2003-11-27
- Madam Speaker Braham took the Chair at 10 am.
PETITION
Mandatory Imprisonment for Crime of Murder
Mandatory Imprisonment for Crime of Murder
Mr WOOD (Nelson)(by leave): Madam Speaker, I present a petition, not conforming with standing orders, from 411 petitioners relating to mandatory imprisonment of life for the crime of murder.
Madam Speaker, I move that the petition be read.
Motion agreed to; petition read.
To the honourable Speaker and members of the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory, we the under signed respectfully showeth:
The honourable Attorney-General and Minister for Justice proposed that the bill presented to NT Parliament on 16 October 2003 to enact legislation providing for the mandatory imprisonment of life for the crime of murder with a minimum non-parole period of 20 and 25 years:
Your petitioners humbly pray that government legislates to send each prisoner serving a current mandatory life sentence back before a judge to have their sentence re-determined by this judge who will take each case on its individual merits, as happened in other Australian state when reforming such laws.
MINISTERIAL REPORTS
Information Act – Progress Report
Information Act – Progress Report
Dr TOYNE: (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Speaker, I rise today to provide the House with a progress report on one of the most significant pieces of legislation introduced by this government – the Information Act. That act implemented one of this government’s election commitments. It brought the Northern Territory into the modern era of government openness and accountability with privacy protections, proper government record keeping requirements, and a freedom of information regime – something I note that people elsewhere in Australia had enjoyed for up to 20 years.
The act commenced on 1 July this year giving members of the public the legal right to apply to access information and to correct personal information held by the government. By 21 November, 129 requests for access to information held by the NT government have been received across 13 agencies. Of these, there have been:
74 requests for access to personal information;
three requests to correct personal information, and
52 requests for access to government information
Under the provisions of the act, once a request has been accepted, agencies have 30 days to respond to applicants. Some requests have required extended time to process large amounts of material, or to accommodate contact with third parties. In these instances, applicants have been provided with advice about the extension within the 30-day time frame for initial response. Of the requests received:
81 have been finalised and closed;
eight have been withdrawn;
25 are being processed;
six have been transferred from the receiving agency to another agency for processing, and
nine requests are being held pending further advice from the applicant, where details of the applicant
or the content of the request need to be confirmed or clarified.
Within my own portfolio, the Department of Justice has received 12 applications for information, which comprise six applications for personal information; and six applications for non-personal information. There have been no applications to correct personal information held by the department. The department has one current application under consideration.
I take this opportunity to mention the significant efforts all agencies are making in the ongoing training and development of staff, and establishing systems and procedures to meet the requirements of the act. Agencies have also demonstrated a strong commitment to the integration of privacy principles into the daily conduct of business to ensure the protection of personal information collected and used by government. The continuing positive response to the commencement of the Information Act shows it is a provision that Territorians value and we are pleased to have delivered on a commitment that brings us into line with other states and territories.
Ms CARNEY (Araluen): Madam Speaker, I thank the Attorney-General for his report. The opposition certainly is very interested in how this bill or act has been progressing. In fact, the Attorney-General will no doubt be delighted to learn the opposition had a briefing with the Information Commissioner only this week. We thank the Information Commissioner for that. I will not go into details here about some of the issues discussed with the Information Commissioner. However, it is fair to say that the opposition will continue to monitor how this act actually applies in the Northern Territory with more than just a passing interest.
As members and Territorians will recall we were very concerned when this bill was introduced, because we called it, as did many others, freedom from information. We were concerned about the Chief Minister’s veto powers; that if she decided people were entitled to the information they would get it – if not, bad luck.
People really are calling this act freedom from information. There are a couple of things that can amply illustrate the point. The CLP, as members know, has been trying to get various information for a long time. Apart from the astronomical cost to taxpayers, which we know is of concern to many people, some of the stuff we have received has not been very good. I note that there has been 129 applications. I hope Territorians have more information than we have. This piece of paper is freedom of information under the Labor government – and by god, isn’t it terrific! I hope Territorians got a bit more than this, Attorney-General, I really do.
I believe that, over time, we will see the shortcomings of this act; certainly, many of them do now. When you see things like that, I know they do, as we do. The act is not quite as good as you say, Attorney-General.
Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Speaker, the member not only has some information there, but she has picked up an attractive art piece. What I would like to contrast here is our Information Act which is out there being used by Territorians, and what they had under the CLP - zip, nothing, nothing at all.
October Business Month
Mr HENDERSON (Business, Industry and Resource Development): Madam Speaker, this is the ninth year that October Business Month has been conducted by my Department of Business, Industry and Resources; a major event in the Northern Territory business calendar. In accordance with this government’s focus on business and partnerships with business, corporate sponsors again supported October Business Month in 2003. Sensis was once again the gold sponsor and Original IT Investments was a silver sponsor. I thank these sponsors for their involvement. In addition to these sponsors, numerous other organisations sponsored workshops and seminars during the month such as the Anti-Discrimination Commission, the Australian Taxation Office, the Chamber of Commerce, Biznorth Consulting, HelpNT and Australian Business Limited. I take this opportunity to thank these organisations for their involvement in a successful program.
The objective of OBM 2003 was to provide a program of events, sharply focussed on points of interest in key training areas as identified by business, which would meet the needs of all industry groups in all regions. The challenge for organisers was to ensure the program was relevant to a broad range of business people, was accessible across the Northern Territory, and that sponsors received value for their contribution. The 2003 program featured 85 events across the Territory; an increase of approximately 70% from the 48 events held in 2002. Nearly 3000 people attended OBM events held in Darwin, Katherine, Pine Creek, Alice Springs, Tennant Creek, Nhulunbuy and Mataranka. This is an increase of 77% on last year’s attendance of 1700 people.
Many of these events featured keynote speeches, each acknowledged as a leading professional in their field. Mr Alan Pease, who is a well known author and communicator, provided an address in Alice Springs and Darwin to launch OBM 2003, and his entertaining sessions ensured record numbers of attendees for both launches.
Other keynote speakers were Debbie Mayo-Smith, who spoke on marketing techniques; Ross Honeywell, who is a specialist on consumer behaviour; Peter Cox, who spoke on accounting and finance, and Corinna Herbert, who shared her experiences of operating a successful home-based business. All of these keynote speakers provided a fresh look at business topics with their own entertaining and informative approach. From all accounts, their presence enhanced the overall impact of OBM 2003.
I am pleased to report that a series of Meet the Buyers networking expos was held throughout the Territory during 2003. Some 300 business people took advantage of the opportunity to meet staff from various NTG agencies in order to promote their products and services. I instigated these sessions to inform Territory business of changes to procurement practice introduced as part of the procurement reform package, and to build relationships between government agencies and suppliers.
Briefing sessions were conducted at each expo by the Procurement Reference Group, NTISO and CAL. Again, initial reports show this component of OBM 2003 succeeded in achieving its objective.
An evaluation report of OBM events is being compiled by a local business, Dolphin Software Pty Ltd. Preliminary results show that OBM 2003 surpassed its objective of providing focussed training events for a broad range of business people across all industry groups.
Participants provided feedback that indicates OBM 2003 workshops and seminars were relevant, of value to their businesses, and provided them with useful ideas. Business people have identified a continued interest in topics such as marketing, e-business, home-based business and customer service as suggested topics for the future. This will be further tested over the coming year to assist in setting the format for OBM 2004.
OBM 2003 was widely promoted through a mail out of the calendar of events across the Territory, newspaper advertisements, radio and the department’s web site on which people had the opportunity to register on-line. Feedback from participants showed that most people heard about the events from a mail out of the OBM program, word of mouth from a friend or colleague, newspaper advertisements or a referral from Territory Business Centres.
Support for OBM events came from a broad cross-section of industries with representation from owners, directors, chief executive officers, managers and employees.
With numerous major projects under way, OBM 2003 provided an excellent opportunity for Territory business people to develop their training and development needs to maximise the economic and job opportunities for Territorians in this exciting growth period for the Territory.
Finally, I thank all of the DBIRD staff from across the Northern Territory who really do work very hard in putting together this calendar of events. They did a great job. I am sure all members in this House will join me in thanking them for the work they do.
Mr DUNHAM (Drysdale): Madam Speaker, I will start where the minister left off, and thank the staff of DBIRD. I, too, applaud their efforts. They have done a great job. October Business Month is an immense task. I know they put their best effort into it and do it on the basis that they think it is a good thing for the entire community. I applaud their efforts, as well.
The minister has presented something here that is a great idea. October Business Month is a wonderful idea.. It is not his idea, but that is not the point. The point is that they have chosen to keep it going. It was a very good initiative of the previous government and still has some legs to it.
I noticed he said the challenge is relevance. I suggest that he look carefully at next October Business Month. You are going to have to make sure that business has some confidence in this government, and that your budgets are relevant because the issues that the business community are coming to me about are definitely to do with government decisions that are irrelevant to them, that do not help them and, worse still, government decisions that hinder them.
I hope that the 3000 people who attended have the business cards of ministers and have the capacity to contact them. On the issue of Meet the Buyer, the government being the buyer, I hope that there is some capacity to influence some of those government decisions that are so harmful to business at the moment.
Information Technology Innovations for Health in Central Australia
Mrs AAGAARD (Health and Community Services): Madam Speaker, I rise today to advise the House of a world-first achievement in the application of information technology, an achievement that has been pioneered in the Northern Territory.
I recently had the pleasure of launching MARVIN and ‘Uncle’, the world’s first indigenous computer animated icon. The launch marked the culmination of several years of work that has been initiated in Central Australia by many innovative and passionate people. ‘Uncle’, and a whole host of other characters, will enable almost seamless two-way communication between our indigenous staff and their indigenous clients.
Mr Dunham: They have computers and are you are running out of Aspalgin. Doesn’t this tell you something?
Mrs AAGAARD: They are solutions that will mark the start of new and better ways of delivering health and education to Territorians in remote communities.
Mr Dunham: You have a big problem.
Mrs AAGAARD: Most exciting of all, the indigenous characters developed by my department and indigenous youth are able to speak and translate 27 of the world’s most common languages bases.
Mr Dunham: It is great work, people with broken jaws are getting sent south in the plane.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Drysdale, let the minister continue.
Mrs AAGAARD: Sorry, Madam Speaker, it is very difficult with such rude members. Work has also commenced to enable Aboriginal language translations. I am very pleased to inform the House that my department, along with the Department of Employment, Education and Training, has signed an agreement with Melbourne software company, Inchain, to form a strategic partnership. This partnership will provide the Northern Territory government with long term access to the revolutionary IT solutions. This is considered particularly important for both departments which are the biggest potential users of these products in the Northern Territory government.
MARVIN is clever software, developed by Inchain, a software development company, that talks to the Microsoft Agent and guides it to animate and present ‘Uncle’ and other friendly characters. ‘Uncle’ was developed by young Aboriginal people in Alice Springs. MARVIN has already achieved some tremendous successes in the areas of Health and Community Services, and Employment, Education and Training.
What started out a couple of years ago, driven by the Central Australian Alcohol and Other Drug Service of my department, as a selection of tools to develop health promotion materials, has now become a world first class multi-dimensional communications tool like no other. J Easterby Wood, a training and assessment coordinator with my department, trialled and developed a new program called Pathways to Dimensional Learning in collaboration with a number of computer software developers. This was the launch pad for what has rapidly evolved into a new generation of interactive multimedia communications products. It was this Pathway to Dimensional Learning project that won the Open Award at the Commissioner for Public Employment Awards for equity and diversity. This is a tremendous achievement for my department against some very strong competition.
MARVIN is an excellent example of government partnering with the private sector, ensuring that maximum benefits are derived from the Northern Territory for innovations that have been driven by skilled people within the Northern Territory. This partnership model extends through to the community services sector, which has also been instrumental in providing environments to develop and prove these products.
The Gap Youth Centre was one of the first agencies to explore the use of Microsoft Agents, the Pathways to Dimensional Learning program and, more recently, MARVIN. The Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing has recently provided funding to Waltja and Kakadu Health Service to develop interactive health orientation and resources for Aboriginal health workers. Madam Speaker, I commend MARVIN to the House.
Ms CARTER (Port Darwin): Madam Speaker, I thank the minister for her report this morning on the MARVIN program. I am aware of the program. It has had some very good reviews around the traps, and the staff are very excited about it. The CLP opposition would also like to convey our congratulations to J Easterby Wood on the work he has done over the years in the development of this program. It is great to see that the minister and the department have finally taken it on board, after quite a few years of efforts being made to get this program accepted into the work the department is doing.
I am aware that it is now an internationally recognised program. It will be wonderful to see this innovative technology, developed in the Centre, going out to the world, as we work to encourage communication for people, for example, Aboriginal people to get health messages through to them and, once again, congratulations to J and the department on this work.
Mrs AAGAARD (Health and Community Services): Madam Speaker, I thank the opposition for those positive comments.
I advise members that I believe there has been interest from Canada and New Zealand for using this technology for indigenous people there. It could actually be something which is very positive for indigenous communities throughout the world. Once again, congratulations to those members of my staff who have been involved with this.
International Fishing Cooperation and Offshore Fishery Resources
Dr BURNS (Primary Industry and Fisheries): Madam Speaker, I rise to inform the House about a very important issue concerning the future of the Northern Territory’s offshore fishery resources.
We share our offshore fisheries with our international neighbours, including Indonesia, East Timor and possibly Papua New Guinea. In the absence of cooperation with our near neighbours about fishing, I fear the future of a range of our offshore fisheries may be placed at risk. Independent reviews of our offshore fisheries by a range of national and international experts have commended the highly conservative arrangement implemented by the Northern Territory government in relation to management of our offshore fisheries.
I should point out that the federal government has recently awarded the highest level of sustainability accreditation possible to our offshore fisheries and will allow seafood exports to continue. However, there is a risk that unsustainable fishing practices undertaken in adjacent jurisdictions may impact on the Territory’s fisheries. This is of particular concern as we have a shared continental shelf and, unfortunately, fish do not recognise the Australian fishing zone and swim across the border!
While the Territory has issued only a handful of commercial fishing licences, on the other side of the border, I am informed there are around 500 to 600 Indonesian line fishing boats, a much larger number of industrial scale fishing trawlers operating there of about 700 boats, together with a great number of subsistence fisherman. The Northern Territory has taken steps to encourage regional involvement in fisheries issues through direct contact and capacity building with East Timor, collaborating on international research on snappers in Northern Australia and Eastern Indonesia, and through the North Australian Fisheries Workshop.
While a great deal has been achieved in terms of research, there is currently no formal policy framework to ensure that the outcomes are translated into sustainable management practices by our international neighbours. Responsibility for such agreement rests squarely with the Commonwealth government. The Commonwealth has taken a leading role in implementing regional agreements to prevent over-fishing of shared fishing resources over the past decade. However, the Top End has largely been ignored in the past and remains the only Australian jurisdiction not covered by a regional agreement, although it is the most deserving.
Regional agreements seek a commitment by member countries to ensure that the actions of fishing vessels are appropriate and to ensure a coordinated commitment to prevent over-fishing. Such a forum is necessary to address the very serious issue of netting debris that continues to wash ashore in the Northern Territory. Concerns about discarded fishing nets washing ashore were a major issue raised with me and other ministers at the Groote Eylandt and Maningrida Community Cabinets. These nets entangle marine life including turtles, sharks and sometimes dugongs. It is of great concern that most of the discarded nets arriving in Northern Australian waters and beaches originate from fisheries controlled by our international neighbours. Surveys of discarded fishing gear, using the World Wildlife Fund’s net identification kit, shows that the majority of discarded fishing nets originate outside Australian waters. It seems that the ocean current carries discarded fishing nets from Indonesian waters and then deposits them on to our shores.
Madam Speaker, on behalf of the Territory, I voice strong concerns about the lack of a regional forum to ensure ongoing sustainability of our shared fisheries resources and prevent marine debris. These are very important issues for us, and I have discussed it with Commonwealth ministers. I can report that it has hit a sympathetic chord with the Commonwealth fisheries minister. I look forward to the Commonwealth Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation giving greater attention to this important issue and to honour his commitment to move forward on these important issues that are so vital to fisheries and fisheries management in the Northern Territory.
Mr BALDWIN (Daly): Madam Speaker, it is a very important issue. I am glad the minister has found out that fish do swim over boundaries. However, it is certainly an issue that – I am not sure that it has just been ignored over the past few years as you have said. It has always been high on the agenda and it always will be because of the mere fact of our geography. The pressure is coming more and more from the north into the Australian and the shared fisheries, obviously, and it will be an area that has to have a lot of attention. The minister has talked about the number of boats that are currently to our north in terms of long line fishing boats, heavy trawlers, and they are very considerable numbers, not to mention, as has been by the minister, the more subsistence-type fishermen that are out there as well.
Protocols for that shared resource, particularly on the line of international water boundaries, is something that certainly is going to be an issue that has to be resolved in getting in place formal arrangements. As the minister says, discarded nets and all the other bits and pieces that seem to reach our shores from those foreign fishing boats, have been a concern for quite a considerable period. Protocols need to be put in place because they are not just damaging the fishery that is shared by our adjoining countries but they impact right up to our sea shores and our local coastal fisheries quite considerably.
I welcome the minister’s statement and certainly look forward to further reports on the discussions with the federal minister in the Commonwealth on the formal arrangements, as they progress.
Dr BURNS (Primary Industry and Fisheries): Madam Speaker, I take on board what the shadow minister has said. He maintains that these issues have not been ignored and that may well be true. The fact is that there are no frameworks in place, frameworks very important to the Territory, because our fisheries, the borders of our fisheries butt up directly with our neighbours. I spoke about this matter and conveyed my concerns to the Commonwealth minister, Senator Ian Macdonald, and he was very sympathetic. I suggested to Senator Macdonald that possibly a forum be held in Darwin, involving the Territory, myself, with Indonesia and East Timor involved as well as the Commonwealth, of course, as the overarching body because it is up to the Commonwealth. Minister Macdonald undertook to take this matter up both with Mr Downer, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and also the Prime Minister. So, it is in process. I will be certainly bringing the matter up again with Senator Macdonald and trying to find out where progress is. I think it would be a very important forum. The Commonwealth would have to take the lead but the Northern Territory has a vital part to play in it.
Madam SPEAKER: Minister, I am sure you will not mind if I take this opportunity, and I am sure you would acknowledge with me the great success, which is not to do with fishing but of Jimmy Hayes this week. This week is the first time a crop of grapes will be picked in the Rocky Hill on Undoolya Station, 30 km east of Alice Springs. It is the first crop of grapes in Central Australia and it is a great achievement after four years of hard work and planning by him.
Members: Hear, hear!
Reports noted pursuant to Sessional Order.
SUSPENSION OF STANDING ORDERS
Take two bills together
Take two bills together
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, I move that so much of standing orders be suspended as would prevent bills entitled Electoral Bill 2003 (Serial 195) and Electoral (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2003 (Serial 196):
(a) being presented and read a first time together and one motion being put in regard to, respectively,
the second readings, the Committee’s report stage, and the third readings of the bills together; and
(b) the consideration of the bills separately in the Committee of the Whole.
Motion agreed to.
ELECTORAL BILL
(Serial 195)
ELECTORAL (CONSEQUENTIAL AMENDMENTS) BILL
(Serial 196)
(Serial 195)
ELECTORAL (CONSEQUENTIAL AMENDMENTS) BILL
(Serial 196)
Bills presented and read a first time.
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, I move that the bills now be read a second time.
The right to enrol and vote in free and fair elections is a fundamental right in a modern, liberal democracy. An adequately resourced Electoral Commission, operating independently of government, is an essential component of our democratic rights. Prior to the last election, in recognition of these principles, I promised Territorians that a Labor government would establish an independent Electoral Commission. Passage of these bills will deliver on my commitment and establish the first ever independent Electoral Commission in the Northern Territory.
Madam Speaker, in April 2003, the government engaged the highly regarded firm, Minter Ellison Consulting, to undertake and independent review of the Northern Territory electoral system. The terms of reference of the review were:
recommend a suitable structure for an independent electoral commission;
make recommendations for the appropriate administration, funding and reporting framework
for an independent electoral commission;
assess the range of functions to be carried out by an independent electoral commission, including
an assessment of the resources needed to fulfil those functions; and
identify the legislative changes required to establish an independent electoral commission and support
other recommendations.
The consultants, whose team include a very experienced electoral and legal professionals, have provided a comprehensive review of our electoral system following an extensive public consultation.
Madam Speaker, I table a copy of the consultant’s report.
Forty-nine written submissions were received from Territorians during this process. The consultants also conducted public forums in Darwin and regional centres. It is pleasing to see Territorians are interested in our democratic system and are keen to contribute in this important area of electoral reform.
Government has carefully considered the consultant’s report and the recommendations. There are a number of significant areas of electoral reform flagged in the report, and the majority of these reforms have been taken up and are reflected in this bill. Some recommendations have not been adopted. For example, the proposal for public funding of political parties and candidates is not supported by the government.
I now turn to some key aspects of the Electoral Bill. The bill establishes the Northern Territory Electoral Commission, which consists solely of the Electoral Commissioner. The bill also contains several provisions to establish and enhance the independence of the commission. The commission is not subject to the direction or control of the minister. For example, the appointment of polling places and mobile polling places now rests exclusively with the commissioner. The independence of the commissioner is further enhanced by provisions which require the commission to report on its activities to the Speaker at the end of each financial year. Provision is also made in the bill for the minister to consult with the leaders of political parties in the Assembly and MLAs who are not members of political parties before the commissioner is appointed.
Another major reform in the bill relates to the timing of elections. Under existing arrangements, the government of the day can call an election at any time subject to the agreement of the Administrator. The new provisions mandate a fixed minimum three-year term other than in exceptional circumstances set out in the bill. In other words, consistent with public expectation, governments will be required to serve a reasonable period before an election is called.
The election timetable is another important aspect of electoral administration reform in the bill. Under the current act, the election period can be as short as 16 days or as long as 52 days. The bill provides for a 19-day election period. This provision strikes a good balance between the administrative requirements for the election, the needs of voters and candidates, and the disruption to government a longer election period would involve.
Another fundamental component of best practice electoral administration is the accuracy of electoral rolls. The vast distances covered by the Territory and high population mobility present significant challenges in terms of roll maintenance. Under the bill, rolls close at 8 pm two days after issue of the writ as opposed to 6 pm on writ issue day under the existing act. The additional two days provides the opportunity for eligible voters to enrol or transfer their enrolment for an impending election.
The bill enumerates the functions of the commission, including requirements to promote electoral education and information programs. These programs will provide the opportunity for the commission to emphasise and facilitate the obligation of eligible citizens to enrol. The consultant’s report also recommends that the commission should work with the Australian Electoral Commission to develop roll maintenance strategies appropriate to the Northern Territory.
The bill introduces for the first time registration of political parties in the Northern Territory jurisdiction. The bill sets out criteria for registration, including the requirement for a registered party to have 50 members who are electors. Under the bill, a registered political party can nominate party candidates. The name of the registered political party will be printed on the ballot paper under the name of each candidate endorsed by the party. A candidate not endorsed by a registered political party may elect to have the word ‘Independent’ printed under his or her name. Ballot papers will continue to show candidates’ photographs. The popularity of this uniquely Northern Territory requirement was confirmed during public consultations. Under the bill, the order of candidates names on ballot papers will now be determined by lot.
The privacy of elector information has long been a concern of my government. In this bill, we have taken further steps to safeguard electors’ privacy. Electoral roll details available for public inspection will now only include the name and enrolled address of an elector. The electoral roll will no longer be available for sale. However, the bill will continue the current practice of making electoral roll update data available to members of the Assembly to allow them to service their electorate. The Electoral Commissioner will also be able to provide roll data for medical research purposes if the commissioner considers it is in the public interest to do so.
The full preferential voting system will be retained. This system is the voting system used by the federal House of Representatives, and received wide support in the public consultation phase. The bill also provides for the popular pre-poll voting system to be retained, and to be enhanced by allowing declaration voting at pre-poll voting centres. Other enhancements in the bill relating to voting include the ability to allow an elector to cast a vote if they are voting outside their electoral division by making an oral declaration and having their name marked off on a roll listing of all Territory electors.
The other important change is to bring the registered postal vote criteria in line with the Commonwealth criteria. This will effectively allow for one register in the Northern Territory, covering Commonwealth and Northern Territory registered postal voters. Some minor changes have also been introduced in the bill in relation to normal postal voting procedures. These relate to the deadline a postal vote application must be received by. Four days before polling day if ballot papers are to be sent outside Australia, and two days before polling days if ballot papers are to be sent within Australia.
Mobile polling is a very important and essential characteristic of voting in the Northern Territory. Mobile polling allows electors, who would otherwise be disenfranchised by the tyranny of distance, to exercise their fundamental right to vote. The bill retains the provision for the commission to exercise the flexibility, if the exigencies of the election require, to substitute or change mobile polling locations or times.
________________
Visitors
Visitors
Madam SPEAKER: Chief Minister, could you pause for a moment. I acknowledge the presence in the gallery of Year 6 and 7 students from Durack Primary School, accompanied by Mrs Larelle Gilbert, Mrs Debbie Willmore and Mrs Lucy Barua. On behalf of all honourable members I extend you a warm welcome.
Members: Hear, hear!
________________
Ms MARTIN: Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is great to have some young Territorians who, in the future, will vote here as we have the second reading of a very important bill about how we run elections in the Northern Territory.
The bill retains the provision for the commission to exercise the flexibility, as I said before, if the exigencies of the election require to substitute or change mobile polling location or times. Mobile polling has traditionally commenced on the Monday before polling day. The period for mobile polling is mandated under the bill, and mobile polling will commence nine days after writ issue. An extra four days will therefore be available to facilitate voting in remote locations.
Assistance to voters is an important issue in the Territory. Many electors do not speak English as a first language, and there are relatively high levels of non-literacy in English. Without assistance, such electors can be disenfranchised or experience difficulty in casting their votes. Consistent with existing provisions, the bill provides for a polling official to assist an elector to vote. In addition, new provisions for assisted voting allow an elector to nominate an assistant other than a polling official. This new provision is consistent with the Commonwealth Electoral Act and will enhance the franchise for those requiring assistance.
The bill also makes provision for the commission to issue an infringement notice to an elector who fails to vote without a valid and sufficient reason. This will avoid costly prosecution action.
I also draw your attention to a small but important change to voting scrutiny procedures. Whilst sound electoral practice requires that a check count is undertaken of ballot papers – and I have been assured that this has always been the case at Northern Territory election scrutinies - the bill now has the requirement for a check count to be undertaken enshrined in legislation.
I now come to another essential component of the electoral system and that is electoral redistribution. The essential requirements of a sound and effective electoral redistribution system have now been incorporated into this bill. The redistribution committee is to comprise the Electoral Commissioner, the Surveyor-General and the Auditor-General. This bill sets out the objects of a redistribution and the factors the committee must consider in determining proposed boundaries. The bill also provides for an augmented distribution committee to be established to consider objections to proposed boundaries. The augmented committee comprises the redistribution committee plus an appointed person who must be a person who has served as, or is qualified for appointment as, a judge of the Supreme Court or a magistrate, or a person with other appropriate qualifications or experience and no political affiliations.
The other cornerstone contained in this bill to ensure absolute independence and integrity of the electrical redistribution process is that the report of the final redistribution committee is final. It cannot, as is the case under existing legislation, be rejected by the Legislative Assembly. The bill provides for similar public consultation and review periods to those operating under current legislation.
Another essential component of this bill relates to financial disclosure. The procedures cover the disclosure of loans, donations and gifts to political parties, candidates or associated entities. An annual return is required to be submitted to the commission by persons making donations of $1500 or more, or providing gifts of $1500 or more to the same registered party or associated entity during the financial year.
In relation to electoral expenditure, the bill requires the report agent of a candidate to provide to the commission within 15 weeks after polling day details of election expenditure exceeding $200. The bill also requires that a publisher or broadcaster must provide a return to the commission eight weeks after polling day to include where the advertisement was published, the person who requested the advertisement, and the cost of the advertisement. To complete the financial disclosure accountability loop, the reporting agent of a political party, or the financial controller of an associated entity, must, within 16 weeks after the end of the financial year, complete an annual return. The return must disclose the amount received on behalf of the party or entity, the amount paid on behalf of the party and any outstanding debts.
Madam Speaker, to minimise reporting requirements, if a party is registered under the Commonwealth provisions, a copy of the return provided to the Commonwealth may be provided to the commission to satisfy this reporting requirement. An associated entity, however, must, within 16 weeks of the end of the financial year, provide a return to the commission of amounts received and amounts paid on behalf of the entity together with any outstanding debts incurred by the entity. Similarly, if the associated entity provides a return to the Commonwealth, the commission will accept a copy of the return as complying with the provisions of the act.
The bill provides for the commission to take investigative action in relation to financial disclosure if the commission considers it necessary. This bill also provides comprehensive review procedures where a person or entity wants to have a decision of the commission reviewed. Part 12 of the bill establishes the Court of Disputed Returns and prescribes the procedures for disputing elections. These procedures are similar to those that currently operate under the Northern Territory Electoral Act.
The bill prescribes electoral offences. The integrity of the electoral system is, as I have stated earlier, fundamental to our democratic society. My government views offences against the electoral system as a very serious matter indeed. The bill, therefore, prescribes substantial penalties for such offences as improperly influencing a voter or an official, or providing false and misleading statements to an official. The penalties provided in this bill are congruent with similar level offences prescribed in other legislation.
The introduction of the Electoral Bill has necessitated the drafting of the Electoral (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2003. This bill principally covers changes to nomenclature and definitions in other Northern Territory legislation.
In general terms, enactment of these bills will establish an independent Electoral Commission operating under best practice electoral administration in the Northern Territory.
I commend these bills to honourable members.
Debate adjourned.
FOOD BILL
(Serial 197)
(Serial 197)
Bill presented and read a first time.
Mrs AAGAARD (Health and Community Services): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill now be read a second time.
We have all heard the words: it must have been something I ate. In Australia, every year, more than two million people get sick from the food they eat, which makes food safety a high priority for any government. The Northern Territory is fortunate in that we have a good history when it comes to safe food. However, that does not mean we can afford to be complacent. The Northern Territory government is acting to make food safer. One of the most important parts of this approach is the implementation of a new Model Food Act.
The existing Northern Territory Food Act 1986 was based on a model food act adopted by Australian state and territory health ministers in 1980. The intended uniform adoption was not fully achieved and led to substantial differences in state and territory legislation. In 1997, the Commonwealth Food Regulation Review, the Blair Review, examined existing food regulation in Australia. The Blair Review was a whole-of-government, paddock-to-plate review of food regulation and regulatory systems. The key objectives of the review were to, whilst protecting public health, reduce the regulatory burden on the food sector, and examine those regulations that restricted competition, and to improve the clarity, certainty and efficiency of food regulation. The findings of the Blair Review were released in 1998. The review found the current regulatory framework in Australia to be complex and fragmented. The report suggested a need for governments to implement an integrated and coordinated national food regulatory system through improved partnership arrangements and the adoption of nationally consistent guiding principles.
In 1999, state and territory governments endorsed the final report of the Blair Food Regulation Review. The review of the food acts and the Blair Review were wide-ranging and included input from governments, industry groups and individuals and culminated in the signing of an intergovernmental agreement, an IGA, on food regulation by all states and territories and the Commonwealth government in November 2000. Under the intergovernmental agreement, each state and territory agreed to adopt Annexe A of the Model Food Act. It deals with definitions, offences and defences relating to food safety and the adoption of the food standards code. Adoption of the provisions contained within Annexe B of the Model Food Act is discretionary. Annexe B of the Model Food Act includes issues such as food business registration, food safety programs and auditing arrangements, improvement notices and prohibition orders.
The Food Bill 2003 contains the entire Annexe A provisions, as agreed under the IGA, and a number of provisions drawn from Annexe B of the Model Food Act. The provisions of the Food Bill 2003 will deliver to industry and consumers on this government’s commitment to the protection of public health and safety; protect consumers by providing uniform and effective food recall powers; improve information and resource sharing between government agencies; and reduce business compliance costs by facilitating uniform interpretation enforcement of the Food Standards Code.
The Food Bill 2003 repeals the Food Act 1986 and introduces legislation consistent with Annexe A provisions as well as administrative arrangements consistent with Annexe B. These measures will improve the food regulatory framework in the Northern Territory. Annexe A of the Model Food Bill has four main components: definitions; offences; defences; and emergency powers. The bill clearly sets out the objects of the legislation, primarily to ensure that food for sale is safe and suitable for human consumption and to prevent misleading conduct relating to the sale of food.
