Today in the Tasmanian Parliament, I spoke in support of reforms relating to historical sexual offences, protections for vulnerable victims, and high risk offender laws aimed at improving community safety. The Justice and Related Legislation (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill also strengthens legal clarity across a range of Tasmanian laws and helps ensure courts have workable powers to manage dangerous offenders.
In my speech, I spoke about:
• protecting victims and vulnerable Tasmanians
• why historical sexual offences were always wrong, regardless of outdated legal wording
• the legacy of the late Dr Vanessa Goodwin in reforming Tasmania’s criminal law
• fair and consistent legal processes
• high risk offender orders and community safety
• balancing rehabilitation with protection of the public
I also acknowledged the broad support for these reforms across the Parliament.
Mr FERGUSON (Bass) – Honourable Speaker, I rise to speak in strong support of this legislation. I commend the Attorney-General for bringing it forward to our House. I note as well that I’ve already spoken on this bill about a year ago, before the unnecessary election that we had in the middle of last year. I would advise any audience members or people looking at Hansard to consider my earlier contribution, which I won’t be repeating today. I will be emphasising some of the things that are important to me as Liberal member for Bass, and to reiterate the comments and strong messages of support that I provided during that debate. I acknowledge as well around the Chamber the solid support for the measures contained in this legislation, the Justice and Related Legislation (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill.
It is, as a miscellaneous bill, one that makes a large number of amendments to a large number of acts of parliament. I also note that these amendments are generally of a technical and non-controversial nature, have been heavily consulted and are strongly supported by various stakeholders in the legal profession and around the community. While it’s not a bill that will be making the biggest, loudest headlines, it’s a necessary piece of legislation that the Attorney-General has brought before us and it will help address a number of issues, problems that need to be fixed, but also opportunities to make greater legal clarity available for practitioners that work with this range of laws.
The amendments before us are guided by people who are closely involved in the day-to-day operation of the justice system. As the documents behind the bill, including the Attorney-General’s second reading speech, make clear, feedback has been provided from prosecutors, police, judicial officers and statutory bodies who encounter ambiguity, inefficiency or gaps when the law is applied in practice.
I want to briefly focus on the amendments to the Criminal Code Act 1924 and the Evidence Act 2001, because they go to the issues that involve some of the most vulnerable people in our community. I always speak with a great deal of passion in this space. My first thoughts are never for the offender; they’re always for the victims, in all cases when I consider legislation of this nature.
To read the bill is challenging reading for any member of the community, whether you’re a politician or not. The description of offences, for example, in the Criminal Code, for sexual intercourse, the description for the different kinds of ways that sexual intercourse can occur is awful to read, because in each case I am, of course, thinking of the ways in which people hurt each other. It’s awful. It’s truly awful, but this is the job that this generation of politicians must deal with, and it’s the one that’s been left to us by our predecessors.
I think, of course, as I said at this time one year ago when we debated the same bill in the previous parliament, I gave a lot of credit to the late honourable Dr Vanessa Goodwin, who was an exceptional attorney, whose career as first law officer of this state was cut way too short. She was a pioneer in not just bringing legislation before our House, but also in responding to large gaps. May I just quickly deviate and say today’s bill deals with some smaller gaps, but in her time, as she brought forward the updated definitions for some of these awful offences, these were big gaps. I’ll always remember – and I never understood, as a person who grew up in this state – how it survived so long that we had an offence on our books that used language like ‘maintaining a sexual relationship with a young person’. With its syntax and grammar, it’s perfectly okay, but in the unintended subtext of that language, it could leave a person with the mistaken idea that consent was ever possible between an adult and a young person. I could go on, but that would be a sanitised example compared to some of the others, wouldn’t it? So, I give a lot of credit to her. I worked with her closely in opposition and in government. I always greatly respect the legacy that she created and I’m grateful for her work in this space. When her bills were brought through this House, by and large, they were strongly supported.
I’m pleased to see the updated definition that was introduced during that first term of the Hodgman government made retrospective. I won’t go into the legal reasons why ? I did that in my previous contribution and it’s been already outlined in the second reading speech. However, to make a quick point, while the definition is being made retrospective, it’s not a problem. Legislators should always be careful when asked to adopt a law that is made retrospective; for all of the right reasons, we should look at those very, very carefully.
