privy to all of the stakeholder submissions considered by the government on this bill, again as highlighted by the Hon. Mark Parnell. We have been told submissions are protected by cabinet-in-confidence, something that we are growing all the more accustomed to hearing from this government, as the bill was provided to stakeholders in draft. As I said, this is becoming a habit of the government: 'If you want stakeholder submissions, go and ask the stakeholders.'

Fortunately, the Martin review did consider a broad range of submissions, which we have been privy to. It is safe to say the legal profession is supportive of keeping 40 per cent on the table. Sufficient particulars are not always provided at the first court date. Sometimes witness statements trickle through at a snail's pace. They favour a more flexible approach for these, and myriad of other reasons.

We are not entirely confident the judiciary supports the bill in its entirety, but again the cabinet-in-confidence claim has denied us the ability to consider any concerns it may have. One could assume it would prefer to maintain maximum discretion in sentencing, but as we have seen in recent years, judges are also imperfect and do make mistakes in sentencing when they are manifestly inadequate. But again, thankfully the appeals process sits as a safety net and, as articulated by the Hon. Mark Parnell, I think it has been used on at least 81 occasions since 2013.

The expeditious but now well-considered, I think, passage of this bill is paramount given the recent flurry of guilty pleas being entered into in anticipation of the proposed laws, but again I qualify that comment by referring once again to the Hon. Mark Parnell's comments about the sheer number of cases that would have benefited from this legislation over the past eight or 10 years since its introduction.

There are cases that we are seeing now which do not pass the public confidence test. We have had the recent case on 21 September of Pawel Klosowski pleading guilty to the shooting murder of his son and his son's girlfriend. He is now eligible for up to 40 per cent discount on his sentence under the current regime, though any sentence will be subject to a minimum 20-year non-parole period.

On 24 September, paedophile Dylan McCrossin, a relief teacher at seven South Australian schools, pleaded guilty to possessing child exploitation material. That same day, Mark Anthony Gray pleaded guilty to multiple basic and aggravated counts of possessing and disseminating child exploitation material. Ask the average person on the street if a child sex offender should have the chance of a 40 per cent discount or 40 per cent being shaved off their sentence, I think overwhelmingly the answer would be no.

It is for those reasons that SA-Best expresses its support for the second reading of the bill. I do note the concerns that have been raised so articulately today by the Hon. Mark Parnell in his very thorough contribution, especially as they relate to judicial discretion. I look forward to responses from the government to the questions he has raised in his contribution and the otherwise, hopefully, smooth passage of the bill through parliament.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (16:45): I thank honourable members for their contributions to the second reading. I have to say, I am often stunned at the breathtaking hypocrisy of the Australian Labor Party on issues before this chamber, but today's performance on this particular issue is right up there with the very best from the Labor Party's viewpoint.

In simple terms, South Australians understand that this is a mess of Labor's making. The Labor Party, a party supported by the Leader of the Opposition in this chamber and the Leader of the Opposition in another chamber and, indeed, other prominent members of the Australian Labor Party, supported wholeheartedly, in various roles, the introduction of this particular mess. The people of South Australia will know that it is the Liberal government that has cleaned up or will have cleaned up Labor's mess.

In response to the puerile threats from the Leader of the Opposition in his contribution as to what he intends to do or they intend to do in various electorates, can I respond, albeit much more briefly, that this government is very happy to highlight to the good people of King, the good people of Elder, the good people of Adelaide, the good people of Mawson, the good people of Torrens, the good people of Badcoe, and the other electorates that the honourable member highlighted, that under the former Labor government criminals who were found guilty of grotesque crimes—and we have a list of them—were given 40 per cent discounts by the Australian Labor Party, by the Labor government.

We will highlight those particular individuals that the Labor government wanted to give and did give a 40 per cent discount to. Then, we will highlight the fact that the Liberal government is the government that has introduced the legislation to clean up Labor's mess. We will be willingly highlighting the role of the member for King, the member for Adelaide, the member for Elder, the member for Colton and, indeed, others as being part of a government that has cleaned up Labor's mess.

The individual criminals who committed grotesque crimes against other individuals and against the South Australian community, which we have the details of, the Labor Party happily gave 40 per cent discounts to in terms of their sentences, we will willingly engage in that sort of debate. I am confident that the people of South Australia, when confronted with those facts, will say, 'Thank goodness the new government has fixed up another of Labor's messes, and that will continue for no longer.'