The bill contains a number of definitions. These definitions are in the same terms as Annexe A of the Model Food Bill. The definition of ‘food’ is central to determining the scope of the bill. For the purposes of this legislation, food is anything which is presented or intended for human consumption. This includes live plants and animals where such plants or animals are intended for human consumption. However, the definition of food excludes substances regulated by the Therapeutic Goods Administration.
The definition of ‘sell’ is necessarily very broad. This provision clarifies that food served as part of a contract or to an inmate, patient or similar, will be taken as having been sold. The definition also makes it clear that food that is offered as a prize or reward or given away for the purposes of advertisement or furtherance of trade or commerce is deemed to have been exposed for sale or sold.
‘Food business’ has been defined to include any activity, enterprise or business that involves handling of food for sale or the sale of food, regardless of whether it is of a commercial, charitable or community nature or whether it involves handling or selling food on one occasion only. Clause 9 expressly exempts primary food production from this definition. Special arrangements will apply to charity type events.
‘Unsafe’ and ‘unsuitable’ food have also been defined. These terms are primarily used in relation to establishing the offence provisions of the Food Bill. Food is considered unsafe at a particular time if it would be likely to cause physical harm to a person who might consume it, assuming that the person consumed it according to its reasonable use. Clause 10 of the bill clarifies that food for sale is not unsafe merely because its inherent nature causes adverse reaction in people with allergies or sensitivities that are not common to the majority. For example, peanuts may cause a serious allergic reaction in some individuals. However, they are not considered unsafe under this clause, as the majority of the population do not suffer this reaction.
On the other hand, food is considered unsuitable if it is damaged, deteriorated or perished to an extent that it affects its reasonable use, or if it is the product of a diseased animal, or an animal that has died otherwise than by slaughter, or contains a biological or chemical agent, or if it contains other matter or substance that is foreign to the nature of the food.
Clause 11 clarifies that agricultural and veterinary chemicals, naturally occurring metals and non-metals do not make a food unsuitable if those substances are permitted in the Food Standards Code. It allows for animals to be declared safe for human consumption under another act, for example, the Meat Industries Act.
The second component of the Food Bill relates to offences. It contains a number of offences that apply regardless of whether or not the food is intended for sale in the Northern Territory or outside of it. Clauses 23 and 28 clarify the situation in relation to food that is intended for export, and food that is sold outside the Northern Territory, respectively. The serious offences relating to food relate to those instances where the offensive action was undertaken knowing that the behaviour was illegal. These offences are state of mind provisions requiring a finding of intent, negligence or knowledge before an offence can be proved.
The specific serious offences for the supplier of food or employers of a supplier are handling food intended for sale in a manner that the person knows will render the food unsafe; selling food that the person knows to be unsafe; falsely describing food for sale specifically knowing that the food is falsely described and the false description will or is likely to cause physical harm to a consumer who relies on that description; and selling food that is falsely described and that false description will or is likely to cause physical harm to a consumer who relies on that description.
For these serious offences the penalties are significant - 1000 penalty units for an individual or 5000 penalty units for a corporation. For individuals, there is also the potential to be sentenced to imprisonment for two years instead of, or in addition to, the financial penalty. Offences have been created for the handling and sale of food that is not safe or suitable, and for engaging in conduct that is, or is likely to be, misleading in relation to the advertising, labelling or packaging of food for sale.
Consumers are further protected by creating an offence for selling food that is not of the nature or substance demanded by the purchaser. Various offences are included for failure to comply with the Food Standards Code in the absence of any other specific penalty.
The Food Bill also outlines a number of defences. In any proceedings, it is a defence if the person took all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence to prevent the commission of the offence by the person or by another person under that person’s control.
The bill also draws upon Annexe A of the Model Food Act to address the issue of emergency powers. Such powers are conferred to the Chief Health Officer but can only be exercised where necessary to prevent or mitigate a serious danger to public health. The powers allow the Chief Health Officer to prohibit production of food; recall food; require publication of warnings that a type of food is not safe; and direct that a type of food be impounded, isolated or destroyed. Failure to comply with an emergency order is an offence.
The remaining parts of the bill have been drawn from the Annexe B provisions of the Model Food Act, and update existing regulatory arrangements for the Northern Territory. The Food Bill confirms on the Chief Health Officer prime responsibility for ensuring compliance with the provisions of the act. However, while accepting prime responsibility for the enforcement and administration of the act, the Chief Health Officer is able to assign responsibility to other enforcement agencies where it is appropriate to do so. The Chief Health Officer is unable to impose a condition or limitation to an enforcement agency without first consulting that agency.
The administrative arrangements may result in enforcement being carried out by different agencies, but in all cases, enforcement will be carried out according to conditions specified by the Chief Health Officer. Agencies which carry out powers and functions of this act remain accountable to the Chief Health Officer. Enforcement agencies will be able to appoint authorised officers who will be issued with an identity card. Authorised officers are able to take a range of actions to enable them to efficiently enforce the provisions of the act. An authorised officer will be able to enter and inspect any premises, at a reasonable time, that they reasonably believe are used in connection with the handling of any food intended for sale, the sale of food, or a food transport vehicle. The authorised officer may enter and inspect, examine, open, obtain samples, examine records or documents, stop and detain, take photographs and/or measurements, and require a person to provide information or answer questions.
An important restriction is that an authorised officer is not empowered to enter any part of premises that are used solely for residential purposes, except with consent or under the authority of a search warrant. It will be an offence to fail to comply with the requirements of an authorised officer.
The bill also establishes procedures in relation to items that have been seized. These procedures deal with the place of detention, notification requirements, circumstances for return and liability for the costs or storage, destruction and disposal of forfeited items, and payment of compensation in certain circumstances.
The Food Bill requires all food businesses to register their business with the Chief Health Officer. The registration of food businesses allows an enforcement agency to identify the inherent risks of a food business. The enforcement agency is then able to establish a number of appropriate responses, ranging from the exchange of food safety information to a more comprehensive inspection regime. Food business registration also provides enforcement agencies with information to expedite food recalls; allows for better controlling of sources of food-borne illness; and provides better information to respond to complaints more effectively.
While the registration of food businesses will be compulsory, registration fees will not be applied and a streamlined registration process will be introduced. In addition, it is not intended that the registration system will duplicate any existing registration requirements. This means that Eating Houses, which currently pay a registration fee under the Public Health Act will, following the repeal of that act, no longer be required to pay a fee for registration as a food business.
The Chief Health Officer may, under section 32 of the act, exempt certain food businesses from the requirement to be registered. It is anticipated that charities and low risk ad hoc events, such as sausage sizzles, will be exempt from registration. The Chief Health Officer will prepare a number of food business categories for exemption which will be notified in the government Gazette. These categories will be the basis of widespread consultation. A range of national food safety guidelines will inform the Chief Health Officer in this task.
There has already been considerable consultation in the preparation of the Food Bill. Nevertheless, further information and assistance will be provided by enforcement agencies to food businesses and community groups to enhance their understanding of their obligations under this legislation.
The Chief Health Officer is able to impose conditions on the registration of a business. Businesses will be required to renew their registration annually. The Chief Health Officer may cancel the registration of a food business if the proprietor of a registered food business contravenes or fails to comply with the conditions of registration, or is found guilty of an offence against the act. The proprietor has the right to have the decision reviewed.
Sampling of food is a critical part of the enforcement powers of authorised officers. The bill sets out the procedural requirements for the process of obtaining, paying for and sampling of food. Samples are generally taken for the purpose of determining compliance with the Foods Standards Code. A detailed procedure is required, as the result of such samples may be used in evidence in prosecution under food legislation.
The Food Bill proposes that an enforcement agency can issue an improvement notice in relation to food business if they are satisfied that premises, equipment or food transport vehicles are unclean, unsanitary or otherwise unfit; do not comply with the food safety standards; or if any provision of the Food Standards Code relating to the handling of food is not being complied with. The improvement notice will require the offending behaviour or equipment to be remedied within a specified time period. It will be an offence to contravene or fail to comply with an improvement notice.
The Chief Health Officer will also have power to issue a prohibition order in cases where an improvement notice has not been complied with, or the Chief Health Officer believes that issuing the order is necessary to prevent or mitigate a serious danger to public health. Where a prohibition order has been issued, the proprietor can request that the premises be reinspected. If reinspection does not take place within 72 hours of the receipt of a request, a certificate of clearance is deemed to have been given to the proprietor. This ensures that the Chief Health Officer must respond quickly, where a prohibition order is enforced, to minimise the time during which a food business is unable to operate. It is an offence not to comply with a prohibition order. The bill provides for a right of appeal to the local court.
Madam Speaker, the Food Bill 2003 adopts agreed food safety and quality provisions whilst reducing the regularity burden on industry. It is an important and fundamental step towards ensuring the safety and integrity of food in the Northern Territory.
Debate adjourned.
HEALTH PRACTITIONERS BILL
(Serial 201)
(Serial 201)
Bill presented and read a first time.
Mrs AAGAARD (Health and Community Services): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a second time.
The Health Practitioners Bill has been developed from the recommendations of the National Competition Council review of Northern Territory legislation conducted in 2000 and the 1998 Professional Boards review. The bill repeals the Dental Act, the Health Practitioners and Allied Professionals Act, the Medical Act, the Nursing Act, the Optometrists Act and the Pharmacy Act. Whilst these acts will be incorporated into a single piece of legislation, individual professional boards will continue to regulate specific professions as they did in the past. In developing the bill, an extensive professional public consultation process was conducted and submissions received from various stakeholders. Stakeholder issues were considered in the drafting of this bill. Consultation will continue over the next two months before the bill is debated during the first Legislative Assembly sittings in 2004.
This bill will protect the health and safety of the public of the Northern Territory by providing for the effective regulation of 10 health professionals groups, and by ensuring that individual health professionals are fit to practice. To ensure that the welfare of patients is the paramount consideration in administering the legislation, the bill’s objectives are to protect and promote the health and safety of the people of the Territory, to promote the highest standard of professional health care practice in the Territory, and to facilitate the continuing competence of health practitioners in the Territory.
I shall now discuss how the bill achieves its objectives and complies with the National Competition Council requirements. The composition of board membership is the cornerstone of health professional regulation. The current structure of boards has been the focus of public criticism. This is centred on professional self-interest, particularly where membership is exclusively limited to members of the profession being regulated. To address these criticisms, governments have moved to add consumer representatives to professional boards. The bill provides for the boards to be comprised of a broad range of health practitioners, and each board will have two public interest members. This will facilitate achievement of the bill’s mandate, which is to protect the public interest.
In addition, as happens with other jurisdictions in the National Health and Medical Research Council, all appointments will be made by the minister, including the chair of the board. The terms of board membership will be for three years and members may be appointed for two consecutive terms.
The bill transfers the responsibility for determining professional qualifications, experience and training requirements for registration to the relevant boards and contains no references to particular courses or professional associations. The efficacy of this measure in protecting the public interest relies on the independence of the respective board from professional associations and academic institutions. The bill provides for more flexible initial registration requirements while continuing to maintain specific expected professional standards. This flexibility will have a flow-on effect which will facilitate work force recruitment.
The bill restricts the right of title to those who are registered within a particular professional category and hold a current practising certificate. The bill empowers the respective board to ensure practitioners demonstrate continuing competence to the board’s satisfaction as a condition of obtaining a practising certificate.
I will now expand upon the requirement of practitioners to demonstrate continuing competence. Professional boards have a responsibility to ensure the competence of practitioners to practice. Currently, the board’s assessment of competence is based on the initial registration criteria; the operation of the complaint and disciplinary system; and each practitioner’s professional obligation to maintain his or her skills. There is no regular assessment by registration boards, except for the nursing board, of practitioners’ competence.
Given the primary purpose of registration is public safety, it is appropriate that there is a role for registration authorities in requiring practitioners to demonstrate their continuing competence to the practice. There has been increasing advocacy in some sectors of the medical profession for the maintenance of professional standards and continuing professional development to be linked to registration. Schemes aimed at maintaining professional competence have been introduced for medical practitioners in the United Kingdom, Canada and other jurisdictions. The requirement for practitioners to demonstrate that they are keeping up-to-date and are remaining competent to practice is now a world-wide one and the onus on NT practitioners will be no different from that of their colleagues in other similar jurisdictions.
Community expectations are also relevant here. Greater community awareness of medical issues and the increasing media coverage of adverse events are increasing the pressure for reassurance that standards are being maintained. This bill provides mechanisms aimed at ensuring that practitioners maintain their competence to practice and provisions which allow the board to take action when concerns about an individual practitioner’s competence are raised.
The bill requires that a practitioner not be automatically registered if they have been absence from the profession for a period of time. This is known as a recency of practice requirement. This requirement ensures that practitioners are using their skills and applying what has been learnt in continuing education courses and helps to ensure that practitioners only practice in those areas in which they have demonstrated ongoing competence through safe practice. Recency of practice is now being viewed as an indicator that a health practitioner is competent. The threshold of absence is generally between two and five years, depending on the professional group. The bill provides for practitioners to renew their registration on an annual basis by renewing their annual practising certificates. This is not new because, with the exception of pharmacists and optometrists, all registered practitioners are required to renew their practising certificates yearly.
The provisions of the bill will introduce, in many cases, a more robust annual renewal process. An annual practising certificate will shift from being in effect a membership subscription service to an assurance to the public that a health practitioner is competent to practice. This goes to the core of the bill and the mandate of the boards to protect the public. Practitioners will now need to satisfy the respective board that they are competent and fit to practice. It is envisaged that in the first instance practitioners will be required to simply complete a declaration contained with the renewal form.
The annual declaration will cover recency of practice; criminal convictions and findings since last application; a statement of competence in the area of practice; and a statement that the practitioner is physically and mentally fit for safe practice. The bill empowers the respective boards to declare areas of treatment which have a high probability of causing serious damage if practised by inappropriately qualified persons. The high risk treatments are restricted and the board will require persons who wish to practice in such areas, irrespective of professional classification, to demonstrate to the board’s satisfaction that they have sufficient training, experience and competence to practice in the area.
The bill allows for a board to grant an authorisation to persons to practice in a restricted practice area. This may include, for example, Aboriginal health workers and remote area nurses being authorised to provide certain dental services for which they are trained and competent to undertake. This will be of particular benefit to communities where oral health practitioners are not readily available.
The bill allows for disciplinary procedures to commence where registrants undertake activities beyond their core competencies and where unregistered persons carry out treatments for which they are not authorised. This approach will maximise the benefit to the community of an individual’s skills and training, while maintaining consumer protection. The fit and proper person requirement for registration remains.
The bill includes a mandatory requirement for registrants to notify the respective board of relevant changes to their status, that is a criminal conviction.
The bill also provides for the development of a professional code by each board. The code will contain profession-specific standards and policies. For many boards, life under the new bill will be business as usual. As you can appreciate, the boards have already addressed many of these issues through existing policies and practices. So for many practitioners, for example, Aboriginal health workers, there will be no more onerous requirements placed on them.
Having said that, there are some progressive and exciting changes that will occur over some professional groups, which I shall now discuss.
The bill will allow for optometrists to use therapeutic drugs. Currently, optometrists are permitted to use diagnostic drugs in their professional practice, but not therapeutic drugs. Tasmania and Victoria have this provision and have developed a list of approved therapeutic drugs that can be used by optometrists. It is envisaged that Northern Territory lists should be somewhat similar to these. The board will, in consultation with the Poisons Branch of the Department of Health and Community Services and the Optometry Council, develop guidelines for the use of therapeutic drugs by optometrists.
I shall now move onto the area of dentistry. The current Dental Act does not provide for dental therapists to work in the private sector, and their practice has been restricted to preschool and primary school children. The bill will not restrict dental therapists from working in the private sector. This will have the effect of allowing private sector dental services to utilise the skills of dental therapists and potentially reduce costs to consumers of those services and increase career development options for dental therapists. The bill allows dental therapists to treat adults subject to the board establishing, on an individual basis, that they have the necessary training.
Dental therapists, dental hygienists, dental prosthetists, Aboriginal health workers and any other category of professionals authorised on the basis of their training and competence to undertake dental work will be required to remain under the supervision of dentists or dental specialists.
The bill will continue to provide for the registration of dental therapists, dental hygienists, dental specialists and dentists. The bill will introduce a new category of registrant, the dental prosthetist. This will facilitate a broader range of oral health services provided to Territorians. The Dental Board will consult widely with other dental practice boards in Australia and New Zealand and relevant dental professional groups in developing the practical framework to implement these provisions.
In relation to pharmacy, under the 1995 Competition Principles Agreement, the Northern Territory was required to review all legislation that may restrict competition. In 1997, the Commonwealth, states and territories agreed to meet their individual National Competition Policy obligations consistently through a single national review of pharmacy legislation to commence in 1999. This review is commonly known as the Wilkinson Review.
The Wilkinson Review was concluded in early 2000. Of the many recommendations arising from the review, was that restrictions on pharmacy ownership should be retained in the public interest in jurisdictions where this already existed and there was no obligation on the Northern Territory to amend its legislation to create clear pharmacy ownership restrictions. The bill will require that only a registered pharmacist may own a pharmacy. However, blanket ownership of pharmacies by pharmacists will prevent entities such as Aboriginal health services from owning pharmacies in remote communities. The bill will provide that the minister will have discretionary power to grant exemptions to an Aboriginal health service should it be in the public interest to do so, and the granting of exemptions to pharmacy ownership will facilitate the development of Aboriginal community capacity in terms of health service delivery.
I take this opportunity to assure you that regardless of who owns the pharmacy, the bill will require that the operation of a pharmacy be under the personal supervision of a pharmacist at all times. This will assist to ensure public safety through safe and competent pharmacy services.
The bill will allow for occupational therapy to be retained as a regulated profession in the Northern Territory. The continued regulation of occupational therapists in the Northern Territory is necessary, as consumers of occupational therapy services are often vulnerable or socially disadvantaged, due to the nature of their illness or disability. Occupational therapists often work without supervision and in remote areas. Without registration, consumers have little assistance in assessing the competence of an individual holding themselves out to be an occupational therapist, thereby potentially exposing them to harm. The risk of harm from an incompetent occupational therapist falls into three main categories: physical harm (burns, choking, soft tissue damage); emotional harm (perhaps exacerbating mental health issues); and the risk of physical, emotional, sexual and financial exploitation. Registration assists consumers in choosing a provider and helps in balancing the information asymmetry between consumers and providers.
The registration of occupational therapists has not prevented the development of other service providers, such as rehabilitation coordinators, counsellors, developmental educators and diversion therapists. Nor has the registration of occupational therapists restricted the role of other workers, such as handicraft instructors, activity supervisors and paramedical aides and, as such, should not be viewed as anti-competitive.
In relation to the retention of occupational therapy as a registered profession, the draft 2003 NCP assessment document - chapter 3, version 2, page 3.77 - states that the costs of any non-compliance, that is, retention of occupational therapists as a registered profession, are insignificant. The NCP went on to state that title protection hinders non-registered professionals’ ability to promote their services, but the adverse impacts on competition are likely to be negligible given that non-registered can still use unrestricted titles. The registration system’s administration costs are also low.
The current Nursing Act 1999 provides that a registered nurse with approved qualifications in midwifery may be granted an authorisation to use the title ‘Midwife’ and to practice midwifery. There is no separate register of midwives, and all authorised midwives, whether they have nursing qualifications or not, must first be registered as nurses and are therefore entitled to hold themselves out as registered nurses. There are an increasing number of midwives from overseas who have trained in midwifery alone without an underlying comprehensive nursing education, in other words, direct entry midwives. For example, in New Zealand, England and many states of the European Union, midwifery is a stand alone profession. There are an increasing number of direct entry midwives who are seeking registration in Australia under the Skilled Migration Program. The provisions in the current Nursing Act are a concern for the board, as there is the potential for direct entry trained midwives to practice, or be compelled to practice by employers, in areas beyond their scope of training. The bill will allow for direct entry midwives to be registered in their own right as a midwife only.
The bill provides for a single board, called the Nursing and Midwifery Board, with separate registers for nurses and midwives. To have a separate regulatory body for midwives only would be expensive and would duplicate many of the existing roles of the board. The two professions of nursing and midwifery differ in their practice and education, but they share common values and principles which mean that they can effectively come together in the public interest for the purpose of statutory regulation. A similar model of complementary professionals being governed by a single board already exists in the Northern Territory, the Chiropractors and Osteopaths Board. Further, in September this year, the New Wales government passed the Nurses Amendment Bill which provides for a Nursing and Midwifery Board. The Australian Capital Territory is also moving towards the establishment of a Nursing and Midwifery Board.
I now come to significant initiatives in respect of the manner in which matters of discipline, impairment and competence to practice are provided for by this bill. A regulatory culture should support early intervention, focus on remediation, and the judicious application of disciplinary action. Regularity authorities exist to protect the public and maintain standards, not to punish registrants when things go wrong.
For many boards currently governed by archaic legislation, the bill will introduce new disciplinary impairment and performance assessment systems. The bill provides for the boards to investigate allegations of professional misconduct, or notices of impairment or professional incompetence in an inquisitorial, supportive, remedial and rehabilitative framework rather than an adversarial and punitive manner. There will be a two-tiered system to deal with purely disciplinary matters. The boards will be empowered to manage less serious complaints, and a health practitioners review tribunal will be established to deal with more serious matters. The majority of complaints will be dealt with and resolved at board level. The board will be empowered to dismiss the matter, caution or reprimand the practitioner, require that the practitioner undertake remediation or upskilling activities, or require a period of supervised practice.
The tribunal will consist of five members, two of whom will be permanent members appointed by the minister. The permanent members consist of a legal practitioner, who will be the president, and a public member. There will be three special members appointed by the president. The special members are to be registered or enrolled in the same category of practice as the health practitioner against whom the complaint is made. For example, a complaint against an obstetrician would require that the tribunal’s special members be obstetricians and not general practitioners or dentists.
The bill includes a comprehensive appeal mechanism to ensure that there are appropriate checks and balances in the disciplinary system. When a complaint is heard by a board, there is a right of appeal to the tribunal. When a complaint is heard by the tribunal, there is a right of appeal to the Supreme Court. Also, a practitioner can appeal any decision of the board to the Supreme Court.
As in the area of discipline, for most of the boards, the bill introduces a system for the management of impaired practitioners. The provisions are modelled on the current Nursing Act and Medical Act which have operated successfully for a number of years. The rationale for such a system is that practitioners whose ability to practice is impaired by factors such as physical or mental illness or drug and alcohol abuse, can be managed and assisted before those problems develop to such an extent that patients are placed at risk. As part of a board’s powers to protect the public, it will be able to impose conditions on a practitioner’s registration or suspend that registration where it is necessary to do so to protect the life or the physical or mental health of any person. Following the impairment process, the board will be able to place conditions on a practitioner’s registration or enter into undertakings with the practitioner. This legislative framework again allows for the public to be protected and the practitioner’s problems to be managed in a rehabilitative supportive manner, rather than taking a punitive approach.
In the interests of administrative effectiveness and efficiency, the boards will have the power to delegate certain functions and establish committees. The establishment of committees will allow each board to obtain expertise from both within its profession, as well as from other professionals, such as the medical professions, for specific matters such as assessment of impairment.
The bill will also make it mandatory for educational institutions to notify boards of students studying health-related courses who may have mental or physical incapacity. The bill will allow a board to work with these students. The reason for these provisions is to ensure that students have access to early intervention and management of any health problems that could impact on their ability to safely interact with patients. The bill will allow the following to occur under the impairment framework: the public will be protected; the practitioner will be maintained in the profession and employed if it is safe to do so; the practitioner will be encouraged to take on personal responsibility for his or her condition; and long-term follow-up and regulatory authority review will be maintained.
To facilitate the continuing competence of health practitioners in the Territory, the bill contains performance assessment provisions. The bill incorporates an adaptation of the Medical Board of New South Wales’ successful performance assessment program introduced in New South Wales in October 2000. The program is designed to complement the existing conduct, discipline and impairment streams. Specifically, it provides a pathway for dealing with practitioners who are neither impaired nor guilty of professional misconduct, where the board has cause for concerns about the standard of their clinical performance.
Performance assessment is an effective way to address general and specific performance concerns in a non-disciplinary, educative framework. The bill provides for evidence of adequate professional indemnity arrangements as one of the criteria used to assess an applicant’s entitlement to registration or enrolment.
The requirement for professional indemnity insurance was discussed in the NCC Review for the dental, medical, optometrists and health practitioners and allied professional acts. There is a strong public interest argument for professional indemnity insurance as one of the requirements for registration. There should be an ability for the public to have access to financial assistance or compensation if harm is caused by a registered practitioner. The NCC, in its review of the Health Practitioners and Allied Professionals Act, discussed whether certain indemnification obligations should go with the right of title to underwrite the community’s confidence that their health risks are lowered by virtue of the integrity of the preservation of title rights.
The NCC went on to state that most jurisdictions are now moving in the direction of empowering their registration boards to require, at their discretion, appropriate professional indemnity insurance cover as a condition of registration or of issuing a practicing certificate. Professional indemnity insurance can be provided by an employer or company and not necessarily the practicing professional. Of course, the respective NT boards would consult widely with national counterparts and relevant NT stakeholders when developing the policy framework to support the legislative provision that adequate professional indemnity arrangements are in place.
The bill also provides for recognition of visiting practitioners from outside the Northern Territory, in specific circumstances, or for specific purposes, such as assisting in the retrieval of organs for transplanting, or escorting patients to or from the Territory.
I believe the provisions of this bill will have the effect of promoting consistency and effectiveness in dealing with matters common to different boards and removing current anti-competitive provisions. It will allow boards to take a more proactive approach to protecting the public interest while offering support and rehabilitation to practitioners where appropriate, and it will facilitate public dealings with the board through the streamlining of processes. I commend the bill to honourable members.
Debate adjourned.
AUSTRALASIA RAILWAY (SPECIAL PROVISIONS) AMENDMENT BILL
(Serial 184)
AUSTRALASIA RAILWAY (THIRD PARTY ACCESS) BILL
(Serial 185)
(Serial 184)
AUSTRALASIA RAILWAY (THIRD PARTY ACCESS) BILL
(Serial 185)
Continued from 15 October 2003.
Mr MILLS (Opposition Leader): Madam Speaker, the opposition supports the AustralAsia Railway (Special Provisions) Amendment Bill and the AustralAsia Railway (Third Party Access) Bill. The amendments contained therein adds further provisions to deal with the occupational crossings on the Alice Springs to Darwin Rail and these crossings will include stock movement.
I can understand that with a new railway line in place we do need to have the highest order of protocols and clarity in the public and official minds so that we can deal with the rail with safety and clear direction. I also understand the need to harmonise these regulations with those set by the South Australian parliament as it crosses jurisdiction of two governments, Northern Territory and South Australia.
They ensure that private land-holders use the easements in accordance with rail safety protocols outlined in the act and provides that power. They also recognises access, electricity and water easements in favour of private land-holders. The Registrar-General is required to amend the land register to recognise these easements. During the stage of construction, some of the easements and the access to easements were varied and the bills amend the land register to reflect that variation of the easements, and updates the name of the regulator of the access regime in accordance with the amendments made in the South Australian parliament.
I do, however, wish to use this opportunity to draw the Chief Minister’s attention to a matter which would always arise when we have such a massive piece of infrastructure put in, that we have the legislative regime in place to assist us to manage the rail corridor. We have the case of a Territorian who has been affected by the placement of the rail and is having difficulty negotiating access from one mining tenement to another. I do not wish to suggest that this is solely the responsibility and creation of the current government. I understand that this issue has been in existence for some time, but with this legislation before the House, I seek the Chief Minister’s response on the issue of the Fountain Head mining lease. I believe it has been an issue of concern to this gentleman for many years, but in recent times he has had a meeting with minister Toyne, has written to the Chief Minister and minister Henderson. He has had an opportunity to meet with the department of Mines and I understand he has had a meeting with the Department of Justice only a few weeks ago.
Mr Casey - and he is happy for me to use his name - has had some acknowledgment of the issues he is endeavouring to resolve, but he requires a clearer resolution so that he knows where he stands. At this point, he would say that as a result of the rail corridor and his inability to tie his two tenements together by having appropriate access, he is faced with the prospect of closing down a mine due to it being unviable, having cost him close to $0.5m in inconvenience to traverse from one mine tenement through the existing rail access and back up to the other side. He has the ability, which is recognised in tax law, to tie the two tenements together. They are effectively tied together, one on either side of the rail corridor. However, the costs involved in negotiating an appropriate and economically viable crossing have been prohibitive.
He is seeking assistance in this regard, and letters that I have in my possession indicate approaches that he has made and responses from the government. I take the opportunity in responding to these bills to ask for a response from the Chief Minister so that this Territorian who has worked for years in the mining industry will be able to have his matter attended to and resolved so he know where he is going.
Madam Speaker, the bills have our support.
Ms MARTIN (AustralAsia Railway): Madam Speaker, I thank the Opposition Leader for his support. These are minor but important amendments. In the Australasia Railway (Special Provisions) Amendment Bill, we deal with the issues of protocols for rail safety which is a very important issue as the rail gets close to operation. We have to make sure things like access across the rail is dealt with in an agreed way with all those who need to have access to the rail corridor, and to provide a regime for protecting those who abide by the protocols. Of course, if they do not, it is an offence. That is one aspect of the special provisions amendment.
The other is location of access easements. Quite logically, when the rail was first being constructed, access easements were identified. As the rail was constructed, those were not always the appropriate places to have them, and this amendment creates the mechanism to amend the land register to reflect the new locations that have been established.
The other aspect of the amendments is in the AustralAsia Railway (Third Party Access) Bill, and that is simply changing a name. The South Australians have changed the name of their industry regulator, and that must be reflected in the bill to the Essential Services Commission.
There are a couple of minor amendments in the committee stage, which, again, are very technical and only enhance what we are doing.
On the issue the Opposition Leader raised, the issue raised by this particular Territorian, it is very valid indeed. He has the capacity to deal with this issue in the Mining Act and through the minister for mines rather than through the railway minister. We are happy to work with Mr Casey. There are some issues involved here. To stand up as Opposition Leader and say I would like you to deal with it right now is unrealistic.
Mr Mills: Oh, no.
Ms MARTIN: Well, that seems to be what you are implying. I am very happy to take the issues on board. We will properly refer them to the Mines minister, because that is where the access issue can be dealt with, under the current Mining Act, and certainly happy to talk to someone who has a venture that we can work with to effectively operate it. Take it on board, cannot expect me to deal with it right now, it is not even in my jurisdiction.
Mr Mills: No, no, there have been assurances that he will be met with, but he has not been met with for some time by the appropriate minister. That is the issue.
Ms MARTIN: We will facilitate this. It would be good when the Opposition Leader has these kind of approaches to give me a ring. If there are problems and you know about it, and do not think that is being dealt with effectively, pick up the phone. It is an easy thing to do and we can, together, in a bipartisan way, grow Territory business. It is not a big deal. I am informed that Mr Casey has had meetings with Mines, and we are happy to work with him to facilitate what we can. Thank you, Opposition Leader, for your support on this. I hope we can deal with the amendments in the committee stages very quickly.
Motion agreed to; bills read a second time.
In committee:
AustralAsia Railway (Special Provisions) Amendment Bill (Serial 184):
Clauses 1 to 4, by leave, taken together and agreed to.
Clause 5:
Ms MARTIN: Mr Chairman, I move amendment 60.1, that we omit in the proposed section 14B(2), the whole subsection, and insert 14B(2):
- (2) The easement must not be varied unless the minister has consulted with the consortium about the variation.
Mr MILLS: The Chief Minister advised me that I could have just picked up the phone and had a little talk about the matter that I raised. In good spirit, in this debate, not as a matter of trying to score points or anything, it was just a matter of issue. I only just found these amendments here on my desk. It would have been nice to perhaps have a little chat out the back and give me a bit of preparation for this. I still would have to say, I do not really have a particular problem with this, but I do have that particular point to make.
Ms MARTIN: I take the Opposition Leader’s views on board. I am sorry, this has been a lot of legislation this sittings, and this was just a small one. Next time, I will make sure that we have that chat outside. It really is just extending the consultation that we had in this section, making sure that we are talking very clearly and legislatively with the consortium about such variations that might take place.
Amendment agreed to.
Ms MARTIN: Mr Chairman, I move amendment 60.2. There is a second amendment to clause 5 and, again, I apologise to the Leader of the Opposition for not taking him through the detail of this. However, it is a technical detail to do with how we actually deal with the amendments with those easements, establishing their location on survey plans. I propose that we omit the proposed the whole subsection of section 14B(3) and insert:
- (3 ) For varying the easement –
- (a) the minister must lodge a survey plan on which the variation of the easement is indicated
with the Registrar-General; and
(b) the Registrar-General must record the particulars of the varied interest indicated on the
survey plan in the land register within the meaning of the Land Title Act.
