Little AndrewHon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): Thank you Mr Chair. If I could just now respond to the latest set of queries. So to the honourable member Tamati Coffey who has raised a couple of questions one about compensation and said effectively why not? Perhaps I'll take the opportunity in answering Mr Coffey's question to answer also Darroch Ball's question.As I understand it it occupied a significant amount of the Justice Committee's time to consider the issue of compensation. Submitters raised it and it's a legitimate question to ask. Given that the law changed people have been tarred with a criminal sanction for conduct that certainly is not criminal today and we would argue should never have been criminal. But that was a less enlightened age and in 1986 we became enlightened.The difficulty with compensation is that there will be different circumstances for different people that might call for varying levels of compensation and that then makes it very complex and very complicated and so the decision was made not to provide for compensation. It would be equally unfair to say Right. Everybody gets the same amount." if the Government were of a mind to do that but that would not take into account the circumstances that some faced. For some the humiliation may have been greater because of the nature of the arrest the circumstances in which they were detained the length of time they were incarcerated and whether or not they were subjected to further prejudice and discrimination while they were in the State's custody. So there's huge complexity about a formula to achieve compensation and in the end the judgment was that it was just too hard.I think Mr Ball makes a very important point which is that right now we have compensation for those who are imprisoned wrongfully and it is then discovered that the offence for which they are imprisoned they actually never committed. They never committed that act which led to the conviction that led to them being imprisoned. They should therefore never have been detained at all in prison and they are compensated for that.What we're doing here is saying that there was conduct that was regarded as criminal conduct once upon a time in our history whether we now agree with that or not. We clearly disagree with it now because in 1986 we passed a law saying that that conduct is no longer criminal. Now we are taking the further step of saying that those who were criminalised by that conduct but who were otherwise innocent we are going to expunge the record of that criminality. But the act happened. The conduct happened. We might be able to expunge the criminal record but we can't expunge the act that in fact took place.That segues nicely into the second question asked by Mr Coffey which was the difference between an expungement and a pardon. The expungement means off the criminal record. It says "This record should not exist. We've made the enlightened decision that even though you were convicted because of the conduct that you engaged in at a time when that conduct was criminal it is no longer criminal. You should not continue to carry the shame and humiliation of a criminal record because in this day and age we don't regard that conduct as criminal so we will expunge the record."A pardon applies where you were accused of conduct which was criminal but you were later discovered to have never committed that conduct and therefore should never have been criminalised in that sort of way. So that is why we talk about expungement in these circumstances. We don't talk about a pardon because the conduct in fact happened even though that conduct happening today would not be criminal and would therefore not attract a criminal sanction. But there is that difference. On that basis I think the committee has done a very good job in distilling out what is the appropriate action to take. It is an expungement and that gets us to where we are.I know Mr Coffey referred to the petition that also called upon the Parliament to make an apology to those convicted. The Hon Amy Adams was the Minister who took up this legislation originally sponsored it brought it to the House and in the first reading she provided the apology that was called for in the petition. I think when we get to the third reading we will no doubt underscore that because I think that is a legitimate thing to do."