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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-08-31 Daily Xml
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Wichen, Mr J.

The Hon. C. BONAROS (15:15): Supplementary: notwithstanding that we might all agree with that assessment, is it actually appropriate for the Attorney-General to make an assessment of the ruling of the Supreme Court in terms of its findings against a perpetrator of any sort of offending?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector) (15:15): I thank the honourable member for her question and in short, no, it's not the role of the Attorney-General to do that and probably—unless any of us have actually heard all of the evidence and understand all the submissions that were made—we are not in a position to pass comment on why a court does or doesn't do something.

After all, it's all of us collectively as the Parliament of South Australia that set the guidelines for what judges interpret. I know the Hon. Dennis Hood is a very keen watcher of sentencing processes, but we set the guidelines and the independent judiciary use that framework in setting sentences or, in this case, releasing people. Certainly, it's not something that an Attorney-General would provide a running commentary on and not something that I would seek to supplement the opinion of a member of the judiciary on.

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