Mr MILLS: Mr Chairman, on the face of this it is very benign - but just in the absence of the background briefing or being prepared for this, could you please explain what the change is? What was it originally and what has given rise to this? Just in the interests of ensuring that we have – I do not want to participate in something here, making some colossal law that is going to derail the train.
Ms MARTIN: The last thing we are doing in this is derailing any trains. Certainly, the liability issue for making sure it all works very well, although resting with the consortium, government is working very closely. I refer the Leader of the Opposition to the bill, 14B, Variation of easements. Currently clause 14B(3) says:
The Registrar-General must record the particulars of the varied interest indicated on the survey plan in the land register within the meaning of the land title.
That is being changed. We now have B the same but, for varying the easement we have included an A:
The minister must lodge a survey plan on which the variation of the easements are indicated with the Registrar-General.
So it is just making it two parts - the minister puts it in, the Registrar-General registers it.
Mr Mills: I am quite satisfied Chief Minister, thank you.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause 5, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 6:
Ms MARTIN: Mr Chairman, I move amendment 60.3 regarding proposed section 21(1) which reads:
- The minister and the minister responsible for the administration of the Northern Territory Rail Safety Act may jointly, by notice in the Gazette, make protocols setting out procedures to facilitate rail safety in connection with the railway.
We are just expanding that a tad under this amendment and instead of saying, ‘setting out procedures’ we are expanding that to say, ‘procedures, requirements and other matters’.
Amendment agreed to.
Ms MARTIN: Mr Chairman, I move amendment 60.4. After the proposed section 21(1), which we have just dealt with, insert:
- (1A) Before making a protocol, the ministers …
- … must consult with the consortium, and any other persons the ministers consider have relevant interests or expertise, about the protocol.
It is just, again, an expansion of that, making sure we are talking to the consortium and other people who might be able to inform the making of these protocols.
Mr MILLS: After the event, if we have gone through the mechanisms that the legislation has put in place, as we have with this amendment, then we consult with the consortium, if the consortium says, ‘Not on your Nellie’, is there the capacity for the consortium to not consent to that which is being put in place here?
Ms MARTIN: What we are putting in place here is the mechanism to do that consultation. What we want are agreed protocols for use of the rail, for access across those rails for rail safety. We will be talking to the consortium to have a joint and agreed position.
Mr MILLS: I understand that, but what power lies with the consortium with regards to the consultation? Are you just informing them, or are you seeking their approval?
Ms MARTIN: No, we are not seeking. No, we are talking but we have the final approval as government. But properly consulting before we do that.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause 6, as amended, agreed to.
Title agreed to.
Bill to be reported with amendments.
AustralAsia Railway (Third Party Access) Bill 2003 (Serial 185):
Bill, by leave, taken as a whole, and agreed to.
Bill to be reported without amendment.
Bills reported; report adopted.
Ms MARTIN (AustralAsia Railway): Madam Speaker, I move that the bills be now read a third time.
Motion agreed to; bills read a third time.
VISITORS
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, I draw your attention to the presence in the gallery of the Katherine Seniors Group accompanied by Val Dreon; and to the CLP and Independent members’ electorate officers who are undertaking a seminar today at the Legislative Assembly. On behalf of all members I extend you a warm welcome.
Members: Hear, hear!
SPECIAL ADJOURNMENT
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, I move that the Assembly, at its rising, adjourn until Tuesday, 17 February, 2004 at 10 am or such other time and/or date as may be set by Madam Speaker pursuant to Sessional Order.
Motion agreed to.
LIQUOR AMENDMENT BILL (No 2)
(Serial 178)
(Serial 178)
Continued from 9 October 2003.
Mr MILLS (Opposition Leader): Madam Speaker, it is the intent of the opposition to support this amendment even though it does have some mechanical shortcomings in its ability to implement the intent of the amendment. Notwithstanding that, it will be supported for the very reason that we on this side, as members on the other side, would be deeply offended by the issue that is addressed by this amendment, namely unscrupulous liquor merchants who operate take away premises to use their position, and the frailty of another with an addiction to alcohol, to their advantage. This bill intends to close that gap and bring the force of law upon those who would prey upon the unfortunate.
I accept, as is written in the second reading speech, that the level of consultation with regards to how this will work has not been completed. I accept from opposition, in good faith, the words of the minister that the consultation process will continue and an appropriate position would be arrived at. That is the area of reserve in terms of our support for this. We all agree it is a problem of serious concern. It is a problem that is contributed to only by a minority in our community, and we must find a means to address those unscrupulous operators who prey on the unfortunate. It would be good if we had the means clearly outlined as to how this will be achieved.
I will just say that again. Notwithstanding that in good faith we would go along for the ride to make sure that we are able to achieve that, in terms of the practicalities of course, where there is a will – and, sadly, the will of the person who is intent upon using whatever means they have, whatever revenue, whatever money they have at their disposal to get what they want, being alcohol, when we know the intent of welfare is for their welfare and alcohol is not for their welfare in many sad cases.
So what I am saying is if there is a will, there will be a way, just as there would be the will, on the part of an unscrupulous operator, to find a way through a system that is not quite put in place yet. However, with the best intent of the Liquor Commission and the good officers of the minister’s department, I am sure we will find a means whereby appropriate pressure can be brought to bear upon the unscrupulous and the weight of law to fall upon those who would prey upon the weak.
With that being said, and outlining our reservations – and I understand that the minister also takes on board those concerns - we will go along for the ride, we will give you our support, and trust that this instrument is specifically directed solely at the unscrupulous, and never to be such a blunt instrument that would impose unnecessary burdens upon those who are in the best efforts of running a small business here in the Northern Territory. That is really the qualification that we must carry with this, that it must not clog up the system, it must not add another layer of regulation upon small business.
That is very important because, sadly, we are trying to address this issue in a legislative way, when it is really a serious moral problem. The weak, on one hand, with their substance abuse and their desire to use the welfare that has been provided in good intent, to use it for harm, and those who are preying upon the weak. We craft up an instrument that hopefully, as far as possible, will be so precise in its construction that it will not place unnecessary, bureaucratic, regulatory burdens upon the average struggling shop owner, small business operator in the Northern Territory. With those comments, and in good faith, it does have our support.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, my comments relate to some of the practicalities of what the minister is asking. The minister does say that the ‘licensee would provide a cash in advance to the customer who in turn used the cash to purchase alcohol’. Nothing I have read actually tells me that that is going to be overcome. I know you are supposed to write down what food is being purchased. What worries me is, will that really work? Are these changes actually going to make a great deal of difference to that?
That was one of my concerns, minister. The other was, what will be the minimum record-keeping requirements? Has that been established, so a small business knows exactly what it is? What you referred to also in the first paragraph is that this legislation will make it illegal for licensees authorised to sell take-away liquor, such as store licensees and liquor merchants, to provide book-up for the sale of liquor. Would this apply to the Howard Springs bottle shop? What I am saying is, it can be a little silly, because in Howard Springs, for instance, you have the Howard Springs Supermarket, so for the Howard Springs Supermarket, these regulations will apply. Joe Blow can come in 50 yards away from the Howard Springs Supermarket up to the bottle shop and get it booked down.
Mr Stirling: It is still a breach of his licence conditions.
Mr WOOD: All right, I should not be asking questions like that. Minister, are those licensed conditions for the bottle shop written in the Liquor Act? Or are they the conditions you are referring to that already apply and you are tightening up a section of those conditions? That is how I think it is working. So, a bottle shop cannot go and book-up liquor. Is that what you are saying? Bottle shops cannot hold the credit card and people cannot just go in and buy liquor at a bottle shop?
Mr Stirling: It would breach the conditions of their licence.
Mr WOOD: Perhaps you could explain it, because I would have thought the two have licences; one has a licence now that comes under this legislation and 50 m away you have the same sort of thing except it is a drive-in bottle shop, it is slightly different. Perhaps you could explain how it works for both of those licensed premises.
I support what is happening. We all know - specially those who are on the substance abuse committee – the problems of alcohol. It is not just for Aboriginal people, it is for the wider community. I support these amendments. I need some reassurance that they can work.
Mr STIRLING (Racing, Gaming and Licensing): Madam Speaker, I thank the Leader of the Opposition for the expression of support for this bill and the member for Nelson for his questions. I am sure I will be able to get to the nub of those. However, I want to spend a little time just reinforcing the process of consultation in answer to the question that was raised by the Leader of the Opposition.
We started back in May 2003, and we looked at it from the point of view that the grocery store, the retail store - non-hotel - retailing liquor perhaps should not have book-up at all. Liquor or no liquor, if you have a liquor licence, you just cannot book-up. That is the position we took, and we took it out to the industry. Not surprisingly, we had some quite strong concerns back from the industry. On balance, you would have to say: was this a fair way to go when there is such a minority of recalcitrants in this area? Why should the decent, law-abiding, genuine storekeeper be penalised in this fashion? That is where we thought this is pushing beyond what is a fair thing. Therefore, the proposal was modified to outlaw liquor book-up only, but with appropriate record keeping requirements to demonstrate that that book-up was for non-alcohol items.
On 3 November this year, industry and all parties were advised about the content of this bill and comments sought about the proposed record keeping guidelines that we were putting forward. Comments were requested by 21 November. Just two submissions were received; one from a small business operator and the other from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, ATSIC. Both submissions generally supported the objectives of the bill and the proposed record keeping guidelines. ATSIC raised the question: were we going far enough - which is where we had started in May but backed off.
The record keeping requirements in the bill are consistent with those requirements already set out in the Consumer Affairs Code of Practice under Part 13 of the Consumer Affairs and Fair Trading Act. In relation to the detail, the actual record is to be kept by the stores. They will need an authority from the individual for the key card to be retained for safekeeping. They will need an agreement between the individual storekeeper for book-up of non-liquor items to occur, to what terms there might be to the book-up. They will need to keep itemised receipt of the purchase, showing the total amount of the purchase, the price charged for each item purchased and any other applicable charges, and the customer needs to sign a copy of the receipt. They will need to keep the records of each EFTPOS transfer, and we would not expect a business to have to make significant change to achieve that given the systems they already have in place. The system, such as cash registers, should already have that ability to produce itemised receipts. It is already a requirement for the Goods and Services Tax, so we think that system is in place. Above all, the records required are those that you would expect a reasonable business operator on top of their business to keep in any case.
How errant operators would be identified: in an investigation, licensing officers would access all records kept by the store - the records of sale and of EFTPOS transfers. Licensing officers would also request bank account information from the individuals booking-up with the store to enable those records to be verified. Customers are under no obligation to provide that information, however. As records of all EFTPOS transactions need to be maintained by the store, it would be possible to identify if the card was used to purchase liquor immediately before other necessities are booked up. Any unidentified charges taken out of an individual’s account would be subject to further investigation. If, for example, a number of cash advances valued at around perhaps the cost of a carton of beer, the legitimacy of those transactions would then be questioned further.
The difference between the hotel and the licensed grocer: both at the moment would have a condition on their licence saying ‘No book-up for alcohol’. It would be a breach of their licence conditions to do so - level playing field. Under this, the outlawing of all book-up in the retail alcohol side now has a legislative base, rather than simply a condition of licence. Of course, it is the legislative base that gives us this record keeping and ability to monitor and keep an eye on this.
Generally, if a store is into this, and creating a problem, word on the street, anecdotal evidence, will accumulate and the heat will come on a particular store. We have had an example of that in the northern suburbs and a store that is no longer trading, no longer has a liquor licence to retail liquor. That means those we know are good operators - straight, up-front, honest people, and not going to do the wrong thing - it ought not have an impact on them. Maybe there would be a random audit at some stage, but it is those that the word is out that they doing the wrong thing, they will feel the heat, and rightly so. They will be the ones that will be visited and their records will be subject to some close investigation as will their activities.
It does strengthen the hand of the commission and it does pull back from where we were going to go because we think there was an unfair penalty on those that were doing the right thing. However, at this stage it gives us a balance and hopefully strengthens and reduces, if not wipes out, that level of activity that we know. It goes a long way to promoting and reinforcing the ugly side of the antisocial behaviour we get around our streets as a result of abuse of alcohol. Madam Speaker, with those comments, I thank members for their support.
Motion agreed to; bill read a second time.
Mr STIRLING (Racing, Gaming and Licensing)(by leave): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a third time.
Motion agreed to; bill read a third time.
SENTENCING (CRIME OF MURDER) AND PAROLE REFORM BILL
(Serial 181)
(Serial 181)
Continued from 16 October 2003.
Ms CARNEY (Araluen): Madam Speaker, I have a few comments to make in relation to this bill. I think the Attorney-General tried to touch upon this in his second reading speech, but the fact is that when we say ‘mandatory life sentence’, the people of the Northern Territory actually do think that means life, that life means life, but of course that is not the case. It is certainly not the case under this proposed legislation. They think of course that because life means life it does not occur to them that it in fact means 20 years, 25 years or, as a result of one particular clause of this bill, that it could mean significantly less.
Before I get to that, the Attorney-General made a number of criticisms about the CLP regime and suggested in his second reading speech that the CLP’s regime had failed. That is patently not the case. Offenders who were sentenced to life were to be assessed by Cabinet, with expert advice, and at the end of what was commonly accepted, I guess, as a 20-year life sentence, but what the Attorney-General did not say was that no 20-year period had expired in relation to any lifer when Labor came to office. In other words, the system had not failed because no offender had come to the end of a 20-year sentence when Labor came to office.
In passing, I might say that I do not see what is so unacceptable about Cabinet making a decision as to the release or otherwise of an offender. I do have sympathy with the view that politicians do reflect community expectations. Sometimes people say they reflect them better than the courts, but certainly it is a myth to say the CLP regime failed.
This bill, mostly, is political puffery. It is noteworthy that the Attorney-General was at pains to stress throughout his second reading speech that there was mandatory life sentence for murder under Labor, fearing of course that Labor is perceived as it is, as being soft on crime and wanting to do just about anything he could to trick people into thinking that Labor is in fact tough on crime.
Under Labor – let us be very clear – the expression ‘mandatory life sentence’ means 20 years or 25 years, or less by virtue of the proposed new section 53A(7). What the Attorney-General did not say or push in anyway is that offenders can be released and then walk the streets in less than 20 years. That is what underpins the CLPs opposition to this bill, and it is strongly opposed. Under the provisions of proposed new section 53A, there is now a sliding scale for murder. Regardless of how people might feel about that, and to some extent it is a philosophical argument, the fact is that under subclause (7) - that is the exceptional circumstances subclause - it is disturbing because it provides that under some circumstances, murderers will face a non-parole period of less than 20 years.
Let us be very careful that we understand exactly what that means. A person under this regime will receive a sentence of what is called a ‘mandatory life sentence’. However, some offenders will receive, pursuant to proposed new section 53A(7), a dispensation. They can be allowed out of gaol for a period of less than 20 years. So, in a sense, they may well be walking the streets of the Northern Territory with a sticker on them saying, ‘I am serving a mandatory life sentence, but it does not matter what you call it, I am out on the streets’. It is a fundamental and historic change to the former regime. For the first time in the Northern Territory, under this Labor government, some murderers will not serve a 20-year period or indeed a 25-year period of imprisonment.
The exceptional circumstances provision is very disturbing because of its wording. Essentially, it states this:
- For there to be exceptional circumstances sufficient to justify fixing a shorter non-parole period under subsection (6), the sentencing court must be satisfied of the following matters and must not have regard to any other matters …
Let us examine what those matters are. Under this bill, it says that the court can have regard to:
- (a) the offender is –
- (ii) unlikely to re-offend; …
- (8) In considering whether the offender is unlikely to re-offend, the matters the sentencing court may have regard to include the following:
- (a) whether the offender has a significant record of previous convictions;
(b) any expressions of remorse by the offender; …
Mr Henderson: Read the rest of it! Read the next bit! Do not mislead the House.
Ms CARNEY: Hang on, sport! You just settle down. Where are your manners? I will pick up that interjection. The member for Wanguri is naturally stupid. However, his comment just shows that he has not read this bill. I note you are sitting next to the Attorney-General. Perhaps he can provide it to you.
I will start again, member for Wanguri. Under this bill it says:
- (7) For there to be exceptional circumstances sufficient to justify fixing a shorter non-parole period under subsection (6), the sentencing court must be satisfied of the following matters and must not have regard to any other matters:
- (a) the offender is –
- (i) otherwise a person of good character; and
(ii) unlikely to re-offend;
(8) In considering whether the offender is unlikely to re-offend, the matters the sentencing court may have regard to include the following:
- (a) whether the offender has a significant record of previous convictions;
Dr Burns interjecting.
Ms CARNEY: Well, what the member for Johnston would know about this, I cannot even begin to imagine.
In any event …
Members interjecting.
Mr Henderson: You call yourself a lawyer.
Ms CARNEY: And you got your law degree, member for Johnston, from which Weeties box?
If the members on the other side could contain their feigned rage for a moment longer, I can get back to dealing with this legislation.
As I said, the government can say what it likes, but these sections mean that murderers in the Northern Territory can receive non-parole periods less than 20 years. That is what the government’s own bill says. Make no mistake about that. There is nothing in the bill to give the courts any guidance other than those sections that I have just read out.
Let me tell you why this is particularly disturbing: it is because nowhere in this bill does it set a minimum. It does not say, ‘Well, there might be special sorts of circumstances where a murderer might get less than 20, but we can guarantee the people of the Northern Territory that that murderer will get a minimum of five, seven, 10 years’. It simply enables the court to exercise its discretion. There is nothing in the act, no legislative guidance, that will be of assistance to a court.
If you have a really good defence lawyer, and you have a bit of good material to work with, I reckon you would fancy your chances at this. In fact, if you were doing it on a privately funded basis, you would charge top dollar, because I think you would have a very good prospect of success. You would say to your client, ‘I reckon we are in with a shot here. I know you have murdered someone, I know you may have stabbed someone 15 times, but we have a couple of references from your old schoolteacher and your employer, he reckons you are great. We have a report from a psychologist, and that person says it is unlikely for you to do this again. You have only had a couple of traffic convictions, so you are off the hook there, and I know how sorry you are’. That is what it means. The Attorney-General can say whatever he likes, but that is what it means. The language is, at least, and I will compliment him on this, the language is very clear.
What is also interesting is that the Attorney-General was, I thought, at pains in the second reading speech to outline what sort of cases might fall within the categories surrounding clauses 7 and 8. Members, those who either listened or have bothered to read the second reading speech, will recall that the Attorney-General mentioned mercy killings and touched upon battered wife syndrome, and we all understand what that means.
What the Attorney-General did not say is this: there are no prisoners currently in gaol who have committed those types of crime. I am advised by the DPP, none ever, in the Northern Territory. So there are no mercy killers, there are no victims of battered wife syndromes in our Territory gaols.
Since the government was so careful to assure Territorians that this exceptional circumstance provision would only apply to particular types of murders, namely mercy killings, battered wife-type killings, one has to ask and, indeed, I did at the government briefing, why are they not specifically outlined in the bill? If government says: ‘Okay, we are going to come up with some exceptional circumstances, some particular types of murders where we think that, maybe, you should not serve 20 years’. Why aren’t they in the bill? They are only referred to in the second reading speech.
If the government was serious, and if it wanted to be gutsy about this, it could have specifically provided for the types of murders that it is telling everyone it is catering for. But it is not. Without plainly providing for those types of exceptions in the bill, defence lawyers will argue, as they are entitled to do, that their client, regardless of the type of case - it does not matter if it was a mercy killing, battered wife; we can even talk in a general sense about your garden variety murder. With your garden variety murder, a good defence lawyer will have a shot at saying, ‘My client fulfils the exceptional circumstances outlined’, namely – and I will say it again - ‘My client is a person of good character, unlikely to reoffend, the victim’s conduct probably had something to do with it, and my client is sorry’. They are the factors that the court has to take into account.
This is a disgraceful situation, and one that ought not to be created, let alone tolerated. Government says it is tough on crime, and it is trying its very best to capture a part of the CLP’s record on actually being tough on crime. However, what we see is rhetoric only, and the proof is in the pudding, and we will see.
I should make a bet, but it goes against my better nature. I will not make a bet with the Attorney-General, because I am buying a house at the moment and I have to save my pennies. However, Attorney-General, I am telling you that when this legislation goes through, the good defence lawyers of the Northern Territory will be looking at this and I bet they probably lobbied you about it, didn’t they? Because what is the cardinal rule for a defence lawyer? ‘I do not want my client to go to gaol’ - rule number 1 for any defence lawyer. They will be so grateful to you for this legislation.
Whilst I respect my colleagues in the law, I actually also respect the people of the Northern Territory. The people of the Northern Territory do not want to see murderers out on the streets. The negligence in failing to provide even a minimum means, in very real terms, that a murderer, if you get done, and has a good lawyer, a good plea, all of the reports, all the references, then a Supreme Court judge could say: ‘Well, I have taken everything into account and I will sentence you to a mandatory life sentence. However, I will set a non-parole period of …’ - three years, five years, 10 years. That is what will happen.
On behalf of the CLP – and I note some of my colleagues will have a great deal to say about this - and I will keep saying it because people are genuinely interested in this stuff. They do not read the second reading speeches, but some of them look at government press releases; many of them read the newspapers. What the Attorney-General does is stand there and just spins – it is a spinning top, spinning around. Territorians think the sky might be blue, but the Attorney-General says, ‘No, no, no, it is definitely not blue; it is green’. Territorians are very interested about sentencing, and they are no different in that regard to other Australians. They expect people who commit crimes of murder to go to gaol. I want that. I am a citizen of the Northern Territory; I want that to happen. It is a disgraceful situation. I look forward to the contributions of my colleagues, in due course, on that and probably other provisions.
In order to be reasonably fulsome about this bill, I will now turn to some other matters. I note that there are amendments to the Parole Board. An interesting amendment or development - and I do not think it is a good one - is that, when murderers are being assessed for parole at the expiration of 20 or 25 years, the Parole Board can only make the decision for the offender to be granted parole by a unanimous decision. So, all members - off the top of my head I think it is a 10 member Parole Board - have to be united in their decision. Again, I raised this at the briefing. I received an answer. Frankly, I was not overly persuaded by it. I am not overly persuaded by it because of the reality. You have nine people on a Parole Board and what happens if out of the 10, nine of them say we want this bloke to be released? And one person says, ‘No, I completely disagree. This person should continue to sit in gaol’?. If that one person digs in their heels, then the prisoner will be, I think, significantly disadvantaged, having served their sentence, or in the process of applying for parole.
I am sure the Attorney-General will not know this, but the fact is that in criminal trials a jury, if they cannot make a unanimous decision within six hours, the court will accept a majority decision. That is how the system works and it works like that for very good reason. However, under this bill, in terms of parole, you might as an offender, be put into gaol from a majority decision, but you cannot actually get out of it unless you have a unanimous decision. That is very strange.
I note that there is a provision to remove what could broadly be described as ‘recalcitrant’ board members but the bill is the bill is the bill, and there may not in fact be good reason to remove people; you may have one out of 10 who consistently and very firmly and honestly says, ‘No, for whatever reason I disagree, this person should stay here’. So, there is that matter of concern.
The other concern relates to the transitional provisions. They are contained in Part 5, and I refer in particular to clause 19. These are the provisions relating to the prisoners presently in gaol and serving sentences in the Northern Territory and their sentences were handed down prior to this bill; and I understand there are about 30 prisoners. Now, under these provisions, prisoners who are currently serving life sentences are automatically deemed to have non-parole periods of either 20 or 25 years depending on their crime. It is the case that prisoners who are already serving sentences, some of them would have had an expectation that their sentences would be reviewed at the expiration of 20 years under the CLP’s regime. None of them have, because when Labor came to office, as I said earlier, the 20 years had not expired in respect of any prisoners.
Under this bill the DPP may make an application to revoke a non-parole period and fix longer non-parole periods. It is troublesome, and I raised this at the briefing, it is troublesome for a couple of reasons. Lawyers accept that the best time to sentence someone is at the time of the trial when the sentencing judge is fully appraised of all of the facts. Labor ignores that guiding principle and accepts that up to 19 years after a crime may have or was committed, and upon an application of a DPP, and presumably it will be a new DPP, a judge will be obliged to impose a longer non-parole period of up to 25 years under clause 19(3). The court will have no discretion. It is mandatory - and I might say in passing that the government’s hypocrisy on this is really extraordinary - however, what it means is you have prisoners in gaol, they have an expectation that they were going to serve 20 years. Under this bill, there is a sudden change, and it is the case if the DPP makes an application, those prisoners may end up serving an additional five years if their crime fulfils the requirements, for want of a better word, of this bill. I do not think that is fair to prisoners who have been serving sentences that they were given after their trial or during their trial.
Furthermore, the court, under clause 19(4), can fix a longer non-parole period, and under 19(5) it can refuse to fix a non-parole period. These provisions have no regard to the prisoner’s progress in gaol, they have no regard to his rehabilitation or conduct, which are factors that are otherwise relevant in determining parole. These provisions under clause 19 depend on the DPP who may or may not wish to make an application, but when he does …
Mr Henderson: You said you did not want them walking the streets!
Ms CARNEY: I will pick up that interjection as well. You see, the member for Wanguri will be pleased to know that I can walk and chew gum. I am not inconsistent in what I am saying here. There is an issue of prisoner rights. Equally, when people are sentenced, the community expects that they will be sentenced to 20 to 25 years. You cannot change the goal post.
For those prisoners, who under our legal system were given a penalty, serve time in gaol - off you go, serve time in gaol - under this, it is, ‘Sorry, you might have to serve another five years’. Is that fair? Is that just? I do not think so.
Mr Henderson interjecting.
Ms CARNEY: You are just so profoundly ignorant. You are more than a challenge, member for Wanguri.
Mr Henderson interjecting.
Ms CARNEY: Oh, well, if it is your story, you tell it. You jump over here and argue. Come on, member for Wanguri. You, with the big ears and the big brain, you come over here and have a go. Do you want me to have my say or not? Thank you, member for Wanguri.
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Araluen, can you please address the Chair and look this way? Are you finished?
Ms CARNEY: May I ask, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, that the same courtesy be afforded by the member for Wanguri?
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have asked both sides to stop the cross-Chamber chatter, and please direct your comments to the Chair.
Ms CARNEY: Thank you, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker. There are some troubling parts from a prisoner’s rights point of view and I know that there is some concern expressed by a group of people, albeit a small group, with more than just a passing interest in this area. I also know that some lawyers in the Northern Territory are troubled about this and it is about justice.
There are a couple of other matters. This is important as well: the DPP can make an application for the offender’s matter to go back before the court, where the court can fix a longer non-parole period or where what was originally a 20-year sentence miraculously becomes a 25-year sentence. But in addition to that, the DPP can only make his application, and I am quoting from 19(2)(a):
… not earlier than 12 months before the first 20 years of the prisoner’s sentence is due to expire; …
I will say that again: ‘… not earlier than 12 months before the first 20 years of the prisoner’s sentence is due to expire ...’ Instead of having a situation where, of those 30 people in gaol, the DPP can say, ‘Let’s deal with them over a period of two years. Let’s get a bit of a pattern from the court while the files might be fresh in people’s minds …’ - that is the DPP and perhaps the courts – ‘let’s take these people back to court and sort things out’. But no. What this government has done is said to all of those prisoners, ‘You sit there for 19 years, wondering whether the DPP will make an application. Wondering whether your sentence might miraculously be transformed from the original 20 to 25’. Again, that is not fair, that is not just. It is inhumane. So, for 19 years out of the 20, these prisoners sit there, and then this government sanctions, in the last 12 months, the application of this act.
I believe people should know their fate before the 11th hour. We all know that prisoners serving time in gaol are, for the most part, undergoing various rehabilitation programs and so on, and they have an expectation that they might be released. Well, no, not under a Labor government. There are two separate issues here. One is, do we think people who commit murder should go to gaol? Absolutely. But the second is, if people go to gaol, it is for a finite period. It is defined. It does not slide out a bit here and there. It has to be wrapped up with some sort of certainty, and that does not appear to be the case under this legislation.
I have talked to lawyers, I will not name them, because the Attorney-General would probably be appalled if he knew who they were, but I know that there is dissension out there and certainly concerns in relation to the DPP and what he can do under this bill. That is really terribly disappointing, and I do not know why it was that the Attorney-General and his staffers could not have found a better way of dealing with those 30 or so prisoners in the transitional provisions.
However, having said that, I go back to the main part of our objection to this bill, and that is that under a Labor government, murderers can technically get a sticker that says, ‘I am serving a mandatory life sentence, but the court can fix a non-parole period’. I am quoting from subclause (6) of proposed clause 53A:
- The sentencing court may fix a non-parole period that is shorter than the standard non-parole period of 20 years referred to in subsection (1)(a) if satisfied there are exceptional circumstances that justify fixing a shorter non-parole period.
Let us be very clear. What does a non-parole period mean? It means people can be out of gaol, walking the streets. Does the CLP have difficulty with that? Absolutely. Do we oppose that? Absolutely. And why do we oppose it? Because we do not think it reflects community expectations and, as I said earlier, defence lawyers no doubt are, some of them at least, delighted with this because it makes their life much better, and it will enable them to improve the prospects for their clients. I wish them well in those endeavours. Of course, they are entitled to work within the confines of the law of the Northern Territory, and of course they are obliged to act in the best interests of their clients.
Make no mistake, under the Labor government, we will see murderers walking around the streets in less than 20 years, and the bill is opposed very strongly on that basis.
Mr STIRLING (Treasurer): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, in punter terms, there is the straight out punter, walks up, bangs it on the nose, expects it to win; puts their faith in the horse and their ability to pick the winner. And then you have the each way punter. They are not sure if the nag is going to get across the line, but they are confident enough that it will run first, second or third. So they have a bit each way. Instead of $10 on the nose, they whacked $5 on for the win and $5 on for the place. This is exactly the fence sitting position adopted by the shadow Attorney-General here today. Out of the same side of her mouth, on the one hand this is inhumane, it is cruel. ‘Inhumane’ was the description she used with the legislation on the other. That is the language when you are talking to lawyers and the legal world: ‘Inhumane that government, that Attorney-General - inhumane, callous how he treats murderers under this legislation’.
However, when you are out there talking to victims in real punter land, it is too soft. Well, you cannot have it both ways. You cannot sit on the fence in politics and in government; you have to be a straight-up punter, and pick what you think is the right thing for the community, just the same as you put your money straight out on the horse.
This does introduce the toughest regime of penalties for murder in Australia, and we stand by that proudly. It ensures those people convicted of murder will be put away for a minimum of 20 years. Where those offences go to the murder of more than one person; murders which involve a sexual assault; murders of children; murders of public officials acting in the course of their duties such as police, teachers and nurses; cases where the accused has previously been convicted of a murder or manslaughter, the minimum non-parole period will be 25 years. Nowhere else in Australia are those offences punished so severely or comprehensively.
We know the previous government considered and played around with this blanket policy of release of prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment for murder after 20 years. They never put it into practice; never set up a system by which a murderer could actually apply for release after 20 years. Nonetheless, that was their policy. In our view, it was a policy that did not go far enough because it did not recognise that some crimes of murder include other factors, such as aggravation, that make them more deserving of far lengthier sentences than 20 years. That is why we have settled in the first instance on a 20-year/25-year split. In addition, the court will be empowered to set higher non-parole periods above 20 years or 25 years, or order an offender never be released should the offence be so heinous as to deserve attracting an even longer sentence from the court.
The bill recognised that the court should be able to consider whether to apply a non-parole period of less than 20 years – and this is the one that the member for Araluen will be out there talking about. She will not be talking to the punter in terms of how harsh and inhumane the Attorney-General is; she will be saying how soft this is. However, the specific cases which will fit into this - and the Attorney-General has covered them - include such matters as the battered wife syndrome. There is an argument, I suppose, in the sense that she says there are none in the system and that is because they were acquitted through the judicial process, if this was the circumstances under which they found themselves charges with murder, or else the charges were reduced.
Why is the system just going to go all awry because we pass this law? We would expect the judiciary to work through these situations where a battered wife situation is in court charged with murder – and it probably does not happen very often because these things are taken into account before sentencing. We would expect a jury to probably acquit, as they seem to have done in the past. Probably you would expect – I believe members would agree – the circumstances such as those do deserve a different view from the court. However, the court must take into account certain factors in determining the existence of exceptional circumstances. They must be satisfied that the offender is of good character and unlikely to reoffend, and that the victim’s conduct, or their conduct and condition, was such that it substantially mitigated the action taken by the offender.
