Shirley Ken: Criminal Procedure Bill — First Reading 
Shirley Ken: Criminal Procedure Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:618;Page:14220] 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (ACT) 
: 
 The ACT party will be supporting the Criminal Procedure Bill. However the first observation I would make is to ask why we are debating this bill under urgency. There is nothing urgent about it. It has some relatively minor and quite significant points but it could have been dealt with in the normal procedure of the House. I also observe that the Government pulled the plug early yesterday for the lunch break in urgency. It could not go through to 1 o’clock because it did not have enough on the agenda. Last night it tried to pull the plug early at about a quarter past 11 but the ACT party denied it leave to do that. If the Government is to put the House into urgency it should do so because it is serious and it actually has a backlog of urgent matters that need to be cleared. Clearly the Government is in disarray in terms of its procedures. It brings matters of minor consequence to the House and then throws them into urgency for no good reason. That is just bad management by Government. 
The other observation I would make in relation to this bill—and it has already been made but I reinforce the point—is that Part 5 has a wide range of ad hoc matters some of which are reasonable but others are quite unpalatable. The point is that there has been a tendency in drafting particularly with this Government to group and amalgamate a whole range of matters into one part and then under urgency debate the bill part by part to try to save time. I believe that that truncates the right and obligation of the Parliament to debate those issues many of which are stand-alone issues that should not be amalgamated in that way. Perhaps the reason this Government is ramming this stuff through in urgency is that it does not want to stand up to the scrutiny of those detailed matters. 
The ACT party certainly does have concern with the proposal to replace unanimous jury verdicts with majority verdicts. We believe that that could well erode safeguards against wrongful convictions. We welcome some of the changes but others could well erode key rights that protect defendants if the establishment decided to gang up on them—and regrettably it does. 
Judith Collins 
: Like Nick Smith. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: That may well be a case in point. Often the establishment does want to protect its patch and it will gang up. There are some disgraceful examples where the establishment has ganged up. That is the point of having jury trials where peers can stand in judgment and the establishment can be exposed if it is colluding and ganging up in the way in which it presents the case for the prosecution. 
The other concern—and it runs in parallel—is the prosecution’s ability to get a judge-alone trial instead of a jury trial by alleging a threat of intimidation; this is the mechanism the Crown can use and it is an ability that could well be misused. That is the concern. The establishment could well push for a judge-alone trial bypassing that judgment by the peer group which goes to the very foundation of our justice system. 
The issue has been raised with regard to intimidation. On many occasions in this House the Minister has given the example of the person who literally got away with murder on the basis of intimidation. But there are other ways that we could have dealt with that. One good way would be to make the penalty so severe that it is simply not worth it. The risk would outweigh any benefit associated with that sort of behaviour. 
If the Minister of Justice Phil Goff were truly serious about dealing to offenders who corrupt justice he would have to get rid of the so-called right to silence that lets criminals make their lawyers peddle fanciful theories and they are safe from being cross-examined. We put to the Minister of Justice Mr Goff that if he were truly serious he would do away with the provision that allows a defender to declare silence and then his or her lawyer just puts up a whole range of fanciful scenarios—knowingly fanciful in the knowledge that in those circumstances a defender cannot be cross-examined on the veracity of the issues being put up. 
The risk with majority verdicts is worth running. In complex and lengthy cases and where the prosecution alleges threatened intimidation the end to the right to a jury trial will be tempting for justice authorities where they think that a jury might refuse to convict. Jury trials have been a safeguard with unpopular law or where the jury thinks the Government is abusing prosecution powers. Those possibilities are justification for protecting the ancient right to a trial by one’s peers. 
I have expressed a number of concerns the ACT party has with this legislation. However we are prepared to see it proceed to a select committee where we hope that full scrutiny will be given.