Finally, I note, as I think the Hon. Mr Parnell noted in his contribution, the Hansard record does show quite clearly that the Labor Party in this chamber, led by the Leader of the Opposition, actually voted to adjourn the debate on this particular bill from that sitting week to the next sitting week, contrary to the claims that he has made and they have made in this particular chamber. The Hansard record makes it quite clear there was no dissent, the Labor Party and all members supported the adjournment to the next day of sitting, which is indeed today, for this particular debate. Any claims from the Leader of the Opposition and members of the Labor Party to the contrary are wrong and the Hansard record demonstrates that they are wrong.

With that, and given the Leader of the Opposition has indicated he did not want to see any other members of the government speaking on this bill to delay it, I am sure we will see a speedy passage in the committee stage. I am sure we will not see the usual performance from the Leader of the Opposition in seeking to further delay the speedy passage of this bill by filibustering in the committee stage of the debate.

Bill read a second time.

Committee Stage

In committee.

Clause 1.

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL: I just have two questions, and they were the two that I incorporated into my second reading contribution, so I know the minister's advisers have heard them. The first one is: why did the government not accept Brian Martin's idea of allowing an extra 5 per cent discount in extraordinary cases; in other words, taking it from a maximum of 25 per cent up to 30 per cent discount? Is there a reason why that particular recommendation was not adopted?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: I guess, in part, the response is that the government took a view that ultimately 25 per cent was an appropriate level of discount, as opposed to 40 per cent. I am advised that during the consultation process some of the feedback argued that the notion of the additional 5 per cent to which the honourable member has referred introduced a degree of complexity to the system that those particular stakeholders evidently did not support.

Ultimately, it was the decision of the government, having listened to the stakeholder feedback and to all of the debate and argument, that 25 per cent was what the government believed was an appropriate level of discount, as opposed to the former government's 40 per cent.

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL: I thank the minister for that answer. The second question I have is in relation to the possible effect of this bill on the backlog of criminal cases in the court system. As I tried to explain earlier, one of the main rationales for these discounts has been to encourage people to plead guilty early, which takes pressure off the court system and reduces the delays or the backlog.

My recollection, from the last big debate we had, is that it was particularly a problem in the District Court. Following that through logically: if there are fewer discounts available and fewer people take the opportunity to plead guilty early, there will be more contested cases. What strategy does the government have to manage the backlog of cases in that scenario?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: I am advised that the Hon. Brian Martin indicated, in his report, that he did not believe the difference between 40 per cent and 25 per cent, in terms of the sorts of issues the honourable member has raised, would lead to a significant difference in relation to the workload issues the member talks about. There are always going to be ongoing issues, and I do not propose to delay the debate here. We can talk about it on another occasion.

I am sure the Attorney would be happy to wax lyrical with the member on another occasion about her strategy in terms of the judicial system and backlogs, workloads, the appropriate appointment of replacement judges and a variety of other initiatives that I know she has either already introduced or may contemplate introducing. I think that is probably, helpfully, a debate for another day, and we hope the honourable member stays in the parliament long enough to debate, through next year, some of those initiatives from the Attorney-General.

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL: I thank the minister for his answer. I was expecting him to say, 'Wait for the budget,' because I am expecting there will be major announcements for funding the criminal justice system. As other members, I have never had any particular desire to unnecessarily delay these proceedings. They were the two issues I wanted to ask questions on, and I have. I will have no further contributions in committee.

The Hon. C. BONAROS: I have just one question, leading on from the Hon. Mark Parnell's in relation to budgetary measures. I appreciate that the Treasurer has just said that we do not expect an increase, but has there been an allowance for any potential increases, or have we considered, as part of our budget measures, whether there may be a future need for increasing funding to deal with any increases?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: Not specifically in relation to this particular bill, but it may well be that in terms of the overall submissions the Courts Administration Authority might have made, via the Attorney-General, their overall judgement about workloads may include their judgements about this legislation, and also may include their judgements about the replacement of judges and a whole variety of other judicial issues that might impact on workloads for the court system.

It may be that this is one factor in their overall judgements to the Attorney, and then to the government, about their budgetary issues. However, there is nothing I, as Treasurer, have specifically received in relation to this particular bill to say, 'Hey, we need an extra $1.4 million,' or something, to manage the additional workload as a result of the possible passage of this particular bill.

Clause passed.

Remaining clauses (2 to 10) and title passed.

Bill reported without amendment.

Third Reading

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (16:58): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.

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