Determining a sentencing regime in this area is all about striking the right balance, and with this legislation we believe we have it right. Twenty years minimum non-parole or 25 years minimum non-parole is in line with community expectation and provides for a regime that expresses society’s deepest revulsion at the offence committed. Once the 20 years or 25 years is reached, the release from prison is not automatic – you harsh unfeeling Attorney-General, you inhumane creature. At that point in time, the offender is eligible to be considered for parole. As the Attorney-General said in his second reading speech, it is a consideration of release only. The offender would have to satisfy a range of grounds to be actually released, and this is determined by a Parole Board. So it is important to get the Parole Board right.
The membership of the Parole Board is being increased to 10. That will include a police officer, a victims of crimes representative and community representatives. Eight of the 10 members will be required to be present when making a decision on parole for prisoners convicted of murder. Currently, only six are required. To make a decision to release in these cases, a unanimous decision will be required of the board.
This legislation provides sensible reform for the punishment surrounding murder. Whilst it does provide the harshest penalties in Australia, it reforms the Parole Board to better reflect community views, it ensures that people who fit into exceptional circumstances, such as battered wives, will receive recognition of that. It is good law. I commend the Attorney-General for his efforts in putting this together.
In one sense, the comments from the member for Araluen remind me of umpires. When both sides on the footy field are against the umpire, the umpire is either doing the right thing, doing a good job because he has both sides upset; or he is a lousy umpire and he is, in fact, upsetting both sides. In this case, I think the shadow Attorney-General fits the latter category. She is lousy umpire, but she is cute enough to come in here, prosecute both sides of the argument so depending on the audience that she has and is talking to, say, ‘Oh, oh, gee, they are soft. They are so soft compared to what we had in place’. Mind you, there was no logic, rhyme nor reason to the regime that they saw fit to leave in place because they did not have the guts to reform this area of law.
Probably that is one of the saddest things about the CLP: for the many good things that they did over many years, in fact, by the end of their regime they were so disempowered, they were so cowardly at heart, they could not bring themselves to make any decent or meaningful reform for fear of upsetting a sector of the community and losing the power that they hung on to so savagely for 26 years. That is a sad thing to say about a government that in many senses served the Northern Territory community pretty well. But they had gotten themselves into such a position of disempowerment that they simply would not pass laws or reform matters long overdue for reform for fear of losing a portion of the vote out there.
In the end that was recognised by the community and they did not want to have a bunch of gutless cowards representing them in this place. They wanted a government that would stand up for decency, that would make meaningful reform across the board, and it was very timely in August 2001 that we were elected because we can bring meaningful reform and start to put in place a decent reform across a whole lot of areas. If we are condemned for being too harsh on the one hand, and being soft on the other, I take that as a vote of confidence.
Mr MILLS (Opposition Leader): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, this is, at the outset, an area in which I have no claims of expertise. However, I can read a second reading speech and I am starting to see, particularly over this busy schedule over these last three days, the presentation of legislation that if one extracts the sense of meaning from the second reading speech, or the spin that is applied by those who are selling the proposition, it can be very seductive.
I have heard words such as ‘mandatory life imprisonment’, ‘increased penalties’, ‘that we are even tougher than the CLP’, ‘this is an area that we have had the courage to walk into and to demonstrate to the community how firm we are’, ‘once the community thought that we were weak at heart and soft but, no, they are mistaken, we are extraordinarily tough on crime’. That is the actual pitch that is presented to the community and, sadly, if it were not for an opposition, you would probably get away with it. But not for too long. It starts to wear thin when the community starts to get this sense that all is not well, there is something amiss. It is just a little too glossy, it is just a little too sounding tough, when in fact there is another deeper resonance. There is a problem.
When I read through the second reading speech, and I will use the word seductive, because it being sold under the heading of ‘tougher’ and ‘we have now gone further by having two distinct categories, unlike the other mob who are so unsophisticated that they just had one sentencing regime. Now we have two’. Upon reading I had this niggling sense that it was actually three and I started to explore the third one. It is called and sold in the second reading speech as ‘truly exceptional circumstances’. The last speaker spoke of umpires. I have adjudicated many disputes in playgrounds and in the community. When someone locks on to the rules, they become a fairly formidable opponent. You can appeal to their natural sense of justice and a sense of what is right and wrong; we have one discussion. But when we have a discussion surrounding the interpretation of the law, as contained in specific words, an umpire has a different fight on their hands.
In this situation, I started to scratch around with this truly exceptional circumstances component because it was dressed up in the second reading speech as something truly exceptional. Of course, we resonate with sympathy when we understand the emotional situations surrounding a mercy killing and we can respond to that and say, ‘Yes, so that is what you mean by truly exceptional circumstances. Yes, I guess there would be a case there,’ and the community would perhaps have some sympathy. Then we talk about the battered wife and, once again, there is this emotional response. We get the picture and can respond sympathetically.
On reading the second reading speech I thought, ‘Yes, in those specific instances, it would strike a chord within the community and there needs to be the capacity to respond to those sorts of situations’. But as I started to think about that, I was reminded of the hype that I had been hearing, the spin that had been presented to the community in terms of ‘Tougher; we have gone further than ever before; the toughest in the nation’ and these ‘truly exceptional circumstances’.
I happened to look at the a bill for an act and in it, it describes exceptional circumstances. My interpretation, as a layman, someone who has had to deal with community disputes, once you get people in conflict in possession of the rules, we have a situation that you could drive a road train through. There are actually three categories because no longer is it described in terms of being truly exceptional; it is just exceptional.
On the other hand there is clearly described those who would be fitting a 25-year sentence, and then there would be the category of 20 years. The impression is created that that is everybody except for these truly exceptional circumstances, which are couched in sympathetic terms. But this is a rule book, and in there it does not say truly exceptional nor does it define the nature of the exception other than in terms of the person is of good character.
I have had people speak to me who are emotionally connected to somebody who is incarcerated for committing the act of murder, for taking another person’s life. When you are emotionally connected to that person, you can mount any kind of argument to persuade those who may be sympathetic to explore the possibility of exceptional circumstances. I am sure that for everyone who has blood on their hands, who has taken the life of somebody, a case could be mounted for the consideration of exceptional circumstances. It could be. No doubt about it. Everyone is like that. If you are in a difficult situation and you are going to try to find your way out, because every person is exceptional, and there are always exceptional circumstances.
In fact, and in reality, we can see that a person is of good character, in spite of the horrendous crime that has been committed. I have heard this again and again – once there is an emotional connection with the actual person involved, and I am terribly sorry that it did occur and I am so remorseful, you could be led to believe that they would be unlikely to reoffend. You could be persuaded to that view. You could check their convictions and say, well they have not done it very much before, or they have not done it before, and they are genuinely remorseful. I have had these expressions come to me. They may be worth exploring. However, Territorians need to know that the exceptional circumstances are not described in any other terms than opening the third proposition, being, there is the opportunity to set something less than the mandatory term. That therein is the exposure to the spin and, I believe, the deceit, in this bill because there are, in fact, in reality, three different scenarios altogether.
I imagine quite clearly that everyone would be trying the third door, everyone would be lining up for an exceptional circumstance argument and proposition. That is where you would go first. There would always be some reason to consider this avenue. Anyone who wants to mount the argument would certainly push that case as hard as they can.
I do believe this bill is packaged in a way that the community is expecting and believing one thing, but it actually tells a completely different story. I believe that the second reading speech is seductive and deceitful. I believe that the bill provides three distinct categories and it is not a mandatory minimum standard at all. I believe we have a dismantling of the current system and it is a far different system than has been sold. We can have murderers who are, under the truly exceptional factor – it does not say truly exceptional in here, it just says exceptional circumstances – back on the streets well before the 20 years.
Mr HENDERSON (Police, Fire and Emergency Services): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, today I support this government’s Sentencing (Crime of Murder) and Parole Reform Bill. I can advise honourable members that this bill is as a result of a great deal of scrutiny and work, not only at a Cabinet level, but at a legal level, over a very long period of time. I am very comfortable that, in terms of what our community would expect of a sentencing regime for the most abhorrent crime that an individual can commit, which is wilfully taking another person’s life, that this bill does achieve the objectives of mandatory life sentence. I will go through the issues and try to address some of the issues that members opposite have raised, although I will leave the detailed legal explanations to my colleague, the Attorney-General, who has had carriage of the development of this legislation in Cabinet.
This bill does continue mandatory life imprisonment for murder. Our community does expect that if you wilfully take another person’s life and you are convicted by a jury, that you should serve the mandatory life imprisonment. The bill does contain a provision – not a guarantee – but a provision that a parole hearing can be applied for after a period of 20 years.
As my colleague, the member for Nhulunbuy, said, the reasons, in part, for this bill being before the House today is that the previous governments did have a Cabinet decision on the books giving an opportunity for parole for the crime of murder after 20 years. That was a decision of the Cabinet which did not find its way into legislation. The reason for that was because, from the time of self-government and as people were being convicted of murder, there was no pressure on the Cabinet at the time to have the courage to come into this parliament to introduce legislation giving people who had been convicted of murder an opportunity to apply for parole. Because there was no pressure in regards to people coming through the system reaching the 20 years, they made a decision in the security, sanctity and comfort of the Cabinet room, but did not have the courage to come into this parliament and pass legislation. In part, that is one of the reasons why this legislation is here today.
However, in considering parole for the crime of murder and looking, as we did very carefully, at the sentencing provisions across the other states - and not only other states, but internationally - we became, as a government, convinced that some crimes of murder are particularly serious and heinous, and determined that, for those aggravated crimes, there would be a new minimum non-parole period of 25 years. Again, no guarantee. The head sentence is a mandatory life sentence. However, there is capacity within the system, after 25 years, for convicted aggravated murderers to apply for parole. It is a tough law, and I am certainly very comfortable that it is a tough law.
The previous government’s policy of review for all murders after a period of 20 years did not consider this issue of aggravation. Aggravated murders include murders where the victim is a community worker or a public official carrying out their duties, such as a police officer or a teacher; the death was accompanied by sexual assault; and if the victim was a child. Courts are empowered to set non-parole periods higher than 20 years or 25 years, including to a term of natural life.
The government is also looking at closing loopholes that see manslaughter charges used as plea bargaining to escape the murder charge. We are also commencing a further review of manslaughter and dangerous act offences. When we reviewed the sentencing outcomes for the crime of murder, manslaughter and dangerous acts - and seeing some of the circumstances under which those crimes were committed - there is no doubt in this government’s mind that we have a serious problem regarding how the various charges are applied and the plea bargaining process. There is no doubt in my mind that, over many years, people who have managed to escape a lesser sentence, being convicted under the dangerous acts provisions, on the face of it could and should have gone for a murder charge. Anyway, that mix of review is certainly going on at the moment. But this issue of plea bargaining, when the charge is that someone has wilfully taken another person’s life, I do not think is serving our society and our community well.
Importantly, the legislation includes long overdue reforms of the Parole Board. The Parole Board is responsible for consideration of applications for the release of prisoners at the end of the non-parole period. As I said before, eligibility for parole is no guarantee of release; it is still a mandatory life sentence. It is only the earliest time at which the offender maybe considered for release. The Parole Board will consider the suitability of individual prisoners for release. It is not a ‘get out of gaol free’ card. The offender remains subject to conditions of the parole order for murder, supervised for the rest of their life. The Parole Board has been tightened with victim’s families, police and community representatives on the board to consider that application because, as a society, we expect our Parole Board to reflect that society in regards to hearing applications for people on release. Certainly, if we are talking about victim’s rights, and we hear a lot in debate on law and order and crime about victim’s rights, I suppose in the case of murder the ultimate victim has no say. But, in regards to the families, the communities, the friends that are left behind, the legacy of that wilful taking of somebody’s life lives with those people for ever, and those victim’s rights are reflected in the construct of the Parole Board that will ultimately be hearing those applications.
Five members of the 10 member board will be required, as closely as possible, to reflect the composition of the community at large. This is a very important change in this bill. These are not going to be faceless people who sit there and make decisions, and very difficult decisions, in regards to release of people who have committed the ultimate crime. The Parole Board will now be reflective of our community and this is one of the most significant and important reforms of this bill.
There are strict guidelines for making decisions on applications. When considering murder offences, the membership of the board increases to 10 with a quorum of eight. Decisions to release prisoners convicted of murder must be unanimous and written reasons must be provided. The community has a right to know. If somebody who has been convicted of the crime of murder and has been sentenced to a mandatory life sentence, the community has a right to know why that person has been released, and particularly in the consideration of murderers applying for parole. The Parole Board will have to consider the public interest including community safety as a matter of primary importance.
I am absolutely astounded - and I have to try not to get angry in the debate this afternoon - for, on the one hand, the shadow Attorney-General, quite happy to talk to the public and in the media and her opening comments here saying - and I will get to the exceptional circumstances clauses in a moment - but to come in here and say this is ‘appalling legislation’, ‘for the first time in the history of the Northern Territory, murderers who have been convicted of the crime of murder will be free to walk our streets’. For the first time. That language interpreted in the community would give the understanding to the community that under the existing legislation, quite accurately given there are no parole provisions in the existing legislation albeit the previous government made a Cabinet decision to provide the capacity for parole after 20 years, the shadow Attorney-General is saying, ipso facto, if the CLP government was in power and you were convicted of the crime of murder and a mandatory life sentence was the result, you would never walk the streets of our community again.
That is what the shadow Attorney-General is saying when she makes those public comments. I am absolutely certain they will be front and centre on the news reports tonight: that murderers will be walking our streets as a result of the passage of this bill. Then, in other contribution to this debate, the shadow Attorney-General has the hypocrisy to talk about prisoners’ rights and that the parole provisions as applied in this bill are too tough, and if one person decides that no, you are not going to get out, we do not believe that the public interest, including community safety, is guaranteed as a result of your serving 20 or 25 years in prison - nine people say: ‘Yes, you are free to go’ and one person says: ‘Sorry, I am not convinced that you have been rehabilitated and you are never likely to offend again’ – that that is too tough, that that person should be allowed to walk free back into the community.
You cannot have it both ways, opposition. You cannot go out there and argue that this bill will allow murderers to walk and that the head sentence of mandatory life sentence no longer applies, and on the other hand, quietly, to maintain your professional integrity amongst your profession and people who are lobbying, whisper: ‘These parole provisions are too tough because nobody will ever get out; they are too tough and we want to see a capacity for people who have committed the crime of murder and have been successfully rehabilitated, we want those people back out in our community’. You just cannot have it both ways.
Ms CARNEY: A point of order, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker! The member for Wanguri is quite incorrectly restating my point. There were two points made and he knows it. Fairness to prisoners, the goal post should not change and you have changed them and I know you know. I know you know that part of it is wrong.
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: There is no point of order, member for Araluen.
Mr HENDERSON: Thank you, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker. This is a touchy issue and no wonder the shadow Attorney-General …
Ms Carney interjecting.
Mr HENDERSON: The Hansard record tells no lies. The Hansard record tells no lies and the shadow Attorney-General is on the public record in debate here this afternoon saying that the parole provisions are too tough, people will not be able to get out under these provisions, and was talking in regards to prisoners’ rights. We are focussed in this bill on the victim who, unfortunately, is no longer here and with us, but the families, their communities and our society needs to have absolute confidence that in the event that anyone can reach the bar after 20 or 25 years of serving a mandatory life sentence for the crime of murder, they will never reoffend. I have no problems with the bar being as high as it is; that bar is the highest in Australia.
I move now to the issues in regards to exceptional circumstance, and I will pick up on the comments of the Leader of the Opposition. Like the Leader of the Opposition, I too am a layman when it comes to the law. I will stand here and freely say that I have never had any legal training. I can read and understand legislation to a point but, without legal training, I do struggle with coming to grips with the application of it in some cases.
I can certainly say that when Cabinet was considering the exceptional circumstances provisions – and it probably took about six months to get to where we are if the truth be told. One day, when the records are released, it will be revealed that we did agonise over the issues of certain crimes of murder, people being convicted of murder, such as battered wife syndrome, and mercy killings; where somebody in a hospital on the request of somebody dying, whether it is a doctor or a family member, and there is a mercy killing which could ultimately lead possibly to a charge of murder. We all understand the battered wife syndrome, the excessive self-defence. Yes, you can argue that these things could be dealt with within plea bargaining and under these circumstances it is more than likely that people would be charged with a lesser offence other than murder. However, there is no guarantee of that, and given the bar is so high, with a mandatory life sentence, and very explicit parole provisions to guarantee community safety, that there had to be, in the name of justice, exceptional circumstances provisions written into this bill to deal with the issues of battered wives, mercy killings and excessive self-defence. And yes, on the first occasion that the bill was drafted, or whatever occasion, the legislative drafters and lawyers did attempt to codify those scenarios in legislation. In terms of a layman’s reading of the bill, the codification of those scenarios read much more comfortably, for want of a better word, in the legislation.
I have to say that, in terms of the process we went through to test this bill, to make sure that the government objectives, which were the crime of murder absolutely brought on a mandatory life sentence, and an aggravated circumstance and the capacity to reflect this, we have tested this legislation, not just within government and government legal people, but also amongst the broader legal fraternity. This has bounced backwards and forwards on a number of occasions. The problem with the codification of those provisions as they were originally drafted, came back to us from expert legal opinion, was that we would be more likely to see people walking through the exceptional circumstances gate by codifying them in those three particular categories, than by codifying them as they appear in this bill.
I can certainly understand, and I take the Leader of the Opposition on his word in this because, like me, he is not a lawyer, however the shadow Attorney-General is, that in terms of, if you were to put the two pieces of legislation side by side, the layman would pick the codification clause ahead of the way the bill has been drafted. My colleague, the Attorney-General, will address this, because we did go, in terms of testing both scenarios that had been drafted for us, by forwarding that legislation to David Grace QC, who is one of the leading criminal defence lawyers in Australia. Mr Grace did advise Cabinet, and my colleague will read some of that advice into the record, that this legislation as it is drafted, gives the absolute ultimate test and very, very few people will meet this hurdle and meet the bar as it is defined in this legislation in the exceptional circumstance provisions. However, I do understand, because I struggled with it. I certainly did struggle with it in regards to the codification of those scenarios versus the way this is drafted in the bill. But, I got there, and I can certainly say that I have every confidence in the legal advice that we have been given.
With the ultimate crime of murder, emotions run deep. With some of the people serving sentences in Territory prisons at the moment, certainly amongst my colleagues here, and I am sure on the other side, there are many of us in this House who were personally affected by those crimes. We knew the victims, and we certainly know the circumstances of many of those crimes.
Society, as a whole, has every right - and I do not resile from it in one instance – that, if you commit the ultimate crime of wilfully taking another person’s life, you are denied your rights in our society by receiving a mandatory life sentence. If you are to be considered for parole after 20 years or 25 years, then you only get out if that Parole Board can prove to society that you will never offend again.
Therefore, I urge the opposition to accept this legislation as it is. I do not think there are any real points to be scored regarding who is toughest on murder or not. We both agree that mandatory life sentence should be applied to conviction for murder. I believe we all agree on that. What we are arguing about here is the parole provision side of it. You cannot run out there and run one line and say, ‘This bill will ensure that people who, under our regime, would have gone to gaol and never been released, never to walk the streets again, but under this bill, they will go through this gate and all be out in much less than 20 years’, and on the other hand say that the parole provisions are too tough and will deny those people who are convicted of the crime of murder of ever walking the streets again. You cannot have it both ways.
I place on the Parliamentary Record my thanks to the Attorney-General who has carriage of this legislation. It has been a very difficult carriage of this legislation in the Cabinet room, but we have got there. I am convinced the sanctions that apply to the ultimate crime represented in this bill will be supported by the community.
Mr MALEY (Goyder): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, the Labor government in, August 2001, did not go to the polls with a mandate to remove the mandatory life sentence provisions for the offence of murder.
I have used the phrase ‘mandatory life in prison’ or the ‘mandatory life sentence provisions’ in this context: life means life. When a person committed the offence of murder, which is the most serious offence on the statute books in the Northern Territory, that person expected to spend the rest of their natural life in prison. There was, of course, that provision - albeit that it had never been exercised - where Cabinet could, in certain circumstances, release an individual on licence.
For the government to say that we still have mandatory life imprisonment and all that we are discussing now is the parole powers, is really misleading. I will take honourable members through the reasons why the phraseology, particularly which the member for Wanguri used, was misleading and why his attempts to milk this particular amendment for all it is worth, will not succeed.
This particular reform package did not feature as a plank of the Clare Martin’s law and order reform package prior to the last election. It is all part of a secret reform package; a package which included, of course, gay law reform, the disposal of 17 700 km2 of our parks and now we have the review of the sentences imposed for the offence of murder.
There is absolutely no doubt that the reason it is all being jammed through at the very last sittings for the year 2003 is that this government hopes that by the time the next election comes the dust would have settled, and people would have forgotten about this. Hopefully, the gas has kicked in, the economy has picked up, the chances of them securing a second term would then be maximised, and they have done their dirty work at the end of 2003. We are going to do all that we can to make sure that the people of the Northern Territory remember what this government has done and the way that they have fashioned this raft of reforms through this parliament in the last three days.
Taking off the political hat and being a bit more legalistic about it, the second reading speech – and credit to whoever wrote it - is actually well drafted. It is crafted in such a way to certainly create the impression that there is mandatory life imprisonment, it is a serious penalty, and there are references to the four categories: the standard non-parole period of 20 years; the 25-year aggravating circumstances; the situation where there is no non-parole period if there are extreme circumstances; and then we have, towards the end of the new provisions under clauses 7, proposed new section 53A(6), (7) and (8), the exceptional circumstances provision which allows the setting of a period less than the 20 years.
From a community’s perspective, in reality probably the first three categories will not attract a great deal of concern: there is a standard 20 years, it can be 25 years if there is an aggravating circumstance; or if it is particularly bad there is no non-parole period. That is probably not going to attract the concern or anger of the community. What will of course attract some attention – and it has certainly been the opposition’s experience – is that there is a certain amount of community angst about the effect and the provisions of clauses 7, proposed new section 53A(6), (7) and (8). If I can just remind honourable members what they are, they are the amendments to section 53A of the Sentencing Act. They will create this mechanism where if a person satisfies a number of built-in safeguards or prerequisites then the court does have the discretion to impose a non-parole period of less than 20 years. That is a real possibility, a real provision, which defence lawyers would be under an obligation to have a shot at irrespective of the particular subjective circumstances that their client finds themselves in.
The Leader of the Opposition has touched upon the one point which I was going to mention; the second reading speech talks about ‘truly exceptional circumstances’. Of course the word ‘truly’ disappears in the translation from second reading speech to legislation and we come down to this term ‘exceptional circumstances’. The term ‘exceptional circumstances’ is a playground for defence lawyers in the courts. It is not a term which will take any seasoned defence lawyer by surprise. We know that that term crops up in a number of pieces of legislation, both here and interstate, and the one which there has been numerous Supreme Court cases on is section 37(2) of the Misuse of Drugs Act, and we have numerous Supreme Court cases including Duthie v Smith. His Honour Justice Mildren goes on to say that these are some of the situations which - assuming they are made out – a court of competent jurisdiction can say there are exceptional circumstances and this person does not have to receive the 28 days of imprisonment that the Misuse of Drugs Act provides for a second drug offence or if there are some aggravating circumstances.
I cannot speak on behalf the Criminal Lawyers Association, but I can speak on behalf of several of my friends and colleagues of the past 10 years who are members, and I know that we have, on both sides of the House, relatives and spouses who are currently members of that association, and I suspect some of them share these views, and this is a step forward for defence lawyers. This is a step in the right direction to making sure that their clients, if they ever fall to be dealt with and charged and convicted of the offence of murder can at least have a shot at getting a shorter period than the 20 years or the term of their natural life.
It is good news for the defence lawyers. It is great news. I suspect that all the older exceptional circumstances cases, all the settled law, which really says that these are penal statutes, these are serious offences, any ambiguity should be resolved in the favour of a defendant, and if you can find something that is slightly out of the ordinary - things like good character, the fact that a person is not likely to reoffend – that is enough. We just need some subjective observation to that effect, then you ask someone who comes into the scope of this term ‘exceptional circumstances’ because it is all about giving the benefit of the doubt to the person who is being been dealt with by the court.
Do not kid yourselves, honourable members on the other side. Do not kid yourselves that this is going to be only used in truly exceptional circumstances. I am telling you that every single time that someone is convicted of murder, even after the most hideous jury trial, months and months and months of process with committals, arraignments, and even if there is not a scintilla of remorse shown until the guilty verdict is handed down, then the poor defendant bursts into tears and says, ‘I am sorry’ and his family are upset, and all the things that normally follow, they will have a crack at this because that man showed remorse. That is how broad those types of provisions will be interpreted.
My learned friend, the member for Araluen, is absolutely correct. The court’s discretion is now just about absolute. There are some fetterings contained in this fairly clumsy provision, but let me tell you these are not big hurdles for any lawyer worth their salt. They will certainly be tested at every single opportunity.
Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, perhaps these are some questions I can ask in the committee stage, but I will put the learned Attorney-General or his advisors on notice. I will read it so I am not taking you by storm. Section 53A(7) contains the criteria or the limbs of which the courts which must be satisfied before they can say there are exceptional circumstances. I want to find out whether they are separate limbs; are they conjunctive or disjunctive? I want to determine, at a mechanical level, how the setting of these non-parole periods is affected by the provisions of section 54 of the Sentencing Act and what effect section 53, as amended, will also have on the setting of these non-parole periods and, more particularly, section 54(1). We will come to that in the committee stage. I will just put you on notice that they are the types of questions I will be asking.
It seems that for the first time in the Northern Territory since 1984 there is no longer a mandatory minimum sentence for murder, because this exceptional circumstance does exist. There is a mandatory loss of licence if you go DUI. There is also a mandatory term of imprisonment is you get done for your second assault, or if there is a particular aggravating circumstance for some particular assaults, but there is no mandatory minimum, it seems, for murder, when read in light of the exceptional circumstances and the provisions contained in clause 7, proposed new section 53A(6), (7) and (8), but I put a proviso on it. There is some ambiguity about the effect of section 53 and section 54 of the Sentencing Act which will go through.
I was listening carefully to the member for Wanguri’s comments - obviously a very carefully prepared spiel - and I jotted down a few notes. He talked about agonising over the issue, and about being a lay person looking at the legislation. I know what he was agonising about. It was nothing to do with the legislation. It was the political issue of if we bring this in and people find out, we are going to be in trouble. That is what he was agonising about. That is what they spent six months discussing.
Ms Carney: The CLP lets everyone know.
Mr MALEY: Exactly. They will be saying, ‘If we jam it through, let us try and fix them up in say, November 2003, 18 months prior to the election’. This is the question they would have been tossing about. They have done that today. We are going to tell everybody. The member for Araluen is well on her way to making sure that every single person who lives in the northern suburbs knows exactly what this government does.
Dr Burns: She will send out different letters on her speech, pitched to about three different audiences.
Ms Carney: At least we write our own, unlike you, hey, Chris.
Dr Burns: I write my speeches.
Mr MALEY: Yes, that is a good point. Credit where credit is due.
Ms Carney: You liar.
Mr KIELY: A point of order, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker! The member for Araluen gets too carried away with her disrespectful interjections. She called the member for Johnston a liar, straight up. She has a habit of doing that.
Mr Maley: If you did not hear it, you cannot rule on it.
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Be quiet, member for Goyder. Look, there is a bit going across both sides.
Mr Kiely: No, well, she called him a liar, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker.
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Can you stop, member for Sanderson, please. There is too much cross-Chamber chatter, I have warned before. Member for Goyder, when you were talking, like I said to the member for Araluen, please address the Chair and do not face over there. Please address your comments this way.
Members interjecting.
Ms LAWRIE: A point of order, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker! I do ask the member for Araluen to withdraw it. She knows that it is against standing orders.
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: I did ask for …
Ms LAWRIE: I did not hear the member for Araluen withdraw.
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Araluen, please withdraw your remark.
Ms CARNEY: I withdraw the word ‘liar’, and use the word ‘plagiarist’, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker.
Mr MALEY: In the vein of that interjection, credit where credit is due. It looks like we have a Labor minister who has done some of his own work, and the speech that the member for Wanguri prepared …
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Just move on with it please, member for Goyder.
Mr MALEY: Beg your pardon. You are asking me to …
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Are we out of the point of order. I am just saying, direct it to the Chair.
Mr MALEY: Okay, I thought you were offering some criticism about what I was talking about, trying to understand what I was saying.
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, direct your comments to the Chair and not across.
Mr MALEY: Okay. I have absolutely no idea what you are on about.
The member for Wanguri, to his credit, actually used some of his own work, unlike some of the other Labor ministers. Let me tell you, using emotive-type scenarios like mercy killing and battered wife syndrome, and saying that this is why we need this type of legislation to look after these type of potential offenders, is outrageously misleading. They are extreme hypotheticals. Our contacts from the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions tell us there are no people in the Northern Territory who would fall into those categories. He trapezes in here and says that one of his heartfelt justifications for these important provisions which will enable the court to exercise its discretion and reduce the mandatory non-parole period for a period of less then 20 years is because we are concerned about the mercy killers. We are concerned about the people who might come into the scope of something he described as ‘battered wife syndrome’. The very fact that he knows that there is currently nobody who has been convicted of murder and is currently serving a life term who falls within that category is misleading. He is trying to mislead the Territory people.
One of the interesting aspects, at least, of contributing to a debate where you have seen a murder trial unravel pragmatically before you, is that there are 12 men and women on the jury. They listen to all the evidence, they listen to the witnesses, are persuaded by the compelling closing statements of the defence lawyer and the prosecutor, and then they get an objective summary prepared by the judge of the day and usually, particularly in murder trials because they are so serious, they get an aide-mmoire which sets out the precise elements of the offence. It really explains to them what sort of evidential onus the prosecution has to satisfy before they take the fairly drastic step of finding somebody guilty of the serious offence of murder.
Like any human drama, there are many subjective variables. You have the victim’s family sitting in the court and they want some justice. The courts are not courts of retribution; it is about lots of other things which include general deterrents, personal deterrents and protecting the community. At the end of the day, those people just want their beloved back, and no amount of justice will really ever satisfy them. From the death penalty, nothing would replace what they have lost and any fair-minded human being would feel sympathy for them.
In the other corner of the court room, there is a group of people who do not talk to this other group. They are usually the family of the defendant – a brother or sister, a beloved or devoted mother. If the person has been in remand for some time they normally start some letter writing interaction with someone from the outside and they might have someone there. They come to know this human being and they are of the view that, if he or she did not do it, and they certainly do not belong in prison. My heartfelt sympathies go out for them as well, for the pain that they must go through seeing what is unfolding. The realisation that the person they love will spend, potentially, the rest of their lives in a small cell is certainly a burden which I would not wish upon anybody.
We have two small sections of the community who are witnessing this who are part of the players. Ultimately though, the 12 men and women of the jury see all this. They can pick that up and see the evidence, and they carefully make that decision. I suspect that is why, at the end of the day, there are not any of these people who, in the member for Wanguri’s hypotheticals, have been convicted of murder - this category of mercy killing and battered wife syndrome - the type of justification he says is enough to warrant introduction of this piece of legislation. That is why these people have not been convicted, because we have 12 members of the Territory community who listened carefully. They are aware that, if there is any doubt whatsoever, we have manslaughter and alternative verdicts, like dangerous act. If you look at the type of offence we are dealing with, we are talking about a person who did not just get in a fight and kill somebody, but a person who, for whatever reason and however physically it occurred, formed the requisite specific intent to kill another human being or cause grievous harm to another human being. It is not just an accident.
This is something the juries and defence lawyers certainly harp upon. The jury has to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that, in this particular circumstance, a very serious intent to kill or cause grievous harm was fairly fixed in the defendant’s mind. So, when members of the Territory’s public are satisfied that this evidentiary hurdle has been satisfied, when they go into that room for hours and hours and then try to deal with all the competing emotion which exists in the court room, they come to a conclusion and that conclusion is, quite frankly, usually right. So when a person is convicted of murder in the Northern Territory, quite frankly, they deserve it . They have been given an opportunity to use all the safe guards in our system and 12 men and women, their peers, have found them guilty.
When I was prosecutor, and not that there are that many murder trials and you get to sit at the back of the court room and watch the odd one, but the seasoned DPP prosecutors and old defence lawyers who both prosecute and defend, would constantly say that in the Northern Territory it is particularly difficult to get a conviction for murder because juries know. They know that it is really serious and if they have a doubt invariably they will go for a manslaughter or they will go for a dangerous act. So, there are these inherent safeguards built in.