The point I want to make here is the one I made one year ago, which is that these were always crimes ? at least they were always crimes in our generation. Even if there was a point in our history as a state ? and there are examples where these things weren’t strictly codified and described in the way that they are today ? they were always wrong. They were against nature. They were against what many people would talk about as natural law. It comes back to that idea that it’s wrong to hurt another person, and it’s especially wrong to hurt a young person, or a vulnerable person, or someone who trusts you. So I’m supportive, both as a Liberal member, as well as a member for Bass representing my community. I’m pleased to see this language being made consistent and with retrospective effect. I think that is entirely appropriate.
These offences do need to be properly described, and so as the law catches up with historical offences, I wouldn’t want to see outdated descriptions for those offences relating to those people being caught up with in today’s court cases. Like I said at the outset, I think always of the victims, and I want to see them achieve justice – justice to be done and justice to be seen to be done.
These things are important to ensure consistency and fairness. It’s especially vital to ensure that victims going through proceedings of these kinds, and suffering from and recovering from these offences, are protected. It’s also important that accused persons are also treated fairly and appropriately, noting that people are innocent until proven guilty, that it is a court, not the court of public opinion, which should settle someone’s guilt or innocence; that offenders or accused offenders are judged against clear and settled rules.
It’s also worth noting that, again, while this bill makes some important clarifications in this area, it does not, in the Attorney-General’s bill that’s before us, it does not of itself expand criminal liability or create new offences. I’ll say it again, and I’ll say it for the last time ? these things have always been wrong. The new definitions with the contemporary language I applaud, but regardless of whether a person is charged with the offence definitions with the newer language or the older language, it’s always been wrong. It’s important that we note that.
Briefly, I turn to the amendments regarding dangerous criminals and high risk offenders, this is another example of careful and sensible reform. These amendments clarify the criteria for interim HRO orders so that judges are able to act, when it’s necessary, to protect the community without being held to an evidentiary standard that is unrealistic at an interim order stage.
I discussed this again in my contribution during the previous parliament in that debate. It doesn’t erode rights. It is, though, about making sure that the law provides our court with a more realistic threshold for making interim high risk offender orders. The reason we have high risk offender orders is to protect our community from dangerous people. Measuring risk and then managing that risk. Showing concern for our community, for our families, for our older people, for our children, and then ensuring that the protections that only this parliament is able to provide are provided, in a proportionate way.
The bill provides that interim high risk offender orders will be able to be made if the information provided before the court, ‘would be likely to justify, if proved, the making of an HRO order’. This ensures that safeguards remain in place while providing the court with a more appropriate and, I would say, workable threshold for the making of an interim decision, recognising, as I think we would all agree ? I hope we would ? that further evidence may well become available for the assessment of an enduring high risk offender order that is not an interim order.
As Liberal Member for Bass, I want to see our community protected from people where there is a known, recognised and, hopefully, measurable risk of harm to our community. Speaker, and to my colleagues, I would say, there is hope. I do believe that people can change. I’ve seen people change, people who have done bad things can become better people. People who have done very bad things can become better people, can become good people. I take that opportunity to say that I hope that we can agree on that, and we probably do. However, when society has been presented with a significant crime and significant harm has occurred, it’s reasonable for this parliament and it’s reasonable for the community to have an ongoing level of concern and monitoring around an instance of somebody who has a dangerous past. That’s the process that we entrust to our courts, to independently make those judgments.
As I said earlier, people can change. That’s one of the important principles that society needs to be mindful of, while at the same time ensuring that somebody who has a recognised past of hurting other people is held back from opportunities to hurt other people into the future, if professionals and judicial personnel are able to demonstrate that that risk continues into the future. The community’s safety trumps personal freedom.
Briefly, as I close, the bill also deals with a number of other practical matters around public institutions. I won’t be speaking about those in detail, but in relation to elections, integrity oversight and the administration of justices of the peace. I’m supportive of the Attorney?General’s amendments in relation to those matters. It is important that our democratic and integrity institutions are supported by legislation that keeps pace with change, or keeps pace with better understanding today of well-intentioned laws that were put in place in a previous time.
I appreciate what the Attorney?General’s done here today. I support it. I also noted in the earlier contributions, the well-rounded support from the Labor Party, the Greens and no doubt others. For those reasons I’m very pleased, and certainly commend the bill to the House.
