Ms BADGER (Lyons) – Deputy Speaker, I thank the minister’s office and members of Tasmania Police, who were exceptionally generous in their time, offering us a briefing and a vast number of examples. It is a shame that this bill has been blurred with the knife crime bill that we looked at last week. That is evident in a number of the submissions, where aspects of this bill, which was explained through the briefing, may have been intended to be more administrative or closing a gap, rather than tough on crime, as the knife crime was a little bit further leaning towards.
Notwithstanding that, aspects of this bill which double the penalties for some crimes are again proposed without proper investment into programs that are deterrents, not just being heavier on fines and a threat of more jail to deter. It is surprising that for a bill that has ‘hooning’ in its title, there are absolutely no submissions from the automotive sector, insurance companies or driver training programs. I wonder if that is because it was confused with the knife crime bill?
I am a little bit disappointed. I thought we were going to have a bill fully about hooning, and I was very excited about that, but it is a little bit more eclectic than just hooning. That is just one component of the bill, which is also increasing penalties for common assault, unlawful entry to land and comprising of some parts of the act that are being proposed. There is, of course, also – wait for it – a new law which I did not think this government was for, after a couple of their antics last week, but here we are.
On the increase of penalties, as we have repeatedly seen in this place and as multiple research projects from across the globe have shown, simply increasing penalties for a crime is not a solid deterrent. This bill, in particular, is asking parliament to approve a doubling of the maximum penalty units and a 50 per cent increase in maximum prison time for a significant number of unrelated offences, and very little justification is provided beyond a broad comparison to other states and territories. If this government was serious about reviewing penalties, would not the Sentencing Advisory Council be the appropriate body to undertake that work? There should be evidence for penalty increases. In this case, there is none.
I would also query whether it is the role of police to propose such a significant range of penalty increases. As far as I understand, this has not come from the Department of Justice. I would like to read from TasCOSS’s submission on the penalty increases. On page 7 it says:
The underlying assumption of the proposed changes in this bill is that increased penalties will reduce offending. However, academic research into sentencing and its impact on criminal behaviour show that this is not always the case.
TasCOSS also states their concern about the disproportionate impact of fines on people on low incomes, noting academic research demonstrates the inherent unfairness of imposing financial penalties as punishment, as the impact of such penalties is significantly harsher for those on low incomes. They go on further:
We recommend that the Tasmanian Government focuses on strategies and initiatives to prevent crime and investing in community-based services to support people with underlying needs contributing to criminal behaviour such as unaddressed mental health issues, alcohol and other drug use or homelessness.
On unlawful entry to land, the proposed doubling of the penalty – or tripling if someone has a firearm – was explained at the request of a stakeholder. I am wondering if we can see the criminal statistics that back that proposed necessary change. This was spruiked as a benefit in the case where a property owner may perhaps have a family violence order in place, in which case there would be a breach of the order and possible other offences depending on those circumstances.
I want to highlight that what Tasmania really needs in such an example is that long-promised review of the Family Violence Act. We need to consolidate the act and ensure that it is fit for purpose, and to improve any related police legislation harmoniously and strategically, not just have those improvements scattered across other bills such as the hooning bill. That also applies to the increase in hurt caused to an animal, as Ms Butler touched on.
The increased penalties for assault and property offences are, as noted, disproportionate to the seriousness of the offence. Yes, other states have some penalties for comparable pieces of legislation, but at a Tasmanian scale of economics, what is being proposed is beyond reasonable, nor is it effective in deterring offending. For several of the proposed amendments, there are other parts of the Police Offences Act that would apply. anyway.
Onto the actual hooning part: I will read from the Tasmanian Law Society’s submission:
The offence is committed if it results in another person feeling alarmed, distressed, apprehensive or fearful, including as a result of verbal abuse or threatening or obscene gestures (having regard to the definition of “driving related act”).
The words ‘alarm’, ‘distress’, ‘apprehensive’ and ‘fearful’ are extremely broad and cannot be measured objectively, which may result in a person claiming to feel distressed, alarmed, apprehensive or fearful in circumstances where it is objectively not reasonable. As an example, a person who is shown the middle finger by another driver may claim to have been alarmed, placing the driver at risk of arrest without warrant, fined or imprisoned.