I trust the jury system. I trust the people of the Northern Territory. This bill is another clear signal that the Martin Labor government does not trust Territory people. It does not trust Territory juries to make the right decision and for those reasons the CLP strongly opposes this weak legislation.
Mr BONSON (Millner): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, today I speak on the Sentencing (Crime of Murder) and Parole Reform Bill 2003. The bill introduces important reforms to the sentencing regime for the offence of murder. It will also provide the membership and operations of the Northern Territory Parole Board.
I want to first talk about the murder sentencing reforms. The NT has the highest rate of murder in the country. Therefore, these are very important reforms. I emphasis that the bill will not change the sentence for murder; it remains at mandatory life. The reforms have taken on board the previous government’s blanket policy of considering release after 20 years but have gone further. In line with that policy, the bill provides for the standard minimum non-parole period of 20 years. However, there is a higher minimum parole period of 25 years for murders which involve circumstances of aggravations. Those circumstances are set out in the bill and involve the murder of more than one person; murders which involve a sexual assault; murders of children; murders of public officials, such as police, teachers and nurses; and cases where the accused has previously been convicted of a murder or manslaughter.
I am pleased that this particular amendment recognises for the first time in our legislation that some circumstances of murder are more heinous than others. I am sure members are aware, or have heard of, whether it is through their work, their life experience or media or other sources of such cases. The bill also provides that in all cases the court can set a higher non-parole period or decline to set a parole period at all. That is a sentence for the offender for the term of his or her natural life. In making this decision, the court is required to take into account community safety and protection, the level of culpability of the offender, and the community interest in deterrents and punishment.
It is important that the punishment fit the crime. The CLP policy failed to do this. The sentencing regime also recognises that there may be some exceptional cases where the court might be justified in setting a lower non-parole period. These will be truly exceptional cases. Of the current prisoners, none would have fallen within this category but in legislation it is important to be able to cover any cases which might arise.
The community understands and accepts this: the punishment must fit the crime. I am happy that the exceptional circumstance provisions have been very carefully drafted and thoroughly scrutinised by expert legal counsel so that they will only be applied in the very limited circumstances the government intends.
This package of reforms is good law and is long overdue. It is also tough law. Let us compare the Northern Territory murder sentencing regime with other jurisdictions. New South Wales provides a 20-year standard non-parole period, with 25 years for circumstances of aggravation, but the court can increase or decrease these periods. Queensland has a minimum non-parole period of 15 years with 20 years for more than one conviction for murder. Western Australia has a minimum of 10 years and a maximum of 30 years for its non-parole periods. In Victoria, ACT, Tasmania and South Australia, no minimum non-parole period is provided in the legislation. This is a tough, law but it is a just law that reflects community interest. I congratulate the Attorney-General and his department and advisors on finely crafted legislation.
Turning now to the Parole Board amendment, I am happy to say that these amendments also reflect the community interest. The Parole Board will be expanded to 10 members and will include for the first time in the Northern Territory a victim’s representative, a police representative, and community representatives, including women and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. I am very pleased to see wide community representative in this vital area of the justice system. This reform helps to increase the community engagement in our justice system, and that is a good thing and a principle to which this government is committed.
The Parole Board must have a quorum of eight to make a decision on parole for a person convicted of murder. A written reason for the decision must be provided and the decision of the Parole Board must be unanimous. Some people have criticised the need for decision of the Parole Board to unanimous. They argue that eight people will never be able to reach a decision and no person will ever be released. I do not share these concerns. Murder is the most serious crime in our society. People convicted of murder should not be released until the community can be assured that they pose no significant threat, even though they will always be under the supervision of Community Corrections. That is why the government has included a requirement in the legislation that community safety is the primary consideration for the Parole Board. The requirement to give written reason ensures the decisions of the Parole Board are transparent and that the board is accountable.
I will take a few minutes to outline to members what happens when a person is released conditionally on parole. If a Parole Board grants parole, Community Corrections assumes responsibility for supervision of the paroled prisoner for the remainder of their sentence. For offenders convicted of murder, that supervision will continue for the rest of their life as the sentence is mandatory life. If a prisoner commits any further offence while on parole, they are returned to prison to serve the rest of the sentence. The Parole Board has the power to set any condition it considers necessary to adequately protect the community. The standard parole conditions attached to every Northern Territory parole order are:
(1) the parolee be of good behaviour and not violate the law;
(2) the parolee be subject to supervision of a parole officer and obey all reasonable directions of
the officer;
(3) the parolee must report to the parole officer at nominated times and be available for interview as
directed by the parole officer;
The parolee must also notify their parole officer of any change in employment before this occurs;
(6) the parolee must reside at an address arranged or agreed upon by the parole officer and must notify their
parole officer of any intention to move;
(7) the parolee must not associate with any persons specified in a direction by the parole officer; and
Parole is not a ‘get out of gaol free’ card, and I want to emphasis that the parole period set out in this bill are minimums. Once those non-parole periods have been served, a person convicted of murder in the Northern Territory will have to convince the Parole Board he or she is not a risk to community safety and will not offend. In making its decision, the Parole Board will also consider a range of factors, including the behaviour of the person in prison, the programs they have undertaken, and the degree of contrition they show for the crime they have committed. The person will then satisfy the conditions of parole for the rest of his or her life, under supervision of Community Corrections.
This new regime for murder sentencing and parole is the toughest in Australia. However, it is not only tough, it is appropriate and it is just. It contains the critical elements of community protection as the paramount consideration, direct community involvement in decisions of parole, and it also reflects the community interests in deterrence, punishment and justice for serious offences which have been committed. I commend the bill to honourable members.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I will not vote on this bill, because I believe that one of the problems with this particular subject is that sometimes too much politics comes into it. On top of that, at least for me, I do not believe that there has been sufficient time to really put the time and effort that I would have liked into this bill. There have been so many bills in two days that have to be handled, I think this was a case of an overloaded session of parliament.
Dr Burns: That is what they pay us for.
Mr WOOD: Thank you, member for Johnston. I am sure you were not doing the Local Government Act, which was withdrawn. I worked a number of weeks on that act.
Dr Burns: We do all the acts.
Mr WOOD: Member for Johnston, I am sure you did not write out a list of amendments – I do not know how many amendments – contact different local governments because, in my position, I do also look at those particular bills. In your case, you would have specific members look at those bills and, in fact, you already have the bill written. In our case, we have to make judgment on those bills. Anyway, I am just saying one of the problems here is that this is a very serious bill. We have had quite a number of serious bills in this sitting, and I feel that there possibly should have been more time.
Another reason why I have doubts about this bill is because the minister, in his statement, at the very beginning, said that the minister had conducted extensive research into laws governing the penalties for murder, manslaughter and dangerous act to ensure the Northern Territory laws in these areas are appropriate and operate effectively. Then he says, ‘This review has resulted in the development of the bill I am introducing today’. The government is nearly becoming famous for reviews. I am not against them having reviews. In fact, they are looking at the Community Welfare Act at the present time. You will notice posters up around the place, saying Community Welfare Act.
This particular act has always been very controversial. It has always been very political. It is my side is tougher than your side. And I have heard it today. Sometimes I think, am I listening to the CLP on this side, or am I listening to the ALP on this side? Could I swap them over? Would I see really any difference, because they are in different places? Have things really changed? I do not know, but I would have thought this is such a serious matter – it gets the headlines of the NT News – that people have fairly strong viewpoints about it, and this would have been worth a public review, where people were able to go to …
Mr Henderson interjecting.
Mr WOOD: Well, if the minister is going to say it was a public review, I know of two people who wrote letters asking when the public review was on. I do not remember advertisements for meetings or places where you could put your point of view on this. Maybe you could write letters; I do not know. However, I would have thought this was an excellent opportunity, considering the amount of politics in it, for people to put their viewpoints at public meetings. It is a defining piece of legislation that affects not only victims, and the people who cause the offence but, as the member for Goyder said - and sometimes we forget this, and people may not think it is so relevant - but the families. Sometimes when a husband is put in gaol, he leaves a wife and several children. It might be all very well to say the prisoner was too bad, but there are other effects of this on people, on the community and society. Therefore, I feel that this really should have had a much broader public review than what the Attorney-General has done.
Attorney-General, I do not agree with the CLP’s version, and I never agreed that the Cabinet or politicians should be making the judgment on prisoners. That distinction, that separation of powers - and I am not using that in technical terms, because I would not want to get into an argument with the legal eagles – basically, is not their role. I see the government’s new laws as being better in that way. The idea of a Parole Board making those decisions is good.
I support the categories. I have always asked why we do not look at degrees in murder and, to some extent, Attorney-General, that is what you have done. You have people who would not be released, people on 25-years non-parole, people on 20-years non-parole, and then you have, I suppose, what you would call mitigating circumstances. I am in favour of mitigating circumstances. However, listening to what has been said today, I have some doubts as to whether the act is strong enough that it would not be misused.
I heard the member for Wanguri mention the codification, and I was very interested in what he had to say. What worries me is that we can codify when a person has to go for a non-parole period of 25 years. We have said exactly what should be taken into account, what the death would be, etcetera, with six clauses to define why a person should fit into the classification of a 25-year non-parole period. I would be interested to know why we could not do the same for those mitigating circumstances. I agree that people who have committed maybe a mercy killing, or wife bashing, or whatever it is, should have mitigating circumstances. Of course, you have to be careful. I should not make a generalisation because a wife bashing case might have been just an excuse. Things have to be looked at case by case. However, the idea of having some mitigating circumstances is good. Then, it has been said that perhaps those sections of law could have come into manslaughter and dangerous acts. The Attorney-General has announced he is going to review the manslaughter section of the Criminal Code. One would have to ask why we did not look at both laws together. I presume manslaughter and murder are intertwined. Wouldn’t that have been a good opportunity to look at how each particular offence fits into one another?
I have a couple of questions there. I do not agree with the member for Goyder, and maybe he can pull me up later. Correct me if I am wrong, member for Goyder; you tell me. I was under the understanding that he was saying that you do not get a life sentence when you are in the exceptional circumstances clause. My understanding is that you still do.
Mr Maley: For your parole period at least.
Mr WOOD: That is right, but that is where you have to be careful. The parole period is shorter. I understand that. But now my problem is, you are saying it is a mitigating circumstance and, therefore, the punishment should be less. I can take that philosophy. However, then you are saying it has to go to the Parole Board. Now, the Parole Board has to vote whether you should be out. I think the Parole Board has to unanimous in the sense of a quorum - I might be wrong there - not 10 but eight, otherwise you would have to make sure there was 10 there every time. Now, say it was a case of wife bashing and these eight people turn up and one community member really has no sympathy for this lady; after all the Parole Board did not make the judgment. They have just come along afterwards to make a judgment on whether someone should be released. You have this unanimous board and one community member might be dead against this sort of thing; he believes, regardless of what the judgment was, that that person should have gone for life, a longer parole period, he was up there for murder.
Now, if that person who is on the Parole Board I presume for a set time, I do not know whether that says here, but I imagine the Parole Board is appointed for one year or two years, that person decided to dig their heels in and say I am not going to let that person out, all that one person has to do is say sorry. Say I was in for four years non-parole. Each time that person decided not to vote, could that go on forever? Could that go on and on and on till the bloke got kicked off the Parole Board? I would be interested to see because I thought you could not get released until the Parole Board was unanimous in that decision. It just struck me there that while you might have mitigating circumstances, the Parole Board is the one that lets you out and if some people on the Parole Board do not reckon you should get out, well that is too bad. That is the argument later on when you get to 20 year and 25 year, because the Parole Board is going to make a decision on whether they thought that person at 20 years should get out too. It is just an interesting notion.
The member for Araluen also mentioned that you have to have a unanimous decision. I suppose you would have heard from the same people I have and that is that they have found that bit of an anomaly where a jury can put you away in gaol if it is not unanimous, but a Parole Board cannot let you out until it is unanimous. They see that as an area that looks like the one side that put you in gaol is different from the side that takes you out of gaol.
The member for Wanguri, and the Attorney-General, also mentioned in his second reading speech the evidence of the QC about the exceptional circumstances.
A member: That is the advice.
Mr WOOD: The advice was it? It is very hard without having that advice to make a decision on whether the exceptional circumstances can hold up. I have heard two lawyers speak today and I know lawyers will tell you that you can win a case anytime. Ring them up and they say we will win that case. But here are two lawyers saying today that you can drive a train through that particular section of the law …
Mr Kiely: Hang on, what about the lawyer over here?
Mr Bonson: They would not be playing politics.
Mr WOOD: Well, they might be, they might be. As a layman, I look at clause 7, proposed new section 53A(7)(b) and that is:
- the victim’s conduct, or conduct and condition, substantially mitigate the conduct of the offender.
Now good, sounds good, but does it have holes in it? Can it be used by a pretty good lawyer depending on how much you want to pay for him? I would be interested to know what the evidence was from the other side, from the QC, as to why the two lawyers on this side were wrong. That is basically what it boils down to.
The other area I would be interested to know is, who makes the judgment – I know who makes the judgment: the DPP makes the judgment on who will be in a 20 year and a 25 year. I know there has been much said about the prisoners and we should not have too much sympathy for prisoners, but the member for Araluen said you still have to take into account what they have been told. I gather, and I am reading from a letter here from the Northern Territory Legal Aid Commission, that:
- On 26 November 1991, the Northern Territory Cabinet decided to adopt a policy that prisoners subject to a life sentence in the Northern Territory would not be considered for release until they had completed at least 20 years of their sentence. Prior to that, the relevant period has been 10 years.
I believe what would happen is that prisoners who went to gaol with a 10 year non-parole period, subject to a decision in parliament, were told that it would now be 20 years, so they got double. All of a sudden, prisoners actually received this little note from the Department of Correctional Services, and it just said straight to them:
- The Parole Board to review and make recommendation of life sentences sentence prisoners cases after a period of 20 years has been served and thereafter, life sentencing prisoners cases be subject to a three yearly review.
End of story. So, somebody who had a 10 year non-parole period at the flick of the switch got a 20-year non-parole period and now some of those people might get a 25-year non-parole period. What would a prisoner think of that? I have to talk from a prisoner’s point of view because you cannot avoid looking at prisoners’ issues regardless of whether you think the crime was terrible. Of course the crime was terrible, otherwise they would not be in gaol. But there are a range of other issues that must be taken into account.
One, by putting a non-parole period of 20 years, 10 years or 25 years, there is some expectation from the prisoner that he may get out of gaol one day. If you take that expectation away from a prisoner, he will not only be institutionalised, he will make a lot of trouble in gaol. If he knows that there is no point in him being a good boy, he will make life hard for prison officers and the prison in general. Surely, we must take that into account to some extent.
We are saying to the DPP that he will make a decision on these people’s new sentence. Surely, in the initial case when the initial state of when this bill comes into play, that would have been a fairer system for a judge because a judge gave a decision in the first place. We are now changing that decision. Surely, it would have been better for a judge to look at all the circumstances of the crime, of how the prisoner has been in gaol for that period of time, taking into account a whole series of matters and then classify whether the prisoner is a 20 year or 25 year, based on not necessarily all the information you have here, but on the history of the case. This is so black and white. Bang! This is all we look at here. Yep, that is it; you are 25. I understand why a 25-year period has been put in there, but I am talking from the point of view that there are possibly some prisoners who may find that this is their third change of sentence.
Regardless how tough we all want to be, we have to deal with realities of prison. Is this a good move, not only from the prisoner’s point of view, but from the community’s point of view? We all expect if a prisoner is to be released, he will go back out into the community and not only will he not be able to offend again, but will be rehabilitated into society. If you leave a person in gaol for a over-long period, they will not be rehabilitated. They will not be able to come back into society as a normal person. I have to ask: minister, is there in this bill, something sitting out there that says, ‘We know a prisoner who is possibly going to have his non-parole period looked at’ at say one year? - I might be using the wrong part of the bill - but say we know his non-parole period can be examined at 20 years, will there be a system within the prison system to say, ‘We expect him to get out at 20 years; we are now going to start to get that person used to being out of prison’? Do we have any programs that five years from the 20 years before he possibly has a chance to be released that will make sure he is ready to go out of gaol? If he has been in there 15 years, he is fairly institutionalised. Do we have a series of programs set up to bring him back into the community?
With the 25-year person, well, he is going to go further down the track of being institutionalised. Have we some system that will start to allow these people to go out into society, so they do not come out with an enormous chip on their shoulder? Of course they have been punished, but we do not want them going back into society with a great chip on their shoulder and they could not care if they were ever going back again; they just might.
I am a little bit concerned because I do not know how the system works. A bloke who has had 20 years, and is waiting on that 20th year for the Parole Board to look at his case, and he has spent a term, maybe one or two years, where they have been getting him ready to get out of gaol, he has this expectation that he might get a chance to get out of gaol. The Parole Board, on an 8th unanimous count, says, ‘No’. What happens to the prisoner? Is there a system to help the prisoner? Or is the prisoner just going to say: ‘Well, I have no chance of getting out, so I will knock the doors down in the prison, I will bash every prison officer up. I could not care less now. I am going to be here for the rest of my life’.
I would like a bit of an understanding of how the system actually works, not just from the legal point of view, but the people who are actually going to be subject to these changes. Maybe there is an easy answer. Those concerns are real concerns. I visited the Alice Springs Gaol about a year ago, thanks to the Attorney-General, and just talking in general to some prison officers, they said there are some people in gaol who should have been out long ago, they would never offend. They did one thing silly in their life, all right it was murder, but they said, they have done their time, they would never hurt anyone else again.
Mr Henderson: Something silly, they have murdered someone.
Mr WOOD: All right, murder is murder, for sure. But what they were saying is if you have …
Mr Kiely: You have had a Hanson experience, haven’t you?
Mr WOOD: No, I have never had a Hanson experience.
Mr Henderson: Murder is not silly, it is bloody wicked.
Mr WOOD: Well, you tell the prison officers that. That is what they told me. That is why I visited the prison, to hear what people had to say. I tried to get some feeling about what happens in gaol. And that is one of the problems. The member for Wanguri highlights the fact that this is very political, yet we deal with people – why do you not make note of what I just said?
Mr Henderson: I have friends who are prison officers.
Mr WOOD: That is right. Oh, very good.
Mr Henderson: Some of my best friends are prison officers.
Mr WOOD: Yes, but it highlights that, when you try to have a good debate about this subject, politics takes over a fair bit, because one side has to be tougher than the other side. That is a bit sad, because …
Mr Kiely: And you are not playing it?
Mr WOOD: No, I am not!
Mr Kiely interjecting.
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Sanderson!
Mr WOOD: No, you can stand up and go, ‘oi, oi, oi’. It is an important issue, and it is a serious issue. I have seen the press release come out today, and I will tell you now, sorry, Opposition Leader, it is certainly political, that is the business he is in. I have seen the other side when they were in opposition, and you get these political headlines. I just think that it sometimes blurs and makes it difficult for a deep and meaningful discussion on this issue. All I am trying to do today is raise some issues. You do not have to accept them. You might say, ‘What a load of rot!’ They are issues I have looked at from people talking to me, whether it was prison officers or other people, and I said I would raise them. I have raised them today. If the Attorney-General has some answers for those, I am quite happy to listen to them.
However, I will say that I have some serious doubts about the exceptional circumstances section. I would have preferred a much broader review, that more of the public was involved in it, it was a more publicised review. On those grounds I would, at the moment, not vote on this particular matter.
Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I thank the members, as always, for their contribution to the debate. The first thing I want to say about this is that, in tackling this issue, the government, despite some of the cynical comments we have heard from some members in this debate, did actually look at this as a social issue, and a very important social issue. The legislation you have before you today is not a political document. It is a document of social policy attempting to find the best possible solution for our community on this very fundamental issue.
The crime of murder is an absolute tragedy. It visits victimisation on a number of groups, and the member for Goyder has referred to some of them in terms of the people who do turn up at court rooms to try to resolve these matters to the degree you could ever resolve a matter where a life has been lost. You have the victim, and it is very obvious what they have lost - they have lost the rest of their life. The victim’s family have been denied a family member for the rest of their life. The offender’s family and friends have to live, not only with the knowledge that the offender has committed this terrible offence, and that the community views that with such distaste, but also reflects that often on the family and immediate friends of the offenders. Then, probably even more fundamentally, we have the community standing behind these offences.
What we are talking about here is the value of a human life in a community. It is as fundamental as that. In tackling this legislation, we are very aware of our responsibilities on behalf of the Northern Territory community, to put a value on a life and to put a just process in place, that the people who have been victimised by these actions - they cannot bring back the person who has been lost - but they can at least see that their community provides some just response to the commission of that crime.
Having said that and, certainly, the spirit in which we tackled it, I am dismayed by the cynicism that has appeared in places within the debate today. Yes, it is very tempting to rush out into the community and say, ‘Oh yes, Labor is soft on crime’, or ‘Labor is too hard on crime’, or to make some sort of opportunist position on it, depending on who you are talking to in the community. That point was made very clearly by the Deputy Chief Minister.
I would like, in a more dispassionate way, to say what has gone into this package and what it is starting point was, so that it is a bit clearer as to what the provisions are trying to do. When we took up this reform, we took up a situation that we had inherited from the previous government. The best summary, I guess, of the previous government position, was Cabinet Decision No 7115 of 1991, where the Cabinet approved the following principles to apply to the process of considering the release of sentenced prisoners, as regards the crime of murder.
(a) the Parole Board members to review and make recommendations on life sentenced prisoner’s cases
after a period of 20 years has been served and, thereafter, life sentence prisoner’s cases be subject
to a three-yearly review;
(b) Cabinet consider all recommendations to the Administrator to exercise powers under the Criminal Law
(Conditional Release of Offenders) Act, in relation to the conditional release of life sentenced prisoners; and
(c) prisoners retain the right to petition the Administrator to exercise the royal prerogative of mercy, or for
release under the Criminal Law (Conditional Release of Offenders) Act.
In essence, what that is saying is that the CLP’s intention was to have the Parole Board assess prisoners after 20 years, put up a recommendation; if that recommendation is to release, it then went to Cabinet, and the Cabinet then had the ultimate right to approve or not approve that release. The only other mechanism was the prerogative of mercy. Prerogative of mercy is a mechanism that should properly be used only where there has been some clear evidence that there has been a miscarriage of justice and that someone had been wrongly convicted of the crime. Clearly, in this case, it should not be used as a standard method of determining the release of a person convicted of murder in our system.
You can argue whether that is the best possible approach or not to the question of parole for convicted murderers in our system. What went wrong is that the mechanism to provide for the Parole Board to assess the current inmates in our gaols was never put in place. The Parole Board was not empowered, at the time we came to government, to consider a parole release for any prisoner who did not already have a non-parole period set by a court. The Parole Board simply could not act to put that policy into place. In effect, what we found when we came to government were thirty prisoners who were in gaol who had no prospect of release. There was no mechanism for them to be released other than a prerogative of mercy application via Cabinet to the Administrator. We had a situation where it was, in effect, a purely political mechanism that would determine whether a prisoner got out or not.
For the member for Araluen to come in and say: ‘Oh well, we have things under control, no one was ever going to get out, and we never had any intention of letting them out’. Cabinet Decision 7115 made it very clear what the CLP intentions were under that. Further to that, in a letter to Tommy Neal, the prisoner who is the longest serving prisoner currently in our gaols for this particular offence – or to Tommy Neal’s lawyer to be exact – Mick Palmer, Minister for Correctional Services, on 16 June 1999 wrote:
- Under the current government policy, you are to be considered by the Parole Board after having served 20 years. You were taken into custody on 18 October 1980 and would therefore be considered by the Parole Board at its October 2000 meeting.
As I have already indicated, the Parole Board could not do that. It was simply not within their constituted powers to look at Tommy Neal because there was no non-parole period set by the court that could be acted on by the Parole Board.
We also heard Denis Burke, on 20 December 2000, state that the Northern Territory now has a policy that persons who are sentenced to life imprisonment shall not be considered for release until they have served 20 years of that sentence. Again, there is absolutely no question that the CLP had the intention of making 20 years the non-parole period and that presumably, any convicted murderer could then apply for a parole hearing for potential release under parole.
There has been a bit of confusion in this debate about what the head sentence is under these new provisions. Let me make it very clear: this is a mandatory life sentence for murder. This means that anyone convicted by a jury of the crime of murder will immediately get a mandatory life sentence. What that means is that either in prison or under a supervised parole arrangement, that person will remain under supervision for the rest of their life. There will be no point at which the sentence ceases until that person dies. That is what a mandatory life sentence means. It means that in one situation or another, the person is answerable to the authorities for the rest of their life. If the parole arrangements that we have put in place in the legislation before you today, are put in place, the person could be released, depending on the nature of their crime, at 20 years, 25 years or later in their life, or may be never released. Once released, the person is released into a parole arrangement and if they breach that arrangement, they are back in prison. That is the way the mandatory life sentence works. They are never free to walk the streets in the community like you and I or any other member of the community who is blame free and not convicted of a crime under our Criminal Code. That is to clarify exactly what these provisions mean.
The non-parole periods that we have included in this legislation – the minimum non-parole periods of 20 years, and 25 years in the case of aggravated murders - have responded to what people in the community would say, and I have certainly seen responses to man-in-the-street type interviews that indicate exactly the sort of attitude in the community, and that is that most people accept that not all murders are the same; some are worse than others. If you tried to define the factors that make a murder more heinous, atrocious or horrendous than a standard garden-variety murder, you may come down to many of the factors that we have put into the aggravated area. The murder of a whole family; the celebrated offence of Crabbe where he drove a truck through a motel and killed several people; the murder of a child; a murder associated with a sexual assault on a person. These, by commonsense, would be seen as being a more atrocious form of the crime than a murder where two people lose control of themselves, maybe full of grog, and in the heat of the moment one kills the other.
The purpose of having the aggravated forms of the offence is to respond to that commonsense position that people often do express, and that is that some murders are worse than others. Most people also understand that there are psychopathic people who will always be a danger to society; they actually enjoy killing. In fact, because of their mental state or their extreme attitude to their community and to their fellow human beings, they will always constitute a danger to the community to which they belonged. In those cases, we obviously believe that a court should have the capacity to keep the person out of the community and protect the community for the remaining part of that person’s life in that extreme situation.
Looking at the CLP’s position to the extent that it is in recorded in their Cabinet decisions and the letters that refer to that policy, there was no capacity for this. We felt it was completely inadequate to have a 20-year non-parole period for all murderers, regardless of the nature of their crime, their character, or any assessment that they may constitute an ongoing danger to their community. Hence, the variety of things that have gone into the structure of these parole arrangements.
Much has been made of exceptional circumstances, and I can see it right now: ‘Cynical politics time. Let’s go out there. What can we go out and say about the ALP’s reform that might suck in a few of the punters and get them to hate Labor because they have done something terrible about this. We can see where it is going. Here we go. We are going to get out there and say there is a back door to this like exceptional circumstances. Lawyers picnic! We will have murderers marching out of the court room in a conga line’. That totally dishonours the amount of work and the quality of advice on which we have based this policy.
We spent a lot of time on this, as the member for Wanguri indicated. We have crafted this provision to ensure that it will not only apply to the most limited of circumstances. We have been very clear on the types of cases we have had in mind: battered wife situations, cases of mercy killings, and occasionally, where an attempt at self-defence has gone way beyond the level of reasonable response. In constructing this provision, we have received a great deal of help and input from both our Director of Public Prosecutions, Rex Wild, and from criminal defence barrister, Mr David Grace QC, as indicated earlier by the member for Wanguri.
Under the provision that has been developed, the court will be able to exercise discretion where it is satisfied that exceptional circumstances exist that are sufficient to justify a shorter non-parole period. The advice we received from David Grace QC concluded that the exception that we have included in the act, is a very limited one, particularly with the two hurdles in that provision that are taken together. The first hurdle is that an offender is otherwise a person of good character. A person who has had a long, violent history will not pass that test. The person who has been convicted of serious criminal activity on a regular basis will not pass that test. A person, where it can be shown in the community, who has a history of unreasonable responses to social situations they have been in, will not pass that test. They have to prove that they are unlikely to reoffend. In the guidelines there are a whole raft of criteria that are in current section 5(2) of the Sentencing Act that make it very clear what a court must look for when they make a decision about whether someone might reoffend or not.
The second hurdle is this very elegant provision that the victim’s conduct, or conduct and condition, substantially mitigate the conduct of the offender. There are two very important provisions within clause 7, proposed new section 53A(7) of the bill. The first is that these are the matters - and only these matters - that the court can consider when deciding whether an exceptional circumstance exists. That is very important. You talk about defence lawyers wandering in there and having a great old time. These are the only provisions that the court can take into account when they are looking at whether an exceptional circumstance exits.
David Grace has concluded, in his advice, that the exception was sufficiently narrow to be very rarely brought into play in murder cases within the Northern Territory. His points were, that there is an inbuilt limitation provided by the stipulation in proposed section 53A(2) of the Sentencing Act of a starting point of a 20-year non-parole period set for an offence in the middle of the range of objective seriousness. It follows that any offence for which a non-parole period of less that 20 years is set could not be more serious than an offence in the middle of the range, and will therefore invariably be one in the lower of the range of objective seriousness. So there has to be circumstance or characteristics of the crime, which is still a crime. These people are mandatory life-sentenced convicted murderers by the time the sentencing step begins.
The second point is that the court must be satisfied that there are exceptional circumstances that justify fixing a shorter non-parole period. Proposed section 53A(7) of the Sentencing Act, directs that the court must be satisfied of the matters spelled out in that subsection, and must not have regard to any other matters. In other words, the factors that can determine exceptional circumstance are only the ones provided for in that provision. No other matters can be considered.
Additionally, the matters that can be considered are on two levels. One relates to the offender and the second relates to the offence. The court must be satisfied as to both sets of requirements. The first requirements set by proposed new section 53A(7)(a) is that the offender must be a person otherwise of good character and unlikely to reoffend. The second requirement set by the proposed new section 53A(7)(b) is that the court must be satisfied that the victim’s conduct, or conduct and condition, substantially mitigate the conduct of the offender. The words ‘substantially mitigate’ are significant. It is not enough that a court must think that the victim’s conduct somehow influenced the crime, but that the conduct substantially mitigated the conduct of the offender. That is, it substantially lessens the degree of culpability of the offender.
The additional requirement that the court may consider the conduct and condition of the victim as substantial mitigation are used in application to a situation of mercy killing. They emphasise that it is not enough that the victim had a condition that might have caused the offender to take actions that brought about the victim’s death. But there must be some positive aspect of conduct on the part of the victim, for example, a request to be assisted to end their life, before the court may consider whether there is a substantial mitigation.
Taking all these factors together, both the advice of David Grace and of our Director of Public Prosecutions is that this would be a very narrowly applied set of criteria, and it would very rarely occur in murder cases in the Northern Territory. Further evidence of that is out of the over 30 current convicted murderers in our prisons, not one - not one case - would attract the exceptional circumstances criteria that are set out in this bill.
Looking at the non-parole periods, I remind members that eligibility of parole is no guarantee of release. It is merely the earliest time at which the offender may be considered for release by the Parole Board. The Parole Board must determine the suitability of a prisoner for release, and it looks at a range of factors such as the behaviour of the offender in prison, including treatment and rehabilitation programs which have been completed, the circumstances of the crime involved, and the critical element of community safety.
The Parole Board does not automatically grant parole to those who are eligible. During 2002, 205 prisoners were considered for parole. Of these, 103 or 50.24% were granted parole; 40 prisoners or 19.51% were refused parole; 34 matters or 16.59% were deferred; and 28 grants of parole or 13.66% were declined by the prisoner. Parole simply means that a prisoner has the right to request an appearance before the Parole Board. The Parole Board may or may not be persuaded to grant a parole to that particular prisoner.
There have been comments made in this debate today that the provision that the Parole Board must make a unanimous decision in the case of these prisoners will basically mean that no prisoners will ever be let out. My advice from the current Parole Board members is that they make their decisions by consensus right now. On the figures that I have just related to members, it would seem that they have no difficulty, in many of the cases that they are looking at, in reaching such a consensus position and agreeing to release the prisoner on the evidence before them.
