Boscawen John: Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee 
Boscawen John: Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee 
[Volume:675;Page:21335] 
Hon JOHN BOSCAWEN (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 The Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) is a relatively short bill. Of course it has wide-ranging provisions. It deals with property offences as we have just heard from Mr Chauvel and it also deals with the ill-treatment or lack of defence provided to children and vulnerable adults. I will speak on the latter issue. The bill seeks to protect children and vulnerable adults—the elderly and the mentally handicapped—from assault neglect and ill-treatment. It does so by creating a liability for people who are not actively involved in the mistreatment but who have frequent contact with a child or a vulnerable adult and fail to protect them from mistreatment by others while having knowledge of that mistreatment. So they are with these young children or vulnerable adults and although they may not be actively involved in the mistreatment directly they are aware of it and they fail to move to protect those vulnerable children or adults. We have heard extensive arguments in the Chamber this evening in support of that position. 
The ACT Party will be voting for this bill and as Mr Chauvel just said Labour will be voting for this bill but I take this opportunity to speak to a typescript amendment in my name on behalf of the ACT Party. Earlier this evening we were talking about the Spending Cap (People’s Veto) Bill being a consequence of the confidence and supply agreement that the ACT Party entered into with National soon after the general election. One of the early achievements of that confidence and supply agreement was our three-strikes legislation which the National Government supported. That legislation has been an outstanding success since its introduction. 
My amendment incorporates the provision for the failure to protect a vulnerable child or adult into the three-strikes legislation. Specifically my amendment would add subsection (3) to new section 195 to define someone who intentionally engages in conduct that is likely to cause suffering injury adverse effects to health or any mental disorder or disability to a child or vulnerable adult or equally someone who engages in conduct and omits to do an activity that would bring that conduct to a halt. The penalty under new section 195(1) would impose a penalty of up to 10 years imprisonment. As the Committee will be aware all offences that carry imprisonment terms of 7 years or more are defined as a “strike” offence. The ACT Party believes that the three-strikes legislation should apply to the provisions of the Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) and I have put forward a very simple amendment for that. 
I mentioned earlier that the three-strikes legislation had been an outstanding success and I heard some sniggers from the Opposition—[ 
Interruption 
] Now we hear them again. Opposition members should go out and speak informally to the judiciary. Certainly we in the ACT Party have feedback that the judiciary does support the legislation. It is having an effect. Members of the judiciary are using the opportunity when a judge registers a conviction against someone for the first “strike” to remind that offender of the consequences of repeating that offence. It has been a great success. It is having an impact on crime— 
David Shearer 
: Ha! 
Hon JOHN BOSCAWEN 
: You can ignore it if you wish but I would suggest to you— 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Order! 
Hon JOHN BOSCAWEN 
: Apologies Mr Chairperson. I would suggest to members of the Opposition that if they have a genuine interest in crime the causes of crime and how we can reduce the incidence of crime—