King Annette: Third Readings — 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
King Annette: Third Readings — 
[Sitting date: 19 June 2008. Volume:647;Page:16770. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I move  
That the Crimes Amendment Bill (No 3) the Criminal Disclosure Bill the District Courts Amendment Bill (No 5) the Juries Amendment Bill the Summary Proceedings Amendment Bill (No 4) and the Victims’ Rights Amendment Bill be now read a third time 
. This legislation amends the Crimes Act the Summary Proceedings Act the District Courts Act and the Juries Act and it also creates a new Criminal Disclosure Act. The overall purpose of the amendments is to maximise efficiency and fairness in the criminal justice system. Victims will benefit from a number of reforms in the legislation. The legislation responds to Law Commission recommendations and developments overseas. Many of the areas included in this legislation have not seen fundamental reform for many years. The rules have not kept pace with changes in society including changes in technology and reforms in other common law countries.  
Major areas of reform included in the legislation are changes relating to jury trials exceptions to the double jeopardy rule and reforms to preliminary hearings and disclosure. There are also reforms affecting middle-band offences and I will briefly outline some of the key reforms in each of these areas. 
The legislation proposes to introduce 11:1 majority verdicts instead of the current unanimous requirement. There are a number of reasons for this change. It helps to address the problem of rogue jurors who refuse to participate in deliberations and produce a hung jury for reasons outside the merits of the case. Another reason is to prevent a single juror from being pressured by the other 11 to return a verdict that goes against his or her conscience. The outcome will therefore be a more honest result. The change will also make jury tampering by bribery or intimidation more difficult for organised criminals to achieve. As a result all those involved in jury trials including jurors witnesses and victims will benefit. A large number of amendments have been made to the Juries Act 1981 to improve the administration of jury service and to recognise the consequences that jury service has on the people who fulfil this important role. 
In addition to those jury trial amendments other reforms in the Crimes Act allow judge-alone trials in cases where the trial is likely to be long and complex and in cases involving juror intimidation. These reforms will ensure fairer trial processes and will reduce the prospect of people serving as jurors for unnecessarily long periods. 
The bill also creates two exceptions to the double jeopardy rule which currently provides that a person can be tried only once for an offence. The first exception is where the accused has committed an administration of justice offence that results in his or her acquittal—a tainted acquittal. Administration of justice offences include offences such as perjury bribery of a judicial officer and fabricating evidence. This change will ensure that those who use such tactics cannot benefit from their wrongdoing. 
The second exception is where there is new and compelling evidence that was not available at the time of the first trial and indicates that the accused committed the offence of which he or she was acquitted. If such evidence surfaces after trial and acquittal the person can then be brought to justice. This exception is subject to a number of safeguards including that it applies only to serious criminal offences such as murder and rape. In addition the evidence must not have been available at the time of the first trial. The evidence must be reliable and consent must be sought from either the Solicitor-General or the Court of Appeal to proceed to different stages in a case where compelling new evidence is the issue. The reforms to the double jeopardy rule will benefit victims and society as a whole ensuring that criminals are brought to justice. 
An amendment that was added by the Law and Order Committee permits changes to be made to the middle-band offences by way of Order in Council rather than the need for the District Courts Act to be amended. This will enable class A drug offences to be put into the middle-band and dealt with by the District Courts rather than by the High Court. This would ease pressure in the High Court arising from the significant volume of methamphetamine cases. However it should not be assumed that the High Court will send all such cases to the District Courts. I am confident that the High Court will use this power with discretion to ensure that the pressure that exists in the High Court will not simply be transferred to the District Courts. Appropriate protocols will need to be developed to ensure that this process is administered in a manageable way. 
The third major area of reform is the replacement of oral preliminary hearings with committal on the basis of formal written statements unless the court orders an oral hearing. These hearings are largely redundant and they require victims and other witnesses to duplicate their court appearances. This in turn is stressful and unduly demanding. As recent cases demonstrate this is especially so for victims and family members faced with the daunting prospect of having to recount painful experiences at a trial when they have already been required to do so at a preliminary hearing. The legislation provides a standard pre - jury trial procedure under which the parties present their evidence in the form of written statements with automatic committal for trial unless either party applies for an oral hearing. 
We are all aware that this legislation has had a protracted journey from the introduction of the original Criminal Procedure Bill to the final readings of this legislation. However the Government’s Supplementary Order Paper which was developed in consultation with colleagues in the National Party has paved the way to the successful progression of this legislation. The amendments effected by the Supplementary Order Paper give the parties the right to make oral submissions in support of an application for an oral evidence order. Further it requires the new committal process in the legislation to be reviewed by the Solicitor-General or a nominated person as soon as practicable after it has been in operation for 2 years. 
To complement the removal of preliminary hearings the legislation creates a new Criminal Disclosures Act which provides a comprehensive regime of prosecution and pre-trial disclosure in criminal proceedings. This single and easily accessible statute will replace the current arrangement whereby prosecution pre-trial disclosure is regulated by a mixture of case law and statutory rules under the Official Information Act and the Privacy Act. 
I thank the Law Commission for its work in this area. I also thank the members of the Law and Order Committee who considered this legislation and those who made submissions on this legislation. I particularly thank my colleague and Associate Minister of Justice Rick Barker who worked very hard to ensure that we had the support for this very important legislation to pass through this House. Finally I thank the members of this House who are supporting this legislation because I believe it will enhance the efficient management of criminal proceedings while ensuring maximum fairness to everybody involved. I am pleased to commend this legislation to the House.