The member for Nelson painted a picture, I guess, of a recalcitrant Parole Board member who is hell-bent on not letting any prisoner out of gaol ever because they happen to hate murderers. I point out that the Parole Board is chaired by one of our Supreme Court judges; in fact, the Chief Justice is the nominated Parole Board chair. He can, in turn, delegate that responsibility to one of the other justices but, one way or another, a Supreme Court judge will be sitting as the chair of the Parole Board when these decisions are made. I have great confidence, not only in the leadership of the chairperson of this new Parole Board once it is formed, to make reasoned and informed decisions regarding the decision to release or not to release applicants before them, but also will be very careful to appoint people to that Parole Board who are reasonable and thinking people - not people who are hell-bent on an emotive mission.
To the degree that the Parole Board has already demonstrated that it can make consensus decisions, I have no doubt that, if the evidence is strong enough that the prisoner has shown remorse, and success in their rehabilitation programs, and clearly not going to constitute a further danger to the community, that you will see releases under these new arrangements.
To work back, Tommy Neal will be the first prisoner, in length of time in prison, who would potentially come before a Parole Board. The circumstances that we inherited, where there was no possibility of the release of prisoners, means that we have actually had to build up a whole arrangement and a process within the prisons to prepare prisoners for potential release, as they come up towards the end of their parole period.
To deal with the transition arrangements - as you see, I only have a few more minutes. There has been quite a lot made of this by the group that are providing support for the lifers, the friends and families of the convicted prisoners themselves, about the perhaps inhuman or unjust arrangements of having these reviews done. Let us see what is going to happen with the 30 current inmates under these transition arrangements. The vast majority will go straight on to a known term of non-parole, because of the circumstances of their case; probably in the mid-20s, out of the 30, or low to mid-20s, will go into a 20-year or 25-year sentence. The people on 25 years are very obvious - the ones who have killed more than one person. There are probably a handful of cases that the Director of Public Prosecutions might feel inclined to take back for a review of their case.
We are not talking about uncertainty existing through the whole of the ranks of the people who are in prison currently for this offence. We are talking about the vast majority in fact being on a much more certain arrangement. At the moment this legislation commences, they will be on a much more certain arrangement and can therefore be treated in a more constructive way by our Correctional Services for the in-prison programs and preparations that they might want to undergo to give themselves a chance to have a successful outcome to a Parole Board hearing. Certainly, what the prison officers and prison management have said to me is that there has been an immediate impact on the behaviour and the attitude of these inmates when they were appraised of the reform package that was being brought to parliament. It has improved their attitude simply because they are not placed in the indeterminate, dysfunctional situation that we inherited from the previous government.
Whilst we can say that there are a handful of prisoners who will be facing the courts again, would potentially get more than 25 years in terms of a non-parole period, or may have been refused a non-parole period altogether if the court decides their level of culpability and the heinousness of their crime actually makes that the most appropriate thing to do, the vast majority of prisoners will be on a known non-parole period with certainty and with the hope that if they work diligently on their preparation for release, they can go before the Parole Board with the arguments they may need to have a positive outcome on it.
Madam Speaker, I will conclude my remarks with that. I really would say to members, treat this as social policy. It is not about politics, it is about a very fundamental situation within our community.
Motion agreed to; the bill read a second time.
In committee:
Mr CHAIRMAN: Do we want to take the bill as a whole, or do you have specific clauses? Member for Araluen, do you have a specific clause you want to start on?
Ms CARNEY: Yes, perhaps we can go in blocks of 1 to 5, something like that. It is not a terribly long bill.
Clauses 1 to 4, by leave, taken together and agreed to.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Which clause do you want to deal with under part 3, member for Araluen?
Ms CARNEY: Clause 6 and clause 7. The member for Goyder may have some others.
Mr CHAIRMAN: I will deal with clause 5 then.
Clause 5 agreed to.
Clause 6:
Mr MALEY: Minister, in clause 6 you have amended section 53 of the Sentencing Act by omitting subsection (3). So section 53(3) has been omitted, which used to read:
- (3) this section does not apply to or in relation to the sentencing of an offender for the crime of murder.
By deleting subsection (3), are you now saying that section 53 applies to dealing with people for sentence for the offence of murder?
Dr TOYNE: We are introducing section 53A, which sets out all of the provisions for parole arrangements and that is linked through to subsection (1) by introducing section 53A into the list of sections that are appropriate.
May I further explain, just before you go on, the old subsection (3) said that these do not apply to murder simply because there was no intention to have a non-parole period. These are all dealing with non-parole periods.
Mr MALEY: So the amendments to section 53 changing that first line and deleting subsection (3), if you read the principal act, section 54 says that you can only cut the sentence by 50% when setting a parole period. You seem to be saying that the head sentence is a term of life. How do you cut that by 50%? I do not understand mechanically how section 54 fits in with your new provisions.
Dr TOYNE: Section 54 will not have any application to this because section 53A covers all the murder offences, so it does not apply.
Mr MALEY: So you saying that section 53A is the very specific provision and section 54 is a general provision that does not apply.
Dr TOYNE: Yes. This is the Sentencing Act. It guides sentencing for all offences.
Mr MALEY: I accept that. I thought that was the case.
Clause 6 agreed to.
Clause 7:
Ms CARNEY: I refer specifically to proposed section 53A(7). What is meant by paragraph (b) namely ‘the victim’s conduct or conduct and condition’. Can you elaborate on that and let us know what sort of conduct and conduct and condition you, or perhaps David Grace, had in mind when that section was drafted?
Dr TOYNE: If we refer back to the history of how we formed this provision, right from the start when I publicly announced the package that we were bringing forward to deal with these issues, we indicated that we felt that there are a group of offences that were still murder – there was still a deliberate killing of a person, where we felt – again, looking at what would be seen as reasonable by the general community – that there needed to be a capacity for the courts to allow some mitigation of the non-parole periods, not of the head sentence. The areas we were talking about, and announced in that package, were mercy killings, battered wife situations, and some occasionally where a self-defence situation simply gets beyond what is a reasonable response.
The purpose of this clause is that, if you take the exact wording of this, that the victim’s conduct, or conduct and condition, substantially mitigate the conduct of the offender, well, take those three situations. You are going to have, for instance, in a self-defence situation, the victim is actually the attacker, and the person who finally finds themselves convicted of murder has responded to an attack. There would have to be very strong evidence given to the court that the offender’s actions were initiated by being attacked by the victim, as distinct from other murders where the offender is the initial aggressor. That takes one of the three areas that we are talking about.
A mercy killing is taken up by the conduct and condition of the victim. The victim has to be seriously ill or impaired to the degree that they have begged another person to take their life, or to help them take their own life. It would have to be very convincing proof given to a court that that is what had initiated the homicide.
The third area, which is the battered wife situation, again, the victim is the erstwhile and repeated aggressor, the attacker of the person who finally commits the homicide or the crime of murder. Again, there would have to be a very strong body of evidence given to the court that there had been that history of repeated assaults and violence by the victim on the offender.
It is in that way that we are able to escape many of the definitional problems. We have some notes and I will get those. There are boundary problems. If you want to take we are going to have battered wife cases in these sort of exceptional circumstances, then you are left with definitional problems of what constitutes a battered wife situation. Is it how many assaults, and what degree of assault. There are a lot of subjective factors there which, on our legal advice, it would be very difficult for a court to curtail the offence to the intended area.
I will read this out – it may be helpful. If the clause were to say, for example, that the court may set less than the standard non-parole period of 20 years for a case of battered spouses, or a case of mercy killing, many issues would immediately arise that would require determination by the court. For example, what does the term ‘battered spouse’ mean? Would the exception apply to a person who has been hit once or twice, or over a period of years? What is a mercy killing? Is it a decision made unilaterally by a person to end another person’s life without their request? Does the person have to be ill, or can it be for other reasons? How do you identify a category of person who has killed another because of sexual molestation of a third party? Who must the third party be? Is it going to be the child of the offender, a wife, a brother or sister?
When we looked at those difficulties with containing the boundaries of these intended cases, the overwhelming advice that we received from David Grace and from our own prosecutor was that this much more elegant phrase in here really gives the principle of what the court has to see argued effectively to it, rather than getting into these boundary issues where the definitional difficulties just simply open up a whole lot of scope for defence lawyers.
Mr MALEY: Attorney-General, because this is probably one of the few pieces of Hansard which will be scrutinised, I suspect, at one stage in court, just for the sake of clarity - though the answer may be fairly obvious - you have in proposed section 53A(7) ‘… the sentencing court must be satisfied …’. My question is: what level are we talking about? Is it a sliding scale? Is it the balance of probabilities? Is it the absolute discretion of the court, or is it beyond reasonable doubt? What sort of evidential onus would a defendant be required to demonstrate to show that he is someone that comes in the scope of subclauses (a) and (b)?
Dr TOYNE: The test would be on the balance of probability.
Mr MALEY: There are two limbs and the legislation is clear that the court must have regard to them, but does the person have to prove on the balance of probabilities that all of the criteria in subclauses (a) and (b) are made out, or are they two disjunctive limbs? Do they just prove to the court that the victim’s conduct, or conduct and condition, substantially mitigate the conduct of the offender, or do they have to go the extra step and also demonstrate that subclauses (a)(i) and (a)(ii) are satisfied? That is, the fact that a person is otherwise of good character and, secondly, is unlikely to reoffend?
Dr TOYNE: You would not proceed to the test of subclause (b) test unless the first hurdle had been jumped successfully.
Ms CARNEY: Can I take you back to the victim’s conduct, or conduct and condition, and confirm that, firstly, you will be providing me with me explanatory notes. Did I understand you correctly before that you were going to give me some notes at some point about this particular provision?
Dr TOYNE: Can you just speak up. I am getting old and my ears are not working as well ….
Ms CARNEY: I think we are both deaf, which does not help. I thought you said that you were going to get some notes to me, as I understood, in relation to the victim’s conduct, or conduct and condition. Did I …
Dr TOYNE: You did mishear me. I asked for some notes and then I read them out. They are on Hansard.
Ms CARNEY: So they are your notes …
Dr TOYNE: Yes, I have already read them out to you.
Ms CARNEY: Thank you. Again, in relation to victim’s conduct, or conduct and condition, I assume that the court can have regard to that first part; that is ‘the victim’s conduct’. There is also an alternative as evidenced by the word ‘or’. So it is ‘the victim’s conduct or conduct and condition’. Why are the words ‘conduct and condition’ put in there together? What was the significance of that?
Dr TOYNE: The first part applies to the over-the-top defence, or the battered wife situations, we are looking for. Conduct and condition applies to the mercy killing form of offence that we have been trying to define in this section. In other words, there has to be something beyond just simply the conduct of the victim. The victim has to have a condition which would justify a feeling of mercy by the offender. We were looking towards that terminal or life threatening conditions - it could be extreme depression - but whatever it is, there has to be a recognisable condition in addition to the act of the victim in calling for the action by the offender.
Ms CARNEY: It seems queer to me that this provision, and we know which one we are talking about, was included specifically, as you said before, mercy killing and battered wife in terms of the court’s consideration of victim’s conduct or conduct and condition. They are the examples that you have used, repeatedly. I have a few questions on this, but are there any other examples that would, before a judge, where a court would need to consider the victim’s conduct or conduct and condition, apart from battered wife and/or mercy killing? Can you give us another example?
Dr TOYNE: The only cases that we can conceive of, and I said earlier we actually went back and audited the existing cases, at least on the simplified form and not against the full body of evidence that went before the court, but certainly in broader terms, audited the types of cases where these types of criteria could have been satisfied, and we found none in the existing cases. The three areas, the other area beyond battered wife and mercy killing, was the excessive response in terms of self-defence. They are the three areas that we are trying to capture in that provision.
Ms CARNEY: In terms of the condition, you gave something of a definition of it when you answered earlier. It was ‘a condition which would justify a feeling of mercy by the offender’. The word ‘condition’ is not defined anywhere in the bill. Why is that?
Dr TOYNE: There is a strong linkage in the way that this is phrased, between the words ‘conduct and condition’ and the words ‘substantially mitigate’. On both the advice I have just received and certainly the advice we received from David Grace, is that you have to prove that the condition the person had substantially influenced what occurred. So, someone could have an ear missing, or have a common cold, or a sore foot or something, but that would be irrelevant to the determination by the court that this exceptional circumstance exists. It has to be a condition that had the effect on the offender to substantially motivate their behaviour. It would have to be something that was integral to the decision by the victim to call on the action, or the decision by the offender to take the action, that they took.
Ms CARNEY: Thank you for that, but of course a ‘condition’ can also include - there are various medical conditions - and I note that the act does not say ‘a medical condition’. Another branch of that is a psychiatric ‘condition’. There are emotional ‘conditions’. We have no definition at all. All we have is a second reading speech. All we have are some answers from you giving us a bit more information on the word ‘condition’.
A member: Not good enough?
Ms CARNEY: No, I do not think it is good enough. This is, with respect, taking us into some potentially very murky areas. What if someone with - you can get advice and I will come back to you.
Dr TOYNE: I remind the member that we are dealing here with a convicted murderer, someone who has been found guilty of murder in a court, and we are moving beyond the conviction and into the sentencing. It is at that point that these provisions then come into play. The court, having found that a murder has been committed by the offender, is now asked to see if an exceptional circumstance exists.
They will go through the first hurdle, which is good character and unlikely to reoffend, and if there is still a live process there, they will then move to this provision. Now, the provision is very strongly linked to the fact that they are trying to explain the behaviour of the offender to see whether there is any mitigation available due to some condition and conduct of the victim. It is a very tight test after several hurdles have already been negotiated. We are not talking here about someone escaping a conviction for murder. We are talking about the type of sentencing outcomes that might follow that conviction and, therefore, the conduct and condition tests have to be applied to explaining the offender’s actions in killing another person.
Ms CARNEY: Thank you for that, but there just was not an answer to my question. I know the stage that this clause kicks in. What I am saying to you is that there is an absence of definition in relation to the word ‘condition’, particularly when read in the sentence ‘or conduct and condition’.
Could it be that the court would have regard, when sentencing the offender under this provision, to the fact that perhaps a victim may have had a psychiatric disorder and they conducted themselves in such a way that the offender was absolutely certain that they wanted them to kill them? I know that is an extreme example, but it is an example that can make the point. That is a condition, but not, apparently, from what you have said so far a condition that has been anticipated by you because you referred to mercy killings where, certainly as portrayed by media, old ladies are very thin and dying at home and they want their husbands to help them out. Quite different.
Dr TOYNE: What we are saying here is that we have a sentencing principle on the advice that we have sought from our own public prosecutor and from David Grace who earns an awful lot of money looking for loopholes in law and trying to get offenders off as lightly as possible in a court hearing. Just as it was felt that we could not actually go to the actual types of crimes, the popular name for the types of crimes we are talking about, and defend the boundaries successfully in the actual hearings, you simply cannot, in legislation, list and define any condition that might impact on the judgment of the court.
Ms CARNEY: You could include it in the definition section.
Dr TOYNE: Courts are there to apply this principle to a convicted person to reach a conclusion on the degree to which it explained and then mitigated the action of the offender in taking that life. That will vary between every case a court may consider in this category of offences. We simply cannot spell it out in legislation. You have to provide the courts with a principle, as one of the criteria that are coming up, on the best advice that has been available to us. We have been assured that that principle would have very narrow application in the reality of the cases that courts deal with. Unless you can convince me that your assessment of this is more expert than David Grace QC and our public prosecutor, I am going with their advice.
Dr BURNS: Attorney-General, in the example just given by the member for Araluen of someone with a psychiatric condition, and their conduct, they may well have a psychiatric condition, but in this mitigation in sentencing, if they had proved a threat to the other person in some way, but that person had gone over the top with their self-defence, surely that is what we are talking about here, a self-defence in this particular instance that the member for Araluen has talked about. If the person has a psychiatric condition, the person in the dock has taken their life, it is not manslaughter if it is just self-defence. Obviously they have gone that one step further to be found guilty of murder, and that is what the court would be looking at. Am I mistaken or not?
Dr TOYNE: I am not sure, member for Johnston. You are saying that the actual …
Dr BURNS: In the case given by the member for Araluen about conduct and condition.
Dr TOYNE: We are talking about a victim with a psychiatric condition.
Dr BURNS: That is right.
Dr TOYNE: The victim with the psychiatric condition may well take some action that has brought on the reaction from the offender, yes.
Ms CARNEY: Minister, you will be relieved to know that I am not going to keep asking questions on this particular provision. However, I will simply place on the record that, notwithstanding the very learned advice that you have received, I, for my part, through my eyes, and based on my experiences, anticipate some difficulties with that. It will not be earth shattering. They will be difficulties nevertheless, and it is appropriate that I raise them.
The final question I have in relation to this particular point is, has there been a clause like this in any other jurisdiction that you can refer to and, if so, are those clauses similar to this. I can see one of your advisors shaking her head, that has saved you the trouble.
Dr TOYNE: I can report that several of the other jurisdictions are very interested in it and they may well adopt it.
Mr MALEY: From a practical perspective, clause 7, proposed new section 53A(7) states quite clearly that the ‘court must be satisfied of the following matters and must not have regard to any other matters’. We have already touched upon what those two limbs are. From a sentencing perspective, for this is part of the sentencing process, are you saying that the normal provisions in section 106B of the Sentencing Act, that is the victim impact statements from the deceased family, are you saying that the courts are specifically not to have regard to anything the family thinks or feels about the conduct of this particular person when exercising this fairly serious sentencing discretion to reduce, potentially, a non-parole period from 20 years down to whatever? Are you saying that you have excluded specifically any regard the court could have to the victim’s family?
Dr TOYNE: I am advised that clause 7, proposed new section 53A(6) in this bill and, in fact, the general court procedure, will certainly consider victim impact statements as part of the assessment of the seriousness of the crime. The narrower task of the court of the deciding whether an acceptable circumstance overlays the general evidence as to the crime depends on these criteria and it is limited to those criteria. There is a broader court process where, certainly, victim impact statements would be brought in.
Ms CARNEY: Minister, can you outline in clause 7, proposed new section 53A(7)(a)(i), what sort of material do you think might be appropriate to put before a court to show that the person is otherwise of good character?
Dr TOYNE: I am partly advised, and I knew some of it, there is a High Court decision that actually defines what a person of ‘good character’ is, or can be defined as. The Sentencing Act currently contains a whole series of criteria that can come into both of those issues. Certainly, on the ‘unlikely to reoffend’ you will see in proposed new section 53A(8), it refers to section 5(2) of the current Sentencing Act: maximum/minimum penalty prescribed for the offence; nature of the offence; how serious the offence was, including any physical, psychological, emotional harm done to the victim; if the offence is a sexual offence; whether the victim has contracted - we will not go into that, it is probably not relevant to this - the extent to which the offender is to blame for the offence; and damage, injury, loss by the offender; the offender’s character, age, intellectual capacity; presence of any aggravated or mitigated factor concerning the offender; prevalence of the offence; and so on, it goes up to subsection (s) …
Ms Carney: Sorry, where are you quoting this from?
Dr TOYNE: That is in the Sentencing Act currently. That is referred to in proposed section 53A(8)(c), which says, ‘any other matters referred to in section 5(2) that are relevant’. There is a fair bit of guidance in terms of a court dealing with part (a).
Ms CARNEY: In your view, does that also cover any expressions of remorse by the offender? Is that provided for in the Sentencing Act?
Dr TOYNE: That again comes into the ‘unlikely to reoffend’ test. You will see that in section 53A(8)(b) which is ‘any expressions of remorse by the offender’.
Mr MALEY: Minister, under Schedule 2 of the Sentencing Act, under the heading ‘Violent Offences’ there is a list of offences and aggravating circumstances which, if the person is convicted of, you are required to receive an actual term of imprisonment. Is there any reason why section 164 has not been included in that schedule; that is, the offence of murder? Is it fair to say then that, although highly unlikely, but literally speaking, there is no requirement for a person convicted of murder to receive an actual term of imprisonment if this person can make out all those exceptional circumstances? It is highly unlikely because, of course, the court would view it very seriously, but there is no mandatory minimum to serve an actual term. Are you going to include it in Schedule 2? Is it an oversight?
Dr TOYNE: The section you are referring to is indicating which offences there should be some term of imprisonment included in what ever sentence is handed out. I do not think there is any doubt about the intent of this bill before us in that both in purposes, subclause (3) to confirm the crime of murder is punishable by a mandatory penalty of life imprisonment and secondly, in subclause (4) any person who commits a crime of murder is liable to imprisonment for life, which penalty is mandatory.
Even if you take it in conjunction with new section 53A where there are non-parole periods, it is quite clear there is going to be a period of imprisonment. It would be redundant, really, to have it in that schedule as well. It is a mandatory provision.
Mr MALEY: Superfluous. The example is probably best demonstrated if you look at the next schedule that is the Sexual Offences. The offence of rape is one which, like murder, you would expect a person to receive an actual term of imprisonment and parliament through this particular act decided to make sure that the courts are imposing actual terms of imprisonment for rape. Why have you not chosen to do the same or include an offence against section 164 in the schedule like you have done for serious sexual assault?
Dr TOYNE: This is a mandatory period of imprisonment. It is in the legislation right before you here and it would be totally redundant to also list it. This is a mandatory life head sentence. It is not a maximum.
Clause 7 agreed to.
Remainder of the bill, by leave, taken as a whole and agreed to.
Bill reported; report adopted.
Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Deputy Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a third time.
Motion agreed to; bill read a third time.
CRIMINAL CODE AMENDMENT BILL
(No 4)
(Serial 183)
(No 4)
(Serial 183)
Continued from 16 October 2003.
Ms CARNEY (Araluen): Madam Speaker, the amendments are supported. I am aware that this is a sensitive matter and it is certainly my intention to handle it sensitively at well.
One of the families involved in some difficulties that brought about the amendments, as I understand it, lives in my electorate. They came to see me with some of their concerns about this legislation that, I understand, were the cause of some amendments. I understand also that amendments were made for some other reasons, but essentially, was on the basis, I guess, of what the government would describe as some teething problems with the act that it introduced some time ago. I hope, Attorney-General, the initial difficulties are sorted out.
Something has occurred to me - which bill are we on? I know we are all tired and it has been a terribly long week - number 4 or 5 in the Notice Paper?
A member: Four.
Ms CARNEY: Four? Thank you. It has been a long week.
Dr Toyne: This deals with the ability of victims’ families to give evidence; the mental impairment and unfit to plead provisions.
Ms CARNEY: Yes, as I said, I hope that these amendments do iron out the initial difficulties. It may be that further amendments will need to be made in due course once this bill or this part of the bill is road-tested in the future. I know the extent of its road-testing has not been very broad so far. It may be the case that as we all become a bit more experienced with it, as it is used more often, that more amendments will need to be made.
Members will recall that the Criminal Code Amendment (Mental Impairment and Unfitness to be Tried) Act came in response to a bill introduced by me last year. I was, as I said several times publicly, philosophical when government introduced its bill to gazump me on mine, which is fair enough. However, it is important that I remind members of some concerns I had in relation to this government bill when it was introduced. I will quote from my comments in Hansard made on 23 May 2002:
- … there are parts of this legislation that, in my view, are simply … poorly drafted. In some parts, policy is mixed with the legislation, which I believe is contrary to good, sound legal drafting. More importantly, I have misgivings that arise from the possibility of confusion unnecessarily being caused when it is the job of legislators to do all that they can to avoid confusion and uncertainty.
I have raised these concerns in my most recent and detailed briefing, and while some of those concerns have to some extent been addressed, the answers provided nevertheless create a level of unease within me.
At the same time, however, in fairness, it did need to be road tested a little, and at least the government has finally come back and fixed it. I thank the Attorney-General and all of those involved in getting things better than how they were.
Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Speaker, I will take the negative offered to me and turn it into a positive in that this is a clear example that we are monitoring our legislation. We want to make sure that it operates in the way that is intended.
As to the comments made by the shadow minister, I can only say that we are only human. I certainly would not like to see Parliamentary Counsel and my policy unit slighted by the fact that when legislation is enacted and starts operating in our courts, inevitably there will be occasions when the intended meaning of a phrase or part of the legislation is found by a court not to be as we thought it would be. This was not a matter of incompetence or oversight; it was simply a matter of wording that was interpreted in two different ways by two different people. That will always happen and there will always be an element of refining legislation against the outcomes that occur in our courts.
It should give you some comfort that I am here today correcting a problem that we have identified. I would like to pay tribute to the Caldwell family, and I hope they do not mind me mentioning their name, but it was the Caldwell family who were involved in the court hearing where this problem came to light. It was simply an issue of the way in which the sitting judge interpreted the exact wording in the legislation. That will now be fixed, and both the Caldwells and any other victim’s family who want to have their say in a hearing regarding the deposition of this group of people within our justice system will now absolutely be guaranteed of a say in those hearings. I am very pleased with that and it is a good outcome for the time we are putting into this bill today.
I have little more to say other than to repeat that probably one of the most tragic areas of law that I have had to deal with since becoming Attorney-General is this situation. The perpetrators of these terrible events are themselves incapable of fully functioning to the point of being answerable to our law and to our courts. That makes it that much more difficult for the victims’ families to cope. There is not closure in the same way that a person can be convicted of murder and put away under punishment. These offenders are, in themselves, dysfunctional and ill, in many cases, and that is very difficult for the victims’ families to come to terms with. They know one thing for absolute certain and that is they have lost their loved one. To have victims’ families go to a court hearing, and find that they are denied a right to speak up about the impact of the court’s decision on their lives and their family, would be totally unacceptable. It was not intended in the legislation we brought to this House.
It will not happen now that these amendments have been brought here, and will be put in place into the legislation. This is what we have to do all the time with our legislation - constantly be aware as to getting the intended effect for the legislation.
Motion agreed to; bill read a second time.
Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General)(by leave): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a third time.
Motion agreed to; bill read a third time.
ARCHITECTS AMENDMENT BILL
(Serial 179)
(Serial 179)
Continued from 8 October 2003.
Mr MALEY (Goyder): Madam Speaker, I can indicate that the CLP, after having considered the bill, and I have spoken to some of the industry players, will be supporting the passage of this bill. I do not intend to be long on my feet. I will make a few general observations.
First of all, in a very general sense, the role of architects and engineers in our community is something which cannot be understated. The very skyline, the buildings we see every day on our way to work, are a credit to the creativity and hard work of this particular industry sector. The amendments to the Architects Act have their genesis back in 1995 when the Council of Australian Governments met and signed a number of agreements which established the National Competition Policy. As a result of that, there was a review of legislation in all territories and states across Australia. This particular amendment is the result of one of those reviews in this particular industry and the act which governed it.
The minister, to his credit, in the second reading speech which he delivered in this parliament on 8 October 2003, summarised the process fairly accurately. I do not want to regurgitate what he has already said, but just for the record, we also received some feedback that the Building Designers Association of the Northern Territory had some reservations about the amendments. However, it seems at least from a discussion paper perspective, the Australian Institute of Engineers in Shepherd Street, have certainly looked at the discussion paper. In a very general sense just by talking to them - not being face-to-face and going through the amending bill section by section - they have no problem with the bill and the amendments contained therein.
As the minister said in his second reading speech, the effect of the amending legislation is that it increases the number of people on the Architects Board from three to five, and it enables non-architects to be on this board to broaden the industry representation. It also amends, as the minister said, the restriction on the title ‘architect’ so that derivatives of the title that describe or recognise competency or qualification are permitted. It also, amongst other things, changes the fine system to penalty units, which is not unusual, of course.
As I indicated at the outset, this amendment meets the National Competition Policy obligations which the Territory and all other jurisdictions across Australia signed up to, and brings us into line with the rest of our interstate counterparts.
Madam Speaker, I indicate that the CLP will be supporting the passage of this important bill.
Mr VATSKALIS (Lands and Planning): Madam Speaker, I thank the member and the CLP for their support for the review of the Architects Act. In 1997, the Architects Act was identified as one that required National Competition Policy review. All state and territory jurisdictions, as I said in my second reading speech, have decided to reject the primary recommendation of a Productivity Commission review report concerning the regulation of architects across Australia.
This primary recommendation was to repeal the various architects acts across Australia over two years to enable the industry to adjust. A second recommendation to amend architectural legislation across Australia to remove anti-competitive elements, was also suggested by the Productivity Commission as the less preferred option. In response to the Productivity Commission’s report, the senior official group of the Council of Australia Governments, COAG, agreed to establish an intergovernmental working group. This working group concluded that the commission’s second recommendation should be supported.
The Architects Amendment Bill is in line with the Productivity Commission’s second recommendation and makes the following amendments to the Architects Act of the Northern Territory: it inserts an object clause to state the objectives of the act; it increases the number of members of the Architects Board from three to five, including two non-architects to enable consumer broader industry representation; it amends the restriction on the title ‘architect’ so that derivates of the title describe a recognised competency or qualification are permitted; it amends the rules regarding architectural companies and partnerships to simplify the way control of these companies is managed and architectural work supervised; it enables consumers to lodge complaints about architects with an appeal to the local court; amends section 14 to better describe the education and training requirements; and changes the fines currently in the act into penalty units.
There has been much debate lately about the architectural merits of new buildings that appear in our cities, and certainly, in Darwin. Sometimes they are totally inappropriate for a tropical environment, a tropical city like Darwin. I suppose you might have the same discussion in your city of Alice Springs. Some of the buildings built in the Territory are no different to the buildings that can be built in Perth, Melbourne, or Sydney.
We certainly support the architects in the Territory and we would like to continue our support. Our government will make an announcement very soon that I believe will please the architects and many of the people who are lovers of fine buildings in the Territory and would like to see the tradition of tropical buildings continue to be built in the Top End.
Unfortunately, there is a lot of pressure for reduction of energy consumption; it might be appropriate for Tasmania but it is totally inappropriate for the Northern Territory. Certain clauses have been inserted in the Building Code of Australia that will impact on the design of the buildings. We are prepared also to address this issue making representation to the appropriate authorities in order for Territory houses to have open spaces, open windows, open doors, rather than the smallest possible windows that you see in Tasmania. Our environment here in the Territory is totally different weatherwise but also the way we live in the Territory and we do not want to adopt the standards that they have down south.
Madam Speaker, the government will make an announcement in the near future about the architectural profession and the future of architects in the Northern Territory.
Motion agreed to; bill read a second time.
Mr VATSKALIS (Lands and Planning)(by leave): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a third time.
Motion agreed to; bill read a third time.
STOCK DISEASES AMENDMENT BILL
(Serial 188)
(Serial 188)
Continued from 16 October 2003.
Mr BALDWIN (Daly): Madam Speaker, the Stock Diseases Act is a very important act and particularly this amendment bill because it brings a number of provisions to strengthen the ability and the capacity of the Northern Territory to react to an emergency stock disease, God forbid that it should ever happen here. Obviously, the opposition will be supporting this bill.
We know there is a national plan in place for the control and confinement of a national stock disease. I understand that it has also been tested, at least on desktop responses, and that follows on from what has happened in England and Europe. It was great to see a number of Australian vets and indeed a number of Northern Territory vets and personnel and even Katherine vets go to England to assist when the foot and mouth outbreak occurred there. Not only did they provide their assistance and help, but also brought back with them vast experience and knowledge of the issues surrounding an outbreak like foot and mouth.
It is scary to think that when you live in this part of the world that foot and mouth is rife not very far away, particularly in places like Vietnam and our trading partners. Everything we can do to firstly quarantine ourselves from this sort of thing ever happening in the Northern Territory, and secondly, if there were a scare or an outbreak certainly that we contain very, very quickly. This is what this amendment bill is all about.
I am not going to go through all of the clauses and provisions within it except to say that it is obviously going to bring with it a strengthening of the existing powers and certainly it is in line with the national cost sharing arrangements that are now in place should we have an outbreak, when this would have to be actioned.
We all know from the experiences in Europe and England that if there was an outbreak it costs a small fortune and almost cripples an economy; particularly foot and mouth, which not only affects stock and farmers, but it effects everything because you just cannot travel any more. You have to be able to lock down whole areas and jurisdictions and as we saw in England, it travelled very rapidly over that country.
It is good to see that these provisions have been introduced and that we will be in good stead, from a legislative point of view, to tackle the issue. It is great to know that we have very experienced personnel who have hands on experience, but have also taken part in the national plan and provided their experience there. We have some great plans in place to tackle any such problem should, God forbid, as I said, it ever occur. I hope it never does.
Madam Speaker, we strongly support this legislation.
Dr BURNS (Primary Industry and Fisheries): Madam Speaker, I welcome the support of the opposition. This is obviously a bipartisan approach to what is a very serious issue. There is no doubt that the pastoral industry in the Northern Territory is very important to our economic and social fabric. It is something that has been built up over many years by sweat and, I would say, a few tears along the way.
