Statutes Amendment (Serious and Organised Crime) Bill
29/07/2015
The Hon. K.L. VINCENT: I want to begin by making it clear that Dignity for Disability believes that those involved in criminal activity should be dealt with in the strongest possible and necessary manner. However, the bill that we now have before us, the amendments that we now have before us at this late stage are not the way to do it and this evening is not the time to do it.
Members may have seen in the media that we did have some sympathy for original opposition amendments, particularly those which dealt with the fact that physical addresses of suspected bikie premises are printed in legislation. We had a lot of sympathy for those amendments and we were considering them very seriously, because this is not the type of decision we should make lightly.
However, thanks to a deal that has been done behind closed doors between the two major parties, those amendments have now apparently been superseded and instead we have new amendments that were, as the previous speaker pointed out, placed on our desks at some point before 2.15 this afternoon when we all came into the chamber and, therefore, we have not had the opportunity to properly consider the outcome of these amendments or the ramifications of these amendments. We certainly have not had time to consult with our constituents about these amendments, and so it would be frankly irresponsible of us to pass these amendments when we have not had the time to properly consider the ramifications.
Of course, there have been occasions when Dignity for Disability has been quite happy to speedily pass legislation or amendments but they are in very restricted circumstances; circumstances when not passing an amendment or a piece of legislation would result in a risk to public health, for example. I can recall a situation when it was discovered that there was a loophole in the domestic violence protection legislation that allowed perpetrators of domestic violence to get the contact details of people they had previously perpetrated violence against. That kind of situation is exactly the kind of situation where we are happy to speedily pass amendments to close those kind of loopholes.
However, where a backroom deal is done without consultation and, as my parliamentary colleague the Hon. Mr Parnell says, without the courtesy of letting the rest of the parliament know the nature of the deal that has been struck and the nature of the amendments that we now have before us, it is irresponsible of us to pass this legislation.
Let me be very clear about this. As has already been pointed out, putting the addresses of physical residences in legislation, some of which have already been proven to be incorrect addresses, is dangerous. I get visions of my poor mother sitting home having a cup of tea, watching Deal or no Deal, as she is known to do, and having police and officials knock down her door because maybe there was one number wrong in the address or the street name was spelled incorrectly, as has already been proven to be the case, with incorrect addresses and incorrect spelling in the amendments, even the amendments we have before us at this late stage.
It is dangerous to have these addresses particularly printed in legislation, where it is more difficult for us as a parliament to quickly make changes if those addresses are proven to be incorrect. Quite frankly, the police should have to do their job. I am not saying they have not been doing their job, but it is their job to collect evidence about these cases and then present it to a judge in a court. This completely bypasses that process and bypasses basic principles of justice.
Further to my previous point, this is also an insult to parliamentary procedure, it is an insult to this council and a complete insult to the people of South Australia that the Labor government and the Liberal opposition are so disrespectful of South Australians that they would stitch up a deal behind closed doors, as I said, and ram through this legislation, the ramifications of which the majority of this parliament, the rest of this parliament, has not had the opportunity to properly consider.
We know that the Law Society, the Bar Association, the Australian Lawyers Alliance and many other legal bodies and legal minds strongly oppose the concept and principles that this bill enshrines, and for those reasons we oppose the bill. Perhaps there is one more reason this bill needs to be strongly opposed. Not only is it an insult to parliamentary procedure, to good responsible legislative process, and for the safety of people who could have their addresses incorrectly printed in legislation, it is also an affront to our 800-year-old Magna Carta, which states, in chapter 39:
No free man shall be taken or imprisoned or dispossessed or outlawed or exiled or in any way ruined, nor will we go or send against him except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.
This bill, in its current form, does not respect any of those laws. It does not respect proper parliamentary process, proper legislative process, even proper spelling process.
It is flatly irresponsible of this parliament to pass this bill this evening. In saying this, I want to make very clear that Dignity for Disability does want to see those involved in serious criminal activity dealt with in an appropriate serious manner, but this bill, given the flaws it is already proven to have, is not the way to do it. We will oppose this bill at this stage for those reasons.
