Alexander Marc: General Debates 
Alexander Marc: General Debates 
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MARC ALEXANDER (United Future) 
: 
 I rise to debate the very serious issue of the ability of parliamentary members to act on behalf of constituents. The Hon Nick Smith has been the focus of attention during the last few days because of his comments over a Family Court matter. He has been threatened with prosecution because he spoke up on behalf of processes prejudicial to constituents. My argument is certainly not directed against the Family Court; nor is it directed against this Government. Rather my point in this debate is to question the ability of members of Parliament to be able to advocate adequately on behalf of constituents. If members of Parliament cannot fight for the rights of constituents who can?  
I have a case in mind. On 22 March 2003 Matthew Exeter showed up at the door of his neighbour’s house and after threatening to kill himself was let in by those concerned neighbours. During the course of the next hour he threw a kitchen knife at a 5-year-old—narrowly missing him—threatened the homeowner with a knife was violent and abusive and admitted he had snuck into their home on previous occasions. That was the first crime. The police showed up the next day after the emergency operator criticised the residents for not staying by the phone while they were trying to protect their young child. That was the second crime. But it is the final insult that I wish to speak to tonight. The victims were told to present themselves at a family conference and were given only 1 working day’s notice. They were not given a choice. They were told that if they did not show up the offender Matthew Exeter could be let out that very day. They were entitled to go to the conference without having to be in the same room as the offender and the support people. They were told against the advice I had obtained for them that they had to be in the same room. They were told that support people could not speak for them. Again that was false.  
During the course of the conference the victims felt unsafe—and with good reason. The legal guardians of Matthew Exeter the grandparents were in absolute denial about their grandson’s offences—originally 13 of them but whittled down to eight including two for attempted murder and six for assault with a weapon. The grandfather Kevin Exeter principal of Parkview School in Parklands lunged at one of the victims and had to be physically restrained by the police twice. The grandmother Lesley Exeter who not only founded Tough Love but was awarded the Queen’s Service Medal in the New Year’s Honours List 1999 was abusive belligerent and intimidating. At the conclusion of this conference—a conference where the victims were intimidated physically threatened and abused—the following suggestions were given: reparation was to be paid for damages but not for the damages to the car because apparently they were consequential; 60 hours—a miserable number—of community service were to be served; a curfew—unenforceable—between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. was to be reviewed after a month; Matthew Exeter was to reside with the obviously dysfunctional grandparents; and a recommendation was given by the social worker that as Matthew Exeter had already spent 2 months at Kingslea he would get no more time there.  
This begs the larger question: why did Matthew Exeter get dealt with as a youth when if he had actually killed somebody he would have been treated as an adult? Does that mean we reward incompetence? Are we saying that if 16-year-olds bungle attempts to murder we deal with them as children but if they succeed then they are adults? This is a person faced with charges of threatening to kill assault with a weapon and wilful damage who will in all likelihood be returned to his dysfunctional grandparents—Lesley Exeter who even went on  
Holmes 
 show as the result of her service to the community with the Tough Love organisation and who was a recipient of a Queen’s honour and Kevin Exeter a school principal who abused and had to be restrained by the police twice—but that is OK because he was young and incompetent in the commission of his intended stated crime of killing the victims and then himself. The victims were so scared that they could not come to the courthouse yesterday morning to face the proceedings and they will be selling up and going off to live in another city.  
I ask members to tell me who the victim is in this case. If I could not invoke it under parliamentary privilege no one in Parliament would be any the wiser. MPs must be free to represent their constituents’ interests without resorting to parliamentary privilege and it is for this reason that I will not be commenting further on this particular case outside the House. The issue of victims’ rights must take precedence over the issues of secrecy and privacy which clearly protect the guilty. Victims must come first and that is the point.