Many fine people in the pastoral industry have worked very hard with their families to build this industry up. It is very important to the Northern Territory. We have a whole range of producers from multi-millionaires, multi-billionaires, very big companies, to the family companies. I acknowledge the economic importance of the very large companies. Heytesbury Holdings has moved their office here to Darwin and that is a very positive move, and a show of faith by a very substantial company in the future of the Northern Territory. They are very welcome here. At the same time, and I suppose it might be a bit romanticised, but I really appreciate those families which have been in the industry here in the Northern Territory for many generations. All it would take, I believe, is almost a threat of a disease to do us incredible damage.
In my second reading speech I alluded to the fact that it has been modelled that in 2002, if there was a large scale outbreak of foot and mouth disease in the whole of Australia, it could cost up to $12bn. That is not just a large amount of money for the beef and pastoral industry; that is a lot of money for Australia. There would be flow-on effects and it would be an absolute disaster.
New Zealand had a scare – and it was just a scare - and their stock market crashed! It crashed because of a scare of a disease. That is why it is very important to have these measures in place in relation to stock diseases. In the longer term, I know our officers of the Northern Territory Department are working at a very high level to put the necessary measures in place. Unfortunately, some of the southern states have a different ear-tag type of system that might not necessarily work here in the Northern Territory. So, the Territory is working with Queensland and Western Australia to arrive at a system that suits our sort of cattle farming.
The bottom line is that we need that tracing system to properly address disease outbreaks such as this. We have the legislative and operational framework in place. As the member for Daly so rightly pointed out, we certainly have the very skilled and dedicated staff within Primary Industry to address these issues. Without any more ado, I thank the opposition for their bipartisan support for this.
Motion agreed to; bill read a second time.
Dr BURNS (Primary Industry and Fisheries) (by leave): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a third time.
Motion agreed to; bill read a third time.
TABLED PAPER
Public Accounts Committee –
Annual Report 2002-03
Public Accounts Committee –
Annual Report 2002-03
Mr KIELY (Sanderson): Madam Speaker, I lay on the table the Public Accounts Committee Annual Report 2002-2003.
MOTION
Print Paper - Public Accounts Committee Annual Report 2002-03
Print Paper - Public Accounts Committee Annual Report 2002-03
Mr KIELY (Sanderson): Madam Speaker, I move that the report be printed.
Motion agreed to.
MOTION
Note Paper - Public Accounts Committee Annual Report 2002-03
Note Paper - Public Accounts Committee Annual Report 2002-03
Mr KIELY (Sanderson): Madam Speaker, I move that the Assembly take note of the committee’s report and seek leave to continue my remarks at a later hour.
Motion agreed to.
Debate adjourned.
TABLED PAPER
Select Committee on Substance Abuse in the Community – Written Submissions
and Public Hearings
Select Committee on Substance Abuse in the Community – Written Submissions
and Public Hearings
Ms SCRYMGOUR (Arafura): Madam Speaker, I lay on the table the evidence submitted to the Select Committee on Substance Abuse in the Community since the tabling of the committee’s interim report on 27 February 2003 until the present time. This is in three parts. There are two volumes of transcripts of hearings and briefings, and one of submissions. Evidence deemed by the committee to be in camera is excluded.
These papers are tabled in acknowledgment of the establishment of a review team by the Minister for Racing, Gaming and Licensing, charged with developing a comprehensive alcohol framework for the Northern Territory. This team is required to provide an interim report by Christmas and a final report by May 2004. The evidence provided to the select committee will be an important resource for the project team, and will provide direction to them as they draft the framework. The select committee has played, and continues to play, an important role in addressing the devastating impact which alcohol abuse has upon the Northern Territory.
While alcohol abuse is only one aspect of substance abuse, its contribution to violent crime, road trauma, mortality and morbidity levels, and social dysfunction in the Territory is overwhelming. Members of the committee are unanimous in their intention to work closely with the project team to reduce the tragic level of alcohol abuse in the Northern Territory. The committee has considered for some time that the evidence presented to it indicates a lack of cohesion and coordination in addressing alcohol issues across agencies. It is hoped that this especially will be addressed by the project team if they develop an alcohol framework for the Northern Territory.
TABLED PAPER
Office of the Ombudsman –
Annual Report 2002-03
Office of the Ombudsman –
Annual Report 2002-03
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, pursuant to Section 28 of the Ombudsman (Northern Territory) Act, I have pleasure in presenting the report of the Ombudsman for the financial year ending 30 June 2003. In 2002-03, the Ombudsman’s office received 2082 approaches for assistance. This is an increase of 27% on the previous year, 2001-02.
The Ombudsman notes that, in his view, the increase is due to stabilisation of the new administrative arrangements; better targeting of available funds for access and awareness raising; stabilisation of office staff in both Darwin and Alice Springs; and the implementation of a free of charge telephone system in Darwin and Alice Springs gaols to allow prisoners to directly contact the Ombudsman without being monitored by prison officers. As a result of the free telephone service for prisoners, approaches to the Ombudsman have increased from 89 in 2001-02 to 265 in 2002-03, or almost 200%. The Ombudsman notes that this increase was expected, and that the telephone service addresses, and I quote from the Ombudsman’s report:
- The very significant concerns I have had in the past as to the real ability of prisoners to make a complaint to my office, particularly when prisoners do not have English as a first language, and/or where they are not able to write to me to make a complaint.
The Ombudsman singles out the NT Correctional Services within the Department of Justice, together with the Department of Health and Community Services, as agencies which have a significant public interface, and receives a range of complaints in relation to the services provided. The Ombudsman has commended these particular agencies for the cooperative way they have dealt with the complaints, and in their interaction with the Ombudsman’s Office. I add my praise to NT Correctional Services and to the Department of Health and Community Services for their good work.
The Ombudsman’s report also contains over 60 case studies of a range of complaints against Northern Territory government agencies and local government councils. Whilst a number of these case studies contain serious issues, I am confident that the Ombudsman, together with the agencies involved, have worked productively to ensure similar situations do not arise again. That is the role of the Ombudsman: to be this parliament’s watch dog for administrative actions taken by agencies and local government.
Madam Speaker, I look forward to presenting to this Assembly at the next sittings a more detailed statement on the Ombudsman’s Annual Report for the year 2002-03.
MOTION
Print paper - Office of the Ombudsman
Annual Report 2002-03
Print paper - Office of the Ombudsman
Annual Report 2002-03
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, I move that the annual report of the Office of the Ombudsman for the year 2003-03 be printed.
Motion agreed to.
ADJOURNMENT
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, on this last day of our sittings of parliament for this year, I move that the Assembly do now adjourn.
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, I want to place on record my thanks and seasons greetings to the staff of the Legislative Assembly, particularly to the Clerk and the Deputy Clerk who works so tirelessly for us; the officers in the Table Office who always seem to be there at all hours of the day and night; the Hansard staff upstairs who consistently make sense of what we say; the committee staff who have had a very busy year; the administrative staff who look after members so well; the drivers who are ever so courteous and reliable; to Kathy, my Personal Assistant, who has taken over so capably and efficiently; and to all the other Personal Assistants in the building who provide such a personal service to ministers and members. This year has been a very productive year for the Legislative Assembly and the contributions made by members and staff, I appreciate very much and applaud.
I wish all members a very Happy Christmas, and a prosperous New Year. I hope you do have a break. I thank you for your support over the last few weeks and the last three days, and I look forward to working with you all next year.
Members: Hear, hear!
Mr AH KIT (Arnhem): Madam Speaker, as this sitting is the last before Christmas, I take the opportunity to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and thank them for their efforts over the course of the year.
First, all the staff at the Legislative Assembly including our parliamentary Clerk, Ian McNeill, the Deputy Clerk and their hard-working staff. It is a long list of people to go through individually, but I do sincerely appreciate the efforts of all of the Assembly staff who help to make our lives, and the workings of the Assembly, operate smoothly. The service of the Legislative Assembly is always courteous and very professional. I wish you all a very Happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year.
Best wishes to the Northern Territory Library staff. Marilyn Hawthorne and her staff are always willing to respond to even the most obscure request. Their highly professional efforts contributed to the success of this year’s historical first sittings of the parliament in Alice Springs.
A Merry Christmas to all the security personnel. They do a great job, sometimes under very difficult circumstances. A special seasons greetings to the building’s cleaners. They say politics is a dirty business. Well, it is these wonderful people who help clean up the mess!
Seasons greetings also to the government car drivers, Gary Wilkshire, Wayne Kessell, John Dinoris, Hardy Dunkel, Thor Schjolden and George Bacic. To everyone I have inadvertently missed out, my apologies and Merry Christmas.
I must also provide blessings for Christmas to my hard-working staff, ably led by John Tobin: Chips, Danyelle, Jeanie, Kate, Di, Kylie and Deanna. I also include Phillip Powling, my electorate officer, who has been working hard, and also Norman Grogan who left my employ not so long ago, but has been very helpful over the last couple of years.
It has also been a big year in my department with some very significant achievements made. I pass on best wishes to my CEO, Mike Dillon, and the Deputy CEO Sylvia Langford, and all of the senior staff, Sylvia, David, Trish, Ellen and Fiona. They and their staff have been very helpful on many occasions throughout the year. The staff of the Pool Fencing Unit have undertaken a big task and are making excellent headway. The Building Stronger Regions, Stronger Futures strategy was launched in May. There is great work going on in this area; good staff in Local Government and Regional Development are assisting in the implementation of the many initiatives. I had the honour of tabling the Anmatjere regional development plan in the course of these sittings, and the Katherine regional economic development plan a couple of months ago.
The Territory-wide itinerant strategy, now known as the Community Harmony strategy, is now well under way. The lead workers in implementing the strategy have worked extremely hard throughout the year. It is particularly pleasing to see the cooperative efforts of departments, Aboriginal organisations, local government, and non-government organisations and private enterprise working together to achieve the outcomes of this project.
Unfortunately, the Arafura Games had to be cancelled earlier this year. However, I thank all the staff, particularly the Events Team at Sport and Recreation for their professional handling of the situation. To Phillip and all his staff at Sport and Recreation, keep up the good work. In regards to the international cricket, it was a great success for the Territory this year and another credit also goes to the Office of Sport of Recreation.
The Northern Territory Libraries and Information Service has developed the ‘Locate your Library’ web site to provide library web sites for 33 Northern Territory public libraries, community libraries and knowledge centres - an important initiative and a great achievement.
I take this opportunity to congratulate all staff within Housing Business Services and Housing and Infrastructure who have provided quality service to their clients and developed new initiatives to the benefit of housing and indigenous essential services across the Territory. The Aboriginal Interpreter Service continues to play a valuable role also in the community, especially in the bush courts. Christmas wishes also go to the staff of the Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority who have continued to provide a professional service to both site custodians and developers.
My ministerial duties bring me into contact with a very broad range of the community including housing tenants, indigenous representatives and service bodies, local government councillors, regional development bodies, sport officials and administrators, and a whole range of non-government organisations. To all these groups and all the people of the Arnhem electorate, who continue to give me great support, and to you Mr Deputy Speaker, and Madam Speaker, all the members opposite - although obviously we have our differences from time to time - along with my caucus colleagues and their ministerial staff, may I wish you all a very Happy Christmas and may the new year be a great and prosperous one for all.
In the few minutes I have left, I need to mention a few matters in regards to some of the issues that have been running in the media. I refer to the member for Goyder and the Litchfield Times. I do not have any problem with the coverage he is getting in the Litchfield Times. This one is 26 November and on the back page, big headline ‘Marrara Type Plans for Freds Pass’. I just wondered who has the member for Goyder talked to about this? I am just trying to inform him, I suppose, that you can do your PR in the media, but there is a process in place if you want to move things forward and obtain support in this particular area, either with the Freds Pass Management Board or with Sport and Recreation. Getting your name up in lights is not necessarily the way to achieve that.
The member for Goyder has not sought a briefing on any sport and recreation issues. In fact, my staff have offered him a briefing and we are awaiting for him to set a time and date. There has been no formal submission received for a feasibility study. On 25 March, I approved the payment of a grant of $4000 to the Freds Pass Management Board to put together a 10-year development plan for the complex. I have had meetings with Andrew Blackadder and Bob Shewring. In fact, I have worked with them, and I note on page 3 of the same Litchfield Times, that there are some problems in regards to the shed that was gifted to them by the Minister for Infrastructure, Planning and Environment. I am keen to catch up with them over the next three or four weeks to work our way through those concerns.
The plan that the board is putting together is being developed and, as yet, we have received no formal applications for any capital works projects for Freds Pass. I have met with representatives from the board, as I said, and I want to discuss with them how we continue to move forward. I believe that Freds Pass is an excellent location, has a lot of good infrastructure, but can be bettered. Because of the growing communities out in that particular area, as you would know, Mr Deputy Speaker, we certainly need to look at how we plan for the future to ensure that people who choose to live in that wonderful country have access to good sporting facilities. However, the process is something that must be gone through.
We gave an election commitment for $1m for a swimming pool in the rural area. We have had correspondence backwards and forwards from the Litchfield Shire Council. I received a letter on 25 November and am sad to say that the offer was rejected. I will certainly be talking to them further, probably in regards to their budget. They are not able to find the additional dollars that they would like to have to put in the pool that they believe is best, regardless of where that location may be. Nevertheless, the offer was made and was also about to be honoured.
In the last couple of minutes I have left, I want to take the issue with the new member for Katherine. It might be nice to get your name in the paper and a lovely photo about the Tipperary Wildlife Sanctuary. I have here the Katherine Times of 12 November 2003 in which the member for Katherine has costed what it would take to get the Tipperary Wildlife Sanctuary and those 2200 animals to Katherine. I need to tell her that in the last two issues of the Katherine Times, there are no plans, there is no discussion. I have not, nor do I know of any departments that have, received any particular correspondence from the member for Katherine in regards to her lobbying to transfer the animals from Tipperary Station to Katherine. The concept might be great, but you need to work your way through that because at the end of the day, if you bring people’s hopes and expectations to a certain level and you cannot deliver on it, people will take you to task.
The member for Katherine should realise that issuing a media release constitutes neither plans nor lobbying. To date, as I said, no one from my department, the Animal Welfare Authority, have received any proposals. To beat up support from other groups around Katherine without any apparent plans is irresponsible. To do so over a proposal on which she demonstrates no real knowledge is even more so.
The member for Katherine is incorrect in claiming the Katherine Regional Development Plan supports the establishment of a reserve for exotic animals. The plan emphasises ecotourism, outback pastoral and fishing activities, along with nature parks, cultural and heritage areas. This includes, for example, developing the Victoria River Gorge area. With respect, visitors to the Katherine region come here to experience the real Territory, not to look at animals that belong in Africa and South America.
I quote from the Katherine Times dated 19 November where she was asked how she was going, and she said she was ‘working with numerous parties towards making the Katherine wildlife sanctuary a reality’. She said, ‘It is still going very well. I am going to make sure it is done right. It is still looking very, very promising’.
I pass on those words of advice to the member for Katherine, that there is a process, work through that process. We can certainly encourage you to do that and, if it is possible, we may work as a team in partnership to achieve it. But to grandstand and do your media stuff, at the end of the day, is not going to get you anywhere.
Mrs MILLER (Katherine): Mr Deputy Speaker, I had not planned to address this tonight, but considering he has brought it up I thought perhaps I better. I say to the member for Arnhem: the reason that I lobbied this in the paper in the first instance was to express an interest. At that stage, I did not have anything definite in mind, and considering the bombardment and the press that had been put out by yourself, it was not in the best interest to come and approach you because I thought it was so negative. I was hoping that we would be able to negotiate this arrangement privately. There was never anything meant to be devious about it at all, or underhand, and there was never meant to be a backyard or backdoor process in relation to this program of getting these animals to Katherine.
You will probably notice that when I mentioned it in the paper, member for Arnhem, that I did not mention that I was asking for anything, because I was not at that stage. I was not asking for anything and, hopefully, I was not going to have to. I am not hiding anything. I am not grandstanding. I was just trying to do something that was in the best interests for Katherine.
You have referred to the Katherine Regional Development Plan. I will highlight a few things. No, it does not say here that you were going to support a zoo; of course it does not. These are ideas that have come out of the community. This is something that you called for yourself. I have highlighted areas in each of the economy, infrastructure, community, and people and natural resources. I will talk about some of those things. I want to do this very briefly because I also need to thank a lot of people at the end of this too. Of course, I will be asking to have a talk with you at sometime to fill you in on exactly where things are going now. I was actually gagged and found it very difficult to talk to anybody. That is the reason I have not approached you, or the Minister for Tourism prior to this.
One of the things you talk about in the economy is vision: thriving businesses and new industries to diversify the region’s economic base and increase economic activity. I have highlighted a few things under that area. I have also looked at community and people: create an image for Katherine region, establish a name and an image, market the region as a great place to live, work, invest and visit. Improve economic outcomes – and I think you might be very well aware, minister, that right now the economic outcomes of Katherine are pretty poor.
Natural resources: enhance opportunities to interact with nature, improve other nature-based experiences, and so on. And because I do not have much time to talk about it now, I will get a briefing with you to talk about it. I am not trying to do any grandstanding, any backdoor entrance to this at all. What I am trying to do is establish something that is of economic benefit to Katherine, not only through tourism but through jobs, and through agriculture. I will spend time with you and talk about that, but I am certainly not trying to do anything underhand.
Mr Ah Kit: No worries.
Mrs MILLER: I am not experienced enough to do all that, yet, or to become like that.
This is the last sittings for this year, and there are some people who I really have to thank because it has been a pretty interesting time, to say the least, for me in the last couple of months. There are just some things that I would like to say. Before I do, I want to acknowledge some people from Katherine who have had some successes lately. This will be the last time that I will be able to recognise them until next February, so I need to get on with it.
Firstly, I would like to congratulate a very talented Katherine artist, Jan Cole, who won the Territory Seniors’ art award for a portrait of a local Katherine identity, John Pfitzner. Well done, Jan. Jan has only shown us how talented she is in the last two years. She has been one of those hidden artists who has finally decided to show her talent. The entries in the art award were of a high standard and depicted some wonderful characters and identities who have contributed so much to the Territory. It was very special to see Jan Cole’s wonderful talent rewarded.
Teachers at Casuarina Street School need to be acknowledged for their excellence to their profession. Casuarina Street School in Katherine is very proud of the recognition of three of their teachers who have been nominated for a National Excellence in Teaching Award 2003. Early childhood senior teacher, Shirley Schiller, Assistant Principal, Pamela Dixon, and upper primary senior teacher, Cheryl-Anne Courtney are now eligible for one of 150 local merit awards, or one of 100 state and territory awards to be announced next year A wonderful acknowledgment of the work and commitment to the students of Casuarina Street School that these three teachers have. The awards program aims to enhance the standing of teaching within the community and inspire students of high calibre to follow in their mentor’s footsteps and enter the teaching profession. I congratulate Pamela, Cheryl-Anne and Shirley on their very worthy nomination and wish them every success.
Katherine High School small business also had some success in this very building on Tuesday, when the Youth Small Business Awards were held, and I would like to acknowledge them. In 2003, seven businesses at Katherine High School operated with five of those entering the awards. Just Face It face painting, operated by Lauren Hayes and Cecellia Kearins, created their own designs and painted them onto children’s faces at local community events and at the local Tick Market. They came second in the award. Jewels, operated by Kara Campbell and Holly Gano, designed and made a range of jewellery which they sold at the local Tick Market and at school. They came third in the award. Congratulations to all students who participated throughout the year in their various enterprises which, as well as those mentioned, included a barbecue business and drink vending machine, temporary tattoos, dancing lessons, and a business designing sayings and logos on hats. Well done. I am very proud of what Katherine people are doing. The students have worked diligently to make their small businesses so successful. I am sure that they have gained some knowledge and skills that are going to prepare them for their future careers.
Congratulations must also go to their coordinator, Norma Higgins, who introduced the small business course at Katherine High School in 1990 and went on to win the inaugural trophy. Since that time, Katherine High School has enjoyed ongoing success at these awards, due in large part to Norma Higgins’ commitment.
Before I close, I would like to say a big thank you to my husband, Mike, with whom I have not spent a lot of time since I came to parliament in October – funny about that. I really appreciate the support he has given to me and acknowledge the additional workload that has been placed on Mike at Red Gum Tourist Park.
Many thanks also to all of my party wing, who have been such a support in encouraging me in the early days of my term as the member for Katherine. I also say a special thank you to my electorate officer, Lorna Hart, who has been an amazing support to me in the short time we have been working together. I really appreciate and value her support.
I wish Madam Speaker, Loraine Braham, the Chief Minister, Clare Martin, and all members of the Labor government, my leader of the CLP, Terry Mills and all members of the CLP wing, all the staff of the Legislative Assembly, especially the Clerk, Deputy Clerk, Vicki Long and Jan Sporn, and all other Parliament House staff who have made my short time in parliament so much easier to settle in, a very happy and safe Christmas and New Year and I look forward to our sittings in February
Ms MARTIN (Fannie Bay): Mr Deputy Speaker, it must be the Christmas Spirit. Although it is horrible to think that it could be almost Christmas, I think it is weeks away.
When Bill Herd passed away in Darwin on 9 October this year, the Northern Territory not only lost a talented and inspirational law lecturer but a man whose hands-on community involvement endeared him to the many organisations which were on the receiving of his volunteer services.
Williamson Mitchell Herd was born in Singapore in 1951 when his father, a civilian advisor to the British Navy, was posted there during the time of the Korean War. Bill was raised by an Amah and as a result his first words and most of his early vocabulary were in Chinese. After the war the British Navy sent the family to South Africa for a number of years before moving them on to Ireland.
Bill arrived in Australia in 1963 and attended Brisbane State High School followed by a University of Queensland combined Commerce/Law degree. He came to the Territory in 1987 to assist with the setting up of the new Northern Territory University Law Faculty. In 1992, Bill Herd, as the School of Laws Senior Lecturer, won the university’s inaugural Higher Education Excellence in Teaching Award. As reported by Professor Ned Aughterson, who worked with Bill for over 20 years, the announcement of this award was greeted by a standing ovation in the auditorium - a remarkable acknowledgement of the respect and affection that was afford Bill by his colleagues and students.
His students described him as a lecturer who had a peerless passion for teaching. He was humorous, witty and theatrical as he illustrated points and gave life to the characters of long past cases. His wide and detailed knowledge of the law was evident in his technically excellent and meticulously prepared lectures, and students packed to the rafters to attend his tutorials.
Bill Herd’s former students now practice law all over the world. In the Territory they are employed in all private law firms, in the Director of Public Prosecutions Office, Department of Justice, Supreme and Magistrates Courts, Supreme Court Library, Parliamentary Counsel, government departments, minister’s offices, and can boast of two current parliamentarians in the member for Millner and the member for Goyder.
Bill Herd’s voluntary and community spirit obviously stemmed from an ingrown need to contribute and be involved. Bill said of himself:
- My childhood was a wandering one. Home was where Mum and Dad put the suitcases down and you got on with living in the community that you found yourself in.
Pat King, Bill’s constant companion for nearly 15 years, said that from the time she first met Bill she knew him to be a selfless and tireless community worker:
It was an important part of his life and Bill’s voluntary work extended to St John Ambulance Adult Divisions and later the Cadet Divisions where he taught the children first aid and helped to accompany children to performances, competitions, parades, camps and other social events.
- Bill also assisted at Tent City during the Timor crisis. He cooked sausages for Anglicare and the Asthma Foundation, folded and delivered pamphlets for the Palliative Care and Hospice Association, sponsored a child’s secondary education through the Smith Family, and helped to raise awareness of the lack of drinking water in Third World countries through the work of TEAR Australia.
- As well, Bill was a committee member of the Supreme Court Library from 1992 and over the last 10 years he was an active friend of the Darwin Symphony Orchestra. For all those who knew Bill Herd for the significant role he played in the community as a relative, friend, colleague and educator, he will be sadly missed.
I extend my sincere condolences to Pat King and her children, Karen and Christopher and to Bill’s immediate family in Texas USA, Brodie and Marty Harrison, Ann and David Ford, Genevieve and Victoria.
I acknowledge some outstanding young Territorians from Darwin High School. Young Achievers Australia was introduced this year for the first time to Darwin High Year 10 students. An enthusiastic team of 13 students was picked from Year 10 Business Studies classes. The group took up the challenge of forming a real business selling shares, developing a business plan with goals, and dealing with real issues such as marketing and human resources. The company formed by the students is called Dareya.
The group chose to produce drink coolers and developed a business plan to work out how much they would need to sell their product for to break even and hopefully return a profit to their shareholders. The product was designed and then manufactured by a local NT company using money raised by the initial sale of 500 shares. This was daunting for the group, as the cost of the coolers was over $1000, and they needed to recover the money in sales. Their sales were successful and they worked hard at various venues around Darwin selling their coolers for $8 per unit.
The students were guided by mentors from Optus, who met with them every Wednesday of the semester to work on their business plan, and supported them in their program. The Optus mentors were Marie-Louise Pearson, Nigel Sellars, Lucy Mason, Andrew Mulvany, Ali O’Brien, Wayne Kennedy and Loreena Young. The project was coordinated by the Careers Adviser at Darwin High, Rod Bishop.
Congratulations to the students in Dareya: Managing Director, Tabitha Omaji; Marketing, Chelsea Quong, Dana Dizon and Rachel Hobson; Manufacturing, Ashish Vaikyl, Shravan Sarasvati and Ananda Kundu; Human Resources, Helena Mo and Bradley Scott; Finance, Rachel Gain and Katerina Galvin; and Secretaries, Natasha Yuen and Brooke Chin. I am sure all honourable members will join me in congratulating everyone involved in this commendable Young Achievers Australia initiative.
Recently I met with Emma Tantengco, the Choir Director of the Darwin Youth and Children’s Choir. Among other items discussed, Emma told me about the invitation the choir had received to attend a choral festival in Narrogin in Western Australia, from 24 to 26 October. I am sure my colleagues noticed the article in the NT News on 4 November about their success.
I would like to share with the House in more detail for this exciting story of Territory cultural export. The Darwin Youth and Children’s Choir, whose ages range between seven and 17, were the invited guests of the Australian National Choral Association’s Second Regional Choralfest, held during the Spring Festival at Narrogin in Western Australia. The Darwin Youth Choir, together with the Wellington Male Voice Choir from New Zealand headed the list which also included a large number of Western Australian and adult and children’s choirs.
For the time the choir visited, they became part of the town. The mayor of Narrogin entertained the choir at a special dinner. As well as four concerts over the festival weekend, the choir also sang at a church service. Over the festival weekend, the choir performed to full houses in what was described as ‘a magical presentation’. Their program was diverse, including a wide range of material.
In addition to their choral performances, Emma Tantengco and the choir participated in a workshop for choir teachers as part of the program, and took part in the traditional festival street parade on Saturday through the streets of Narrogin. Nine additional family members who went along for support also accompanied Emma Tantengco, Kristy McCallum and the choir.
The Australian Choral Association was so impressed by their performance that they were invited back to sing again at future interstate events. In addition, Emma has been invited to attend a number of other events and follow-up activities. A possible visit by Perth choirs to Darwin has also been discussed.
The names of the Darwin Youth and Children’s Choir members and supervising family members who took part in this most successful tour interstate were: Kaitlyn Andrews, Teneal Broccardo, Simon Collister and his mother Vicki, Tiffany Cornell, Samantha Cowie and her mother Chris, Helen Fegan, Nathan Forster, Stephanie Foster, Casey Harrison, Skyler Hemy and her mother Michelle, Margareth Hickman, Kate Huntingford and her parents Meredith and Steve, Bree Kiernan, Shanece Liddy-Wilde and her mother Beth, Kyra Mulvena, Juliana Pascoe, Eliza Pownall and her grandmother Andrea Adams, Miriam Scapin, Rachel Tolliday, Amelia Wardle and her mother Robin, and Joanne Yallop. Kristy McCallum was the pianist and Pascual Tantengco, Emma’s husband, also participated.
My congratulations to Emma, Kristy and all the choir members and their families on their most successful visit and cultural exchange.
The Portrait of a Senior Territorian Art Award, which the member for Katherine mentioned, was held between 3 and 14 November this year, and was again a wonderful event. Not only is this a chance to see wonderful art work, but importantly, it is a marvellous chance to catch up with long-time friends. This exhibition provides an excellent example of a cross-government arts initiative, involving the division of Arts, Museums and Library Services working with the Office of Senior Territorians and the Government House Foundation.
Particularly, I would like to thank Diana Leeder from Arts, Museums and Libraries, who MCd for us; Daena Murray, who presented a floor talk on the exhibition, and, above all, the exhibition curator, Kerry Drogemuller, who did a fantastic job.
As always, there was a Territory-wide interest and participation in the exhibition with 35 entries received. The excellent catalogue contained many heart-warming stories about the subjects that the artists had collected as part of their research. This year, around a third of the portraits were of indigenous seniors.
I am pleased to thank the Government House Foundation for its continued support of this event in sponsoring as the major prize, the Government House Foundation Acquisition Award. The judging panel this year comprised Nerys Evans, President, Government House Foundation; Anne Phelan, Director of Framed, the Darwin Gallery; and Gary Lee, Larrakia artist and arts manager. Joslin Archer and her daughters gave us all a warm welcome to Larrakia land. We were also entertained by the Karrabarrda Dancers from Oenpelli. One of the musicians who performed was Thompson Yulidjirri, a 73 year old senior artist and subject of two paintings entered in this year’s award. Thompson has represented the culture of the Kunwinjku through his paintings in numerous exhibitions and his works are held in many collections.
I was very pleased that the overall winner of the $3000 2003 Government House Foundation Acquisition Award was, as the member for Katherine mentioned, Jan Milner Cole for her magnificent study entitled, ‘I Reckon’. Jan’s entry this year was a wonderful depiction of John Pfitzner, the former pole vault champion who represented Australia in the 1962 Commonwealth Games. John, who has lived in Katherine for over 30 years, told Jan that he was ‘now too old and too cranky to live anywhere else’.
While there can only be one winner, all the entries were of a very high standard and many were noted by name for mention. Lawry Love, for his portrait of Paddy Japaljarri Stewart, and Catherine Paton for her portrait of Chrisoula Anictomatis received Highly Commended awards. I spoke to John Anictomatis as I was previewing the exhibition, and he said that the portrait, painted from a photograph, exactly captured the look and expression of his mother.
The judges awarded three Commended awards: Maggie Urban, for her portrait of Alex Kruger; Robert Walter, for his portrait of Mayse Young; and Damien Cox, for the portrait of his father, Dr David Cox. An Encouragement Award was also given to Carly Franklin for her portrait of Paddy Fordam.
Walking around the exhibition was like meeting friends. There were portraits of Jane Christopherson, Terry Lew Fatt, Edgar Dunis, Jim Forscutt, Aunty Billie, and Mayse Young, to name only a few of the famous Territory faces. Adding to a sense of art imitating life, I was able to catch up, if only briefly, with several of the subjects, including Dick Muddimer, Helen Liddy, Thompson Yulidjirri, Hilda Muir and George Chaloupka.
I acknowledge all the artists who contributed to this magnificent exhibition, and I list them in the order in which their painting where displayed: Jacob Ahwon, Joan Andropov, Gary Batten, Willie Dugald Beattie, Julie Burdis, Christine Christophersen, Fiona Cocks, Damien Cox, Alison Dowell, Cynan Dowling, Gillian Ellett Baanks, Rox Farquhar, Carly Franklyn, Jan Hill, Sean Hussin, Rebecca Jones, Nimal Jayawardhana, Albert Koomen, Gaye Lawrence, Lawry Love, Solomon Luta, Gabriel Mralngurra, Angus McIvor, June Mills, Jan Milner Cole, Jennifer Parfenovics, Catherine Paton, Julie Philpin, Katie Saunders, Leisa Smith, Maggie Urban, Raymond Lesley Venables, Tony Wade, Robert Walker, and Bronwyn Wright.
The People’s Choice Award went to Catherine Paton for her magnificent depiction of Chrisoula Anictomatis, a popular choice which attracted nearly 25% of the vote. Catherine won the Peoples’ Choice last year for her wonderful portrait of Austin Asche.
As far as I am concerned though, we the Territorians able to attend this exhibition, were all the winners. We are so much the richer for this excellent and enjoyable event, which celebrates both the people and talent of our community.
Finally this evening, on this last day of the parliamentary sittings, my thanks to everyone involved in keeping this parliament on the road. To the Speaker and the Clerk and all at the Legislative Assembly, to those in Hansard, to security people, to an important person, Toots and the others at Speaker’s Corner who keep our stomachs going, to our drivers who get us here and back, to all the staff who work in this building on the 5th floor and the 4th floor, our colleagues, both on government and opposition sides, and not forgetting of course, Mr Deputy Speaker, our two independents. Everyone works very hard in this place and certainly, my thanks goes to everyone, particularly my staff in the Office of Chief Minister, whom I know work extraordinarily hard.
