Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Bill 2006
Reverend the Hon. Dr GORDON MOYES: My contribution certainly will not be as colourful as that of the previous speaker. I am pleased to speak on behalf of the Christian Democratic Party to the Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Bill. The object of the bill is to amend the Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999 with respect to sentencing for crimes committed against public transport workers or community workers such as surf lifesavers. Not one day passes without some act of violence being reported in the media. The newspapers are full of awful accounts of violence exacted on people for one reason or another. Because of that I have introduced a bill providing for on-the-spot breath, blood and urine tests, if needs be, for bouncers in hotels and other places who assault patrons. Some people have died as a result of these attacks, including the Australian cricketer David Hookes. Last weekend a similar violent attack occurred in Brisbane resulting in a death. Sadly — and this can be said with absolute certainty — the episodes of violence that are brought to the public’s attention do not accurately reflect the reality or extent of the level of violence in our communities.
It is interesting to note a recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald indicating that people in our communities are generally feeling safer. The Institute of Criminology has reported that the crime level has been declining and that the prison population has been increasing. In 1984 there were 88 inmates for every 100,000 Australians, but by 2004 that figure had jumped to 158. In other words, there has been a 5 per cent increase in the number of prisoners in New South Wales prisons every year. The correlation is clear. It could be said that the number of prisoners is inversely related to the number of crimes perpetrated in the community. That is a curious fact.
The institute’s report also made it clear that from 1996 to 2003 there had been a steady increase in the number of assaults committed. With that in mind, it is timely that we are debating this bill tonight. The bill makes amendments to the Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999 with respect to sentencing for crimes committed against public transport workers or community workers, such as surf lifesavers in particular. Obviously that is a reference to the Cronulla riots. We have also seen in the press many reports about attacks on bus drivers and others. I recently spoke to a train driver who recounted the number of times he has faced large pieces of concrete and stones thrown from the side of the tracks into his train window.
The media reporting of the Cronulla riots catapulted into the public’s consciousness the sinister side of human nature. It is said that an assault on a lifesaver prompted these riots. Regardless of the reasons behind the riots—and I will not take the simplistic approach that it is the only reason, although it did spark an incredible response—it is clear that those who assault people in vulnerable positions, such as lifesavers, should be heavily reprimanded. I have grandchildren who are lifesavers and I know the amount of time they spend preparing, training and keeping fit to volunteer their time on Saturdays and Sundays to patrol public beaches. One of my grandsons gets up at 4.10 a.m. every day to go to training. They are incredibly devoted to the role of lifesaving in the community.
A study by economists the Allen Consulting Group made some insightful statements about the economic and social value of surf lifesaving in Australia. One approach to valuing surf lifesaving by this group found that the total value of surf lifesavers in 2003-04 was just over $1.4 billion, translating to approximately $42,000 per lifesaver in Australia. The study found that surf lifesavers in Australia save 485 people from drowning each year and protect another 313 from serious injury, and that they volunteer more than 1.4 million hours to keep our beaches safe. In New South Wales, in particular, the report valued the lives saved and assisted at $723.2 million every year. Lifesavers in New South Wales patrol, on average, for 833,134 hours a year. Those patrol hours have an input value of $29.4 million.
In addition, surf lifesavers make an immeasurable contribution to our nation’s social capital. Lifesavers make a contribution to the community through, amongst other things, increased valuable social networks, decreased mortality, decreased crime and increased tourism. Clearly, protecting the safety and wellbeing of our surf lifesaving volunteers is imperative. This legislation recognises the value and position of surf lifesavers in the community by providing that attacks against them should be seen as more serious than other attacks. The legislation will make assaulting a lifeguard an aggravating factor, with offenders to face the tougher end of the penalty scale.
The legislation also recognises the vulnerability that bus drivers and others like them are subjected to because of the nature of their job. The Christian Democratic Party supports the unions in their move to achieve good, safe working conditions. Assaults on bus drivers are not new. However, in the past year a number of particularly vicious attacks on bus drivers have occurred. Strikeforce Squid was set up last year to investigate attacks on State Transit bus drivers. One driver was slashed on the forearm with what appears to be a Stanley knife, and in June last year a bus driver was bashed with a knuckleduster and slashed on the leg with a sharp implement for $112 while driving in Sydney’s southwest.
The transport union raised with the Government the fact that transport workers should be recognised as a valuable and vulnerable category of workers. Currently, when a court sentences a person for an offence of which he or she has been found guilty, under section 21A of the Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999 the court is to take into account a number of matters in determining that sentence. Those matters include certain aggravating factors and certain mitigating factors that are relevant and known to the court. The court is also to take into account any other objective or subjective factor that affects the relative seriousness of the offence. All these factors are prescribed by section 21A and are inclusive—allowing for matters to be referred to by any other Act or rule of law—rather than exclusive in nature.
The bill makes it clear that section 21A (2), which lists aggravating factors in sentencing, is extended to a bus driver or other public transport worker. As I indicated earlier, it is important for the whole community that unionists working in public fields such as public transport are able to work in a safe environment. The bill also makes it clear that the current provision — which makes it a factor of aggravation in sentencing that the person was a community worker and the offence arose because of the victim’s occupation — extends to volunteer community workers, such as surf lifesavers, where the offence occurred in the course of the victim’s voluntary work. Transport workers will join taxi drivers, bank tellers and service station attendants in being afforded added protection under the Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999. I cannot understand how the Hon. Dr Arthur Chesterfield-Evans can say that the bill is extremely bad legislation. The outcomes are intended to be good for a vulnerable group of people. As the Parliamentary Secretary indicated in his speech in the Legislative Assembly:
Volunteer community workers such as lifesavers should receive as much protection as community workers who are paid for their contribution; and transport workers, who should not have to put up with being assaulted by doing their job, deserve the additional protection of the law as well.
The Christian Democratic Party has no hesitation in commending the bill to the House.