There are other jurisdictions that have hooning and road rage offences that are much more specific to the behaviour or actions that have been criminalised than what we see before us. I know the minister spoke about New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory. Specifically in New South Wales, the definition of predatory and menacing driving is very clear:
Predatory driving offence is driving to pursue another vehicle intending to cause a collision or impact between two vehicles, and intending by that course of conduct to cause a person in the other vehicle actual bodily harm.
Menacing driving is driving in a way that is meant to threaten or appear threatening to another person or property.
Menacing driving is listed as an offence under the Road Transport Act 2013 (NSW).
What we have before us is trying to fill a legislative hole similar to that in New South Wales, but it is still far too broad. What we have here is a list of prescribed actions that are wide ranging, emotive and open to subjective interpretation. There is risk of subconscious bias for the offensive behaviour causing alarm, distress and fear. That is an incredibly low bar to set when paired with the low threshold for the use of profane or insulting words or an obscene gesture, which means that a wide range of relatively tame behaviours could see the potential for six months’ imprisonment.
This offence, as written, blurs the line between dangerous driving and impolite or subjectively perceived offensive behaviour. Most of the other listed circumstances, as in the horrific example that the minister used in his second reading speech, could be dealt with under other parts of existing legislation. The road rules capture dangerous driving and reckless driving. As with most other offences in the bill that is being put forward, there is existing legislation for it.
On motor vehicle theft, the bill increases the penalty to 100 penalty units, so around $20,200. If you are stealing a car, you probably cannot afford that sort of fine. Career car thieves were given as an example. Could the minister could please table some statistics from the last few years that show the number of career car thieves in the state? I also note that if there are any wealthy career car thieves that have been convicted of these offences, then they are likely to have their wealth confiscated under other proceeds of crime legislation.
Disposing of the confiscated vehicle – section 37H – is moving from one month to two months, and that certainly has merit. In regard to section 37N – the clamping and confiscation of vehicles, I am not sure if it was a late April Fool’s joke or something, but there is a very interesting ABC article where in Western Australia under comparable legislation, the Western Australia Police actually seized a Maserati and proceeded to put signage on it as a form of education. It is a little bit questionable. I want to discourage Tasmania Police from doing that here because we do not have many Maseratis here. We do not want to end up with a ton of early model Corollas on the streets with signage. It is not quite going to have the same effect.
Mr Ellis – It is a Commodore I think. We use it on the skip van.
Ms BADGER – Oh, Commodore? I think we should do better, minister Ellis. Where are our Ferraris?
On Section 37Y – the forfeiture of vehicles – these provisions shift from court‑based evidence, so ‘has been found offending’, to police power, substituting the words ‘has reasonable grounds for believing’. This was justified as helping to clear the court backlog by providing the police with these extra powers.
Certainly, we do not disagree that there is a need to clear the court backlog, but increasing police powers is not necessarily the way to go forward. What we should be doing, again, is dealing with the underlying factors of people in Tasmania’s society that are committing crime.
The example given was of being able to confiscate vehicles if there is footage of the offence being committed with a clear view of the number plate. That was a persuasive argument, but importantly that is not the only thing this bill provides for. This bill is providing for reasonable belief. We know from phase one of the recent police wanding trial that 50 persons were searched for the dangerous article on grounds of reasonable belief, and about 10 of those had a dangerous article, so that is 20 per cent.
I have now seen a media release from the phase two statistics, and the new statistics seem to be just shy of 25 per cent. Many Tasmanians would no doubt consider being able to confiscate vehicles on clear video evidence reasonable, but the number of people who would consider that reasonable would likely steeply decline if they were told only 25 per cent of those vehicles confiscated were actually involved in the commission of an offence.
There are some good parts of this bill that we fully support, such as the inclusion of public transport as a public place, just as taxis already are, and mobile phones being included under computer offences. I note in relation to mobile phones – are the police not already operating on the basis that phones are included as computers? Of course they are; it is 2025. Police are already empowered to remove people from public transport if a bus driver has directed the offending parties to get off the bus.
While the Greens absolutely support aspects of the reforms in this bill, none of them are essential and they tend to offer minor benefits. The reforms that we do support do not outweigh the issues that we have with this bill.
