Dr WOODRUFF – Deputy Speaker, I was at the point of talking about first charge evidence. I have a few questions for the Attorney-General about the first charge evidence provisions contained in the proposed new section 430 in the Criminal Code. Community Legal Centres Tasmania recommended that this be amended to ensure that acts committed when the accused person was a child be excluded from these provisions.
Mr Barnett – What section are you talking about?
Dr WOODRUFF – The new section 430 in the Criminal Code. They recommended that acts committed when an accused was a child be excluded from these provisions. Can you please explain why the government decided not to adopt this recommendation?
Can the Attorney-General also clarify if this provision would operate if the discontinued first charge related to proceedings against a person when they were a child and the second charge related to alleged conduct while the accused was an adult? How would that provision operate in that situation? It would seem to be a reasonable concern that conduct alleged to have occurred when a person was a child could be used as tendency evidence in relation to alleged offending, potentially decades later. Some clarity on that is important, particularly in light of the commission of inquiry’s comments around this area.
I conclude by thanking the commission of inquiry commissioners. They did an enormous body of work over years, taking evidence from many victim-survivors, doing very thorough work compiling it into a series of recommendations which have led us to this point today. We are here with a bill amending a range of important acts in Tasmania to make sure that, in future, there is protection against child sexual abuse and justice for people who have been abused as children.
It is the work of the commission of inquiry commissioners but, as I mentioned at the beginning, first and foremost, we are only here today because of the evidence given by victim-survivors. Were it not for their evidence and their courage to speak up – the trauma that experience was for many people. For some it provided healing; for others it opened wounds and was itself a traumatic process. I am not sure where those people are today but I thank them on behalf of Tasmanians for being so courageous and sharing those very private experiences. Without that, we would not have had the body of evidence or the motivation society-wide to make the changes we need to make to our governing institutions so that this will never happen again to children in Tasmania.
Attorney-General, I thank you and your staff for the work you have done preparing this bill and the briefings you provided on a range of matters to the Greens. We support the bill.