From me to everyone, have a great Christmas. Let us hope everyone takes a good break, enjoys the New Year and comes back refreshed for 2004.
Members: Hear, hear!
Dr LIM (Greatorex): Mr Deputy Speaker, I also send my Christmas regards to everyone in the building who has worked very tirelessly over the last 12 months, to the Clerk and the staff of the Legislative Assembly, and Deputy Clerk also sitting there patiently at this late hour of the night. Also to members of the staff such at Pat Hancock and Vicki Long, Graham Gadd and Rick Gray, all with whom I have worked very closely through the year. I really appreciate their services and the careful way that they have performed their functions so very well.
Each year as I come to the end of the sittings, I try to wax a little lyrical about what has happened in the year. Obviously, the most significant event that has occurred for me was my elevation - if that is the right word to use – and the confidence that has been shown in me by my parliamentary colleagues on this side of the House, to make me the deputy leader. In the three months that I have been in this job I have worked with very fine people on the 4th floor: Jim O’Brien, Gary Shipway, Wayne Zerbe, Kylie Silvey, Imelda Parker and Ceri Lawson - all very hardworking individuals who have offered their services so very willingly and often beyond the call of duty. I convey my deepest appreciation for their efforts and the way they have also gathered around me and taken care of me in my first weeks when I was wandering around wondering what the heck I was supposed to do in that new role. We have all got on very well together, and I say to them: ‘Have a great break over the Christmas festive season, come back next year and, by heck, we are going to be rolling. And be prepared to work hard next year’.
I also send my regards to Caroll Lyons, my electorate officer, who has worked with me now for three years, and her young daughter Cayce and her favourite man Patrick Callier. Caroll, for the level she is paid, works awfully hard, starting very early in the morning and often not leaving until well past the normal closing time for most offices. On the occasional weekend she comes back to help me out also. To all of you on the 4th floor and to Caroll Lyons thank you very much for your great support this year.
My branch chairman, Andrew Maloney, and the rest of the crew in the Alice Springs Branch, we have now grown to be a super branch in Central Australia looking after all of the electorates from Stuart right through to Macdonnell including the three urban seats of Araluen, Braitling and my own electorate of Greatorex. It is a huge branch that has many motivated people who, I am sure, continue to contribute significantly to the CLP. I look forward to their continued support in my new capacity within the party and the parliamentary wing.
However, my greatest appreciation goes to my wife, Sharon, who has not seen me very much these last 12 months, especially these last three months. I have been spending a lot of time in Darwin in relation to the new duties that I have. She is left pretty well alone to manage the affairs of home and state in Alice Springs for me. Also my appreciation to my daughters Kinta, Letisha, and my son Michael for their support they have given me in my role as a member of parliament these last 10 years. To you all, a good Christmas, and Sharon, I will be home soon and we will have a bit of break over the Christmas period.
Best of all is this card that I received today with a drawing of what, I assume, is Joseph and Mary on an ass, or a mule, but you cannot see baby Christ anywhere. The problem I have with that is that Mary seems to have no legs, or she has the most beautiful rear that I have ever seen on a female, a really nice inverted pear-shaped - the tail sort of puts it off a bit. However, Mr Deputy Speaker, you have come up with a very innovative and very original Christmas card and we really truly appreciate that.
With the time left to me tonight I would like to talk about an issue that is still burning in Alice Springs, really burning. Today, in the question that I put to the Minister for Lands and Planning, he slagged me of course first of all and then tells me that things are going fine as far as he is concerned with land release in Alice Springs. Well, if he thinks that it is fine then I am certainly going to say to him again, he has lost the plot. Land release in Alice Springs is not fine. Definitely not fine. If the truth be known this newspaper article in the Alice Springs News of 5 November this year, let me just read a few paragraphs from it entitled ‘Native Title in Chaos’ by Erwin Chlanda who is the owner and editor of the paper:
- Lhere Artepe, the Alice Springs native title body that holds the key to the town’s future, and controls potential residential land worth at least $50m, should be shut down, according to a prominent insider.
He says the group is in disarray, and now unconstitutional because it has failed to hold a proper annual general meeting before October 30.
The release of 70 residential blocks in Larapinta is a year overdue …
I shall go to a couple of paragraphs later. Referring to the Lhere Artepe Corporation, Mr Chlanda wrote:
It was set up by the Federal Court in May 2002 in the wake of the decision by Federal Court Judge Olney in May 2000 that native title coexists on 118 parcels of land in the town.
Now just to refer to that. The federal court set up Lhere Artepe in May 2002; well after this government got in. So, really the CLP had no opportunity to discuss that sort of plan with any formalised group in Alice Springs. This government has and has done nothing about it.
I will continue to quote from this newspaper article, the last two paragraphs:
- Minister for Central Australia, Peter Toyne, said on July 31 of last year, that negotiations were well advanced for ‘a substantial release of land’ at the western end of Larapinta, likely to be towards the end of 2002 or early 2003.
At the moment, well over a year later, the government is again saying, ‘land will be released early next year’ although
the required Indigenous Land Use Agreement has not yet been signed, in fact the insider hasn’t even
seen a draft;
the government has given Lhere Artepe the choice of two parcels on which to develop ‘its’ subdivision …
Lhere Artepe has not yet made that choice in a formal manner; and
has put its blocks ‘out in the market’.
As that clause is without time limit it seems if Lhere Artepe never proceeds to development, neither can the government.
So, there you are. Very, very clearly there is a huge issue in Alice Springs. Mr Chlanda referred to the dates reasonably well. When the land was first mooted there was a huge fanfare at the announcement by the Minister for Central Australia that housing allotments would be released at Larapinta Stage 4.
You are so eager to advise the Real Estate Industry at a function in 2002, promising that land would be released in Larapinta by either Christmas of 2002 or at the latest during the early part of 2003. Then it was deferred, and it was deferred more, and more and more. It is a crying shame that since the Martin government took over managing the Territory, Central Australia has become the forgotten part.
Alice Springs taxpayers really do deserve the right to find out from this government what the negotiated outcomes are for the promised land release at Alice Springs, Larapinta Stage 4. I would not call it ‘the promised land’, but the land was promised to be released. Why are they forced to wait and wait and wait? This government is not saying anything. The minister says: ‘Everything is going to happen; everything is fine. Don’t worry about it’. I will quote the minister from the Rushes from today’s Question Time:
- Let me tell you, member for Greatorex, we are progressing with the negotiations with the Lhere Artepe.
If you are, then show us something. There is nothing there. Land is really locked up and the corporation is falling over. Then there is no formalised body with which the government can negotiate.
What I would prefer to see happen is that the government puts some resources in to support the Lhere Artepe, give them some legal advice. Get some people in to Lhere Artepe to ensure that the whole process continues to grow, but at least have a time line. If there is no formal agreement signed between the government and Lhere Artepe, now is the time to do it. If Lhere Artepe cannot get the land developed by the particular date, then say to them: ‘It is all over. Here is some money, and you will relinquish your native title on it’. Then the government can proceed to release the land for competitive tender and it can be developed.
It is no good just saying: ‘We will give you this land and you can develop it’. If you look at it from a simple arithmetic point of view, there is supposed to be about 30 to 45 blocks per 10 hectares. Assuming that the Lhere Artepe have 40 blocks on average and assuming they can sell the blocks for $100 000 each, which is very expensive and most people say it cannot be that much, but assume they can, then it is $4m for those 40 blocks or the 10 hectares. If the Lhere Artepe developed those blocks, it would cost them at least 50% of the sale price of the land, so $2m of the $4m would go into overheads or developmental costs so the Lhere Artepe would have $2m cash in hand out of the sales of all the blocks. It would be better for the government to just write a cheque for $2m to the Lhere Artepe and say: ‘This now buys out native title. It is over’. Then the government has control of the land, the 20 hectares, to do what they want with it and let Lhere Artepe decide for themselves what they want to do with the money.
It is as easy as that. This government just says: ‘It is going to happen’. It is not going to happen. The member for Stuart, the minister for Central Australia, promised that land is going to be released by January 2004 ‘or else I will sell my own house’. The Minister for Lands and Planning said, ‘No, he did not say that. The government has always said early 2004’. Let me say this: 2003 is just about over. Only today, a contract has been let for headworks to start in that area and the junction where Stage 4 comes into Larapinta Drive is now being re-organised so that road works can be done.
The headworks are done by government; it is nothing to do with development. Any headworks that government does brings water, power, and sewerage to the edge of the property. Then the developer has to do the rest. There is no infrastructure within the area that is to be developed by Lhere Artepe, whichever block they choose. They can choose the back development area or the front one. Nothing has happened, so this government is in a real time fix.
This man, the member for Stuart, risks losing his house in the next few months. He did say January 2004. If he wants to change his word to early 2004, I will accept that. Let us see him get the land released in Alice Springs before 30 June 2004. I do not believe it is going to happen unless this government gets off its backside and does something about it quickly. Otherwise, we are going to be in deep strife, and people in Alice Springs are going to be screaming in the loudest voice possible.
Mr HENDERSON (Wanguri): Mr Deputy Speaker, I would like to talk about one of the schools in my electorate, Leanyer Primary School. Four teachers from Leanyer school have been nominated for Teacher of Excellence Awards for 2003: Mrs Natalie Ede, Miss Melanie Cole, Miss Ana Bernadino, and Mr Gary Fry were all nominated. All school communities are invited to participate in the program. Mrs Margaret Ferguson, Art/Craft teacher at Leanyer, was recognised with a Pride in Workmanship Award presented at a function on 20 October 2003. As well, school-based Senior Constables Peter Styles and Jeff Mosel were presented with these awards and recognition and other contribution to the school-based policing program. I was very pleased to present the awards at that particular function. These awards programs offer the opportunity for people who are dedicated professionals to be recognised for the work they do.
The Combined Schools Senior Band, including students from Leanyer, Alawa and Wanguri Schools, offered its final public performance for the year on Friday, 21 November. They performed for the public during the lunchtime period at Casuarina Shopping Square. One adult passer-by commented that the sound from the combined band was so good, she thought, before seeing them, that they must have been an adult group. The band was led by music school teachers, Ilona Retallack and Matthew Holt. Both have been affiliated with Musical Outreach in the northern suburbs schools for a long period of time.
For the first time, Leanyer school teachers are preparing reports for parents that comment on children’s progress as it compares with the curriculum framework expectations. The reporting tool measures children’s progress against a curriculum yardstick that has been developed for Territory schools. Documentation explaining the new process has been circulated, and the school will invite parental queries when reports are issued on Monday, 8 December.
Leanyer students have again earned accolades for their results in the Westpac Maths and University of New South Wales maths competitions. Students earned one certificate of achievement, 16 certificates of credit, and 16 certificates of distinction in the University of New South Wales Australian Schools Maths Competition. Shiyao Zhu stood out with a certificate of high distinction. Shiyao made it a double by earning the prized certificate in the Westpac Maths Competition. This highest honour was shared with Angus Fuller, who also earned a prized certificate. Angus, a student in year 6, earned a Special Achievement Award for being Leanyer’s top student in this competition. Three students, Rochelle Chin, Jobe Rout, and Andrew Grey, earned certificates of high distinction. Children earned four distinction certificates and 14 certificates of credit. Results in the English and writing competitions conducted by the University of New South Wales testing centre are pending.
Leanyer and Maningrida schools share student council development. Earlier this year, a group of students from Maningrida Area School visited Leanyer. They came to see how the Leanyer Student Council SRC works. They learned a great deal and returned to Maningrida, where they established their own program and have gone forward during 2003. On 25 November, Leanyer principal, Henry Gray, and three student council members, Miho Tanaka, Ciara O’Branagain, and Rhiannon Oakhill visited Maningrida to workshop with students and staff. The workshop and discussions covered the following: team building activities and exercises defining the purposes and values associated with being on an SRC; election procedures; identifying areas within a school that lend themselves to student leadership; the notion of SRCs and community service; what it means to represent the school; and the responsibilities of being leaders and role models. The group was given a tour of the community and had the opportunity to develop a quality working relationship with Maningrida. Links of this nature are good for Territory education, educators and students.
For the first time, Leanyer’s presentation assembly will be held at night, away from the school. It will be held in the airconditioned gymnasium at Dripstone High. Three awards are given out for each class, being for effort, achievement, and citizenship. Various key awards are presented. My award is for the most outstanding academic achievement in year 7, and I am really looking forward, as I do every year, to that awards evening.
This is the third Christmas since the Labor Party has been in government and, for me as local member in Wanguri, it has certainly been a year of achievement for our community. The reason why it is so great is that four of our major election promises were delivered this year, which is not only satisfying for me personally, but for the groups involved in the electorate as a whole, it really is a fantastic delivery on those promises.
The first promise to be delivered was the St Andrew Lutheran Primary extension stage one, which saw the ever-growing school receive funding to build more classrooms. It is a small private school that has a great feel and personality. I recently took the Chief Minister to view some of the unique art they have installed around the school. It really is a great school.
The second promise delivered was the upgrade for the Buddhist Society. Located on Ridgehaven Circuit, this is the spiritual home for many of Darwin’s Buddhist community. They are a diverse group of people who work together and for each other and for the community. Their funding allows them to build a community hall that will be available to all members of the community. Construction has been delayed, but I am looking forward to attending the official opening early next year. Their food fair is on this weekend and I urge all members to attend.
The third promise delivered was the Leanyer Water Park which is due to open in the next few weeks, according to the member for Karama. The member for Karama has done a great job chairing the working group to see that water park constructed. The water park will be a great shot in the arm for the youth and young families in the northern suburbs. It will be great to deliver something for the kids so they have something to do and enjoy in the northern suburbs. I personally cannot wait to check it out and take the family there.
The last promise was the Leanyer Primary School upgrade. I have been supporting the school in this upgrade since being elected in 1999; not as long as principal, Henry Gray. However, it was a real sense of accomplishment for everybody who has been involved in lobbying for that school to be upgraded for about seven years, and a great testament to school councillors past and present as well as principal Henry Gray.
These four things were the biggest of a whole list of things that happened in the community this year, but significant achievement in the Wanguri electorate and it was great to deliver on those election commitments.
As always, there are numerous people to thank for their work in the electorate at this time of the year. First, I would like to start with the principals of the schools in my electorate. Marion Guppy, the principal of Dripstone High School - in fact, Dripstone is really in Kon’s electorate but, certainly, the closest high school to my electorate. Marion Guppy and the team at Dripstone do a great job, and there is increasingly good feedback on the school and the reputation of the school. So, to Marion and the team there, well done.
Michael Jones and Glynis Banks. Glynis was the long-serving principal of Henbury School. She retired earlier this year and Michael has taken over. I love visiting the kids at Henbury, they really are very special kids. It is a special and a great school. I am looking forward to seeing more of them in 2004.
Gill Webb, at Holy Spirit School: Gill has been at Holy Spirit since I have been local member. She runs a great school, which always seems to be winning lots of awards. They have a great school fair, one of the best in Darwin. I cannot wait to see the improvements to the front of the school once they are complete.
Henry Gray, at Leanyer Primary. What can you say about Henry? I have had a lot to do with Henry this year; finally getting the extensions finished after many hurdles. Again, it is great to see the construction activity. With the headaches that Henry had to manage in keeping a school running whilst there was $1m worth of extensions and renovations happening, it really has been a big year. I am looking forward to working with the school next year. Also, congratulations to assistant principal, Darryl Trainor for his success with the combined school band this year.
Tom Leach, at St Andrews, a new principal who started this year, has already made a very positive impact for the school. He has some great achievements under his belt already, but his most remembered would be shaving his much-loved hair and beard for the students if they could raise $500 for cancer. They actually raised $1500. So, Tom, great first year and more to come.
Maree Bredhauer, at Wanguri Primary. Maree took over Wanguri Primary at the start of the year and has worked very hard to improve Wanguri in all areas and strengthen their already positive strengths around the school grounds. Maree, congratulations on the highly successful Anzac Day. I hope it continues next year. Really, I still challenge any member, because I believe that Wanguri Primary has the best school grounds, certainly in the northern suburbs. A fantastic school and Maree, it is great to be working with you.
I am also lucky enough to be patron of three great sporting clubs and I thank them for allowing me to support them. Sport is a great way of fostering community spirit and I like to support as many clubs as I can. To Vic Ludwig, the president of St Mary’s Football Club - Vic, what can I say? A great premiership last year. It was fantastic to see you here at the swearing-in of our new Administrator, Ted Egan. Ted played in the first St Mary’s premiership team. It was a very special day, and good luck to the Saints for the rest of the year.
Andrew Cripps, president of Casuarina Junior Soccer Club, the team that my two boys currently play for, and are very proud for me to be patron at Casuarina. Casuarina is enjoying a huge influx of new members and celebrated their 25th anniversary this year. It was great to hold a function in Parliament House for Casuarina players, past and present. Here’s to a successful next year, Lions, and I know we are all looking forward to the soccer review.
Ken Jones, the president of the Darwin Bridge Club. The club was a recipient of the highly successful Community Benefit Fund, and used the money to improve their clubhouse in Leanyer and host the Australian Championships in Darwin this year. It was a great event
I thank the following people for their support this year. To start with, my CEOs in the departments I am responsible for: DBIRD - Peter Blake. Peter, it was a fantastic job this year. We have really turned some major policy areas around and developed some great strategies. It has been a tough year for Peter and his wife, given a couple of operations that they have had to have, but I thank you for your support.
Paul White, Police Fire and Emergency Services Commissioner - again a huge year for the police this year. The O’Sullivan Review, the huge injection of money, major reform within that organisation led by a great Police Commissioner who is delivering some significant runs on the board with reducing crime in the Northern Territory. I am very pleased and proud to work with Paul White and the team at Police, Fire and Emergency Services.
In my role as minister for Procurement, thank you to the staff within Treasury and the Procurement Reference Group, and Jennifer Prince. Again huge reforms to procurement this year. A very forward thinking and dynamic team, and I really do enjoy working with you.
To my staff in my 5th floor office: Chief of Staff, Mark Nelson, Richard Jackson, Jim Davidson, Michael Gunner, Rebecca Cass, Chantelle Barker, Sandy Sinclair, Jenny Tiernan, what can I say? I will say it here: I reckon it is the greatest team on the 5th floor. We have a lot of laughs, we work hard. Mark, you do a great job putting up with me - everybody does. Really my heartfelt thanks for all of the work that you do and the support that you give me.
My electorate officer Ryan Neve. Ryan, I know I keep saying I need to spend more time in the electorate office, but you do a great job out there. Jarna, Ryan’s sister, is going to start work this year whilst Ryan goes off on a well earned break in Europe. Erin Grace, Dan Grace, Tom Gunner and Gul Baqar – thank you for all your support in my electorate office. You are a great bunch of people and I only wish sometimes that I was 21 or 22 years old again.
To my branch, the Casuarina Branch, president Charlie Phillips, Catherine Phillips, Andrew Fyles, Costa Karaolias, George Mu and Eunice de Ramos. A great branch and, again, thank you all for your support. A fantastic growth in membership this year. The branch is really going from strength to strength and to the gang at the Casuarina Branch, thank you for your support.
To the Clerk and Assembly staff. They do a fantastic job keeping this place running, Table Papers Office, Hansard, and Parliamentary Library. For me, as Leader of Government Business, this place runs so smoothly; you do a great job, thank you very much.
Parliamentary Counsel, what a huge workload they have had this year drafting an extraordinary amount of detailed legislation. They do a huge job. It is not glamorous. It is unsung, but without them we would not be here. We would not see legislation progress, so to Parliamentary Counsel, thank you.
To the drivers who carry us around – Gary, Wayne - Wayne, thanks for the tomatoes; they are fantastic – John, Hardy, Thor and George – a fantastic job. Real salt of the earth people and thank you for your support this year.
Chief Minister, and my Cabinet and caucus colleagues, I am very proud to be part of our great team and thank you for your support. To Madam Speaker and other members of this House, Merry Christmas and we will see you back here in February.
Finally, to my family, to my wife Stacey, two boys Alasdair and Liam and little baby, Isabel - not really a baby any more, she is three years of age. I would not be here without your support and I am really looking forward to three weeks in Newcastle on the beach and in the surf. You really deserve it. I wish everybody here a very Merry Christmas and we will see you in February.
Mr ELFERINK (Macdonnell): Mr Deputy Speaker, I will just begin by saying, I hope that he enjoys his three weeks because any minister of the Crown, especially with senior portfolios, no matter how much we like to abuse them and yell at them, the fact is that they work like dogs. My hat is off to you. Have a good holiday and Merry Christmas to you and yours.
Members: Hear, hear!
Mr ELFERINK: Tonight I talk about a great little success in my electorate. I want to start off and talk about the Tidy Towns elected citizen year of the year, Daphne Puntjina. I am having dinner with Daphne at the moment, out at Speaker’s Corner. She is as proud as punch and as she well may be. Not only did she get citizen of the year, but small community of the year is Utju, or Areyonga, and they are as proud as punch of that great achievement.
I just want to touch on Daphne for a while, Mr Deputy Speaker. She is an extraordinary woman, she puts in enormous passion to her community for Aboriginal people. I am sure you are aware that community and family are vitally important, almost more important than the individual in many of the cultures, and good luck to her. I have to pass on my great regards as well to Helen Webb from that community, the council CEO. They have done a great job out there. I pass on my fondest regards to Daphne and the whole team out there for doing a wonderful, wonderful job. Their award is well deserved. Great congratulations to Daphne because she put in an enormous amount of work into that community. She is one of the stalwarts.
One of the things that I have discovered over the six years of being the member for Macdonnell is that you do develop a great affection for your electorate. I have discovered that as time passes and the more time I spend out in the bush, the barriers of understanding between myself and people who live in my electorate are breaking down, and I am having great relationships with these folks. I have to say that it was something I really did not expect and my life is enriched because of it.
I know that we in town can tend to become a little bit cynical about traditional people, especially when we see traditional people come into our communities. You see them sitting in the streets and those sorts of things and you get frustrated about them, but also for them. Then you go into the communities, and you see a community like Areyonga which functions well and has a great council and great passion, and you cannot help but develop a great affection for those folk and that is what I have done, and I am grateful for it. I am a better person for it and I am surprised, but very, very pleasantly.
I also pass on my thanks to the staff as usual. Stokesy, Gaddy, and everybody else. Of course I am going to forget somebody so I will stop while I can, because otherwise I am going to make a fool of myself. I would like to thank the Clerk, especially. Once again, his advice has been the advice of a stalwart - never wrong, always well researched. I am immensely grateful to him for yet again providing me exactly the right advice at exactly the right time without fear or favour. He is an enormous support to this place. I am sure that without him, this place would grind to a halt some days.
Hansard staff, I know you are listening up there. Thank you. You turn my speeches, which are rambling meanders through the English language, into something vaguely comprehensible, and I thank you for your efforts. You are very kind folks, especially the editing staff up there. Every ‘um, ah’ and stutter is completely removed. I hope that you all have a very great Christmas.
I thank my own staff; I had two this year. Jan Darby who, unfortunately due to a contract that she was signed up to - part of the contract had written in it: ‘in sickness and in health’ - had to leave me. She is now living in Queensland, but I will pass on this recorded Christmas message to her and wish her the very best. Katie Whitecross is my new electorate officer. All I can say is, ‘Yay!’ which is her favourite expression and should be recorded for all eternity in our Hansard because I think it is a wonderful expression. So to Katie, ‘Yay!’, and I am looking forward to working with you.
I also wish a Merry Christmas to all parliamentarians. I know that from time to time we get grizzly and want to punch each other’s lights out, and we have photos on dartboards, and those sorts of things. I genuinely wish everybody a Merry Christmas. The work we do in here, I know that sometimes you shake your head and think, ‘Oh, my God, what is this all about?’ but I never lose sight of one fact, and that is we do have a system of democracy that does stop people getting killed. People forget that the only other way to change a government without an election is down the muzzle of a gun.
This may look like a circus some days. This may look like the weirdest thing you have ever seen. I think it was Winston Churchill who said, ‘Democracy is the worst system except for every other system’, and I know how he feels. So, to every member in this House, thank you for giving me a safe place to live; safe in the sense that it is not in total turmoil and anarchy, or it is not under some sort of onerous rule. That is an important thing to remember in the job that we do.
Also to Kylie, if you steal my lunch one more time, I am seriously going to suggest that we find something to do with you. So, Kylie, I know you are listening, and I want you to understand that my lunch is not yours.
Finally, of course, I wish to pass on my love, as I do at this time every year, to my wife. Once again, she has been a sterling support to me. What I would do without her, I have no idea. I wish that I could be a better husband sometimes. I have my foibles and shortcomings, and I know I do, but I will try to be, as I suggest every year, a better husband. But thank you for being there, honey. You mean the world to me. I put you through a lot, and even through the course of this week, we had the little upset, or not upset, but publicity, which does bring fear of what will happen next. Yet, I turn around, and there you are.
So, thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and Merry Christmas to you as well.
Mr BONSON (Millner): Mr Deputy Speaker, Merry Christmas and Season’s Greetings to all members of this House. I wish to speak about friends, family and work colleagues who have assisted me. I send my regards to them and their families, and wish them a Merry Christmas.
To my wife, Mona-Lisa, thank you very much for supporting me during the year. It has been another year of hard work, but hopefully there have been a lot of positive returns for both your and me, and our families. Without you it would be very hard to achieve anything, but you always give me support and I appreciate it very much. Merry Christmas to you.
Merry Christmas to my mother, Rosanne, sister Nicole, brother Luke, nephew Cohen and brother-in-law Lewie. Merry Christmas to all my family: Uncle Don and Vicki and kids, Dooki, Annie and Gregory, and their families; Uncle Kenny, Cain and Jacob; Uncle Johnnie, Jason and John Jr; Aunty Betsie, Uncle Ian, Ann-Marie, Tanya, Cecil, Sheree and Cyril and all their families. To both Aunty Patsy’s, I wish you a Merry Christmas; Joe and Rodney, and wives and family; Aunty Lynette and family; Uncle Alan and Aunty Dorrie; all my cousins, nephews, nieces, and godchildren. I wish you a Merry Christmas and thanks for your support during the year, and no doubt I will appreciate it in the years to come.
Merry Christmas to all my branch, in particular, John, Adele, Cathy, Darryl, Peter, Steve, Rosanne and Joe. I thank them for their tireless work within the branch, and all the hard work they do around the community, and the support that they provide me. Merry Christmas to Brett and all other members I have not mentioned here tonight, a Merry Christmas.
To my colleagues at the Legislative Assembly, all the staff who work in the Clerk’s office, Hansard, and security staff.
To my schools, the Millner school, the principal Ron Argoon, and all the staff and teachers - fantastic job this year. Millner is a much safer, happier community with all the hard work that you do. To Millner Preschool, Merry Christmas to all staff. Ludmilla Primary School - Donna Menchen, Ingrid Clarke and Carmel Lawrence, and in particular, Damien Zammitt. Thanks for the work of Neighbourhood Watch, Ted and Jack and all other Neighbourhood Watch members, thank you very much for the work that you put in.
The Seniors Community Hall – Maureen, Audrey, Bill and the gang, and of course, Betty. Thanks for all the hard work that you have put in over the last year. It has been a very fruitful year and you are a very strong part of the community in the Hazell Court and Reynolds Court area of Coconut Grove.
To all the office volunteers who come in and donate their own time during the week to make sure the Millner electorate and the people of Darwin, I suppose, are properly represented. They are Janet Roe, Aunty Dottie Daby, Aunty Joan Angeles and Maureen Hack. Thank you very much for coming in and doing the newsletters.
To all the local families and community members – and when I say local families, I mean those long-term local families who live in the Millner electorate. People such as the Billias’, the Ah Mats, Ah Sams, Coles, Cubillos, Willie Markos and family, Michael Gregory, Dot Baban, the Grants, Joe Daby, Norm Hoffman, the Whites, Mrs Lee and family. In those groups of people you represent what the better part of Darwin and the Northern Territory community is all about.
To all the families on the RAAF Base, particularly Wing Commander Doug Phelan, thanks for all your support, and to all the ADF families. As a local person, you come to appreciate the effort that the Australian Defence Force families put into the Territory community, not only economically, but socially.
To all the members of the Bagot community and Bagot Council, in particular the president, just recently re-elected, Darryl Cooktown, council members Helen Fejo, Edwina, Wayne, Natalie Hayward, Joy White, Valamina White and Don White. A fantastic effort this year. You have put in a lot of hard work. Merry Christmas to you all and I hope you have a happy New Year. To all the shop staff under Leslie Dee: a fantastic effort provided to the community. The Bagot medical clinic that, unfortunately, had a loss of their manager, Parmas Pillay. I am wishing that everyone has a Merry Christmas and a joyful festive season. To James Dellas, the new Community Development Officer on Bagot community, Merry Christmas to you and your family.
To all the Mu family at Happy Foodland at Rapid Creek Shopping Centre – Victor, Marty, Paulo and George and all their wives and children, and Mr Mu Snr, I hope you have a Merry Christmas and festive season.
To Allan, Anne and John, and all the management staff at the Rapid Creek Shopping Centre. They do a fantastic job there and at the Sunday markets too. Merry Christmas to you and your families.
To all the staff at the Indigenous Sports Council, led by Chookie McDowell, Merry Christmas to you. The Yilli Rreung Council chair, Eddie Cubillo and all council members, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I hope to be working closely with you again over the next year to achieve positive outcomes.
To all my friends, Timmy, Wally, Paddy, Stem and Jack Edwards, and their families, wives, girlfriends, and children – I wish them the best of luck. To Michael Devery, Stewie O’Connell, Glen Dooley, Joe Ah Sam, Patrick and Mick Stevenson, and all the touch gang – Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Paul, Stephen, Sally and Damien – thanks for your help over the year and I appreciate your help in the coming year. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
To all the local basketball team – we are top of the ladder there. I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I missed playing there last night, but no doubt we will win the grand final on 13 December. That is Simon, Larry Hammell, Derrick Lu, Shane Garven, Jason Robinson and family.
To the businesses in my electorate – Allan Anderson, John at Bagot BP service station, the Jape family, Pat Burns at Darwin Tennis Centre and Bruce at Bruce’s Barbecue Charcoal Chicken: Merry Christmas to you and your wife and all your family. To Rui and Stu. I went to high school with Rui and he has been fantastic contributor to the Millner electorate. Merry Christmas to you and your family.
To the gang at Minmarama Park: the Hopkins families, the Guys, uncle John and other community members, a Merry Christmas and happy festive season. Enjoy yourself and, most of all, take care.
To PJ at the E-Cruz – thanks for all the good work you have done with the youth in the Millner electorate and Nightcliff electorate. I look forward to encouraging it to be expanded throughout the northern suburbs and rural regions.
To Michael McLean, John McLean, Paul and Steven Carne, fantastic work with the young people in the electorate and throughout Darwin. To the team at FM 94.5, the manager, Jurgen Mulzer, Paula Arnol, Jeanneen McLennan, June Mills, Rico, Gazza, Dennis Lew Fat, Dominic McCormack, and Patsy, Merry Christmas to you all and a Happy New Year.
To the gang at the residence of 141 Dick Ward Drive. The government has spent a lot of money refurbishing the Housing Commission units there and the result is sensational. I hope your families, your children and your grandchildren have a fantastic Christmas period and a festive season. To the Rapid Creek Landcare volunteers, thanks for all your assistance during the year and all the work that you do down at Rapid Creek, I think it is fantastic. It is a real community event. I wish you the best for the new year and Merry Christmas.
To residents in Litchfield Court, thanks for the support over the last two years and your attendance at the barbeques and functions that we hold at Litchfield Court. I enjoy working with all residents there and representing with housing and other issues.
Mr Deputy Speaker, in summary I wish all the people who have assisted me and assisted the community to make Darwin, and the Northern Territory, a better place, a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I hope that we have a productive 2004. I hope that everyone comes back fit, healthy and refreshed and thinking positively about the future.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I would like to endorse the Speaker’s comments earlier that we keep it short. I must say at big thank you to my electorate officer, Jenny, and Liz who comes on Friday, and to Leah who occasionally comes during the year, and also to Lorraine, who is the research officer for both the Speaker and me. I also have to thank my wife, Imelda. As I said before, I now have to get permission to come home and show an ID card, but she still recognises me, thank heavens!
So, on behalf of the Speakers and the Independents, I would like to wish everyone a happy Christmas and a safe new year.
Motion agreed to; the Assembly adjourned.
Last updated: 04 Aug 2016