Coddington Deborah: Parole (Extended Supervision) and Sentencing Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Coddington Deborah: Parole (Extended Supervision) and Sentencing Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:618;Page:14164] 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT) 
: 
 This morning we passed legislation that allowed for a national register of dogs that are dangerous and might bite people repeatedly. The Minister of Justice this year said that he would support through this Parliament a national register of sex offenders yet we have seen this Government do whatever it can to knock that legislation kick it into touch and get this legislation in instead. 
This legislation will not do anything to protect people from sex offenders. I have just been reading the latest research to come out of Canada. It took 14 years for Canada to introduce a sex offender register and it was done after an 11-year-old boy was abducted raped had his throat slit and was then left to bleed to death in the woods. This crime was done by one Joseph Fredericks who was released on parole on mandatory supervision—the same sort of supervision that is being created with this legislation. It was after people saw that the mandatory supervision had failed that Canada decided to go ahead and bring in a sex offender register. 
In the United States the community is trusted also to be involved in community supervision of sex offenders. Americans have access to registers through CD-ROMs and computers. Parents are trusted to do everything they can to keep their children safe. 
In this country parents are not trusted to do that. This could be the safest country in the world; it would not be hard. We are an island where it is easy to protect our borders. We could protect the people within our borders. We could do it right by passing legislation that sends a message to repeat high-risk dangerous offenders that they will not get away with their crimes. 
When I did my sex offender registry I was contacted by a repeat sex offender in Canada who has written several articles on his rehabilitation and he admitted that the thing that finally rehabilitated him was the sex offender registry. He realised it was a law that worked and that he lived in fear of and he was terrified of breaking it because he never wanted to go back to jail again. He could not trust himself to be released. It was not until Ontario introduced a sex offender registry called Christopher’s Law (Sex Offender Registry) 2000 that that man was able to get on with his life. When he was interviewed for a job he could tell people about his past and that he was a serious sex offender because he knew he would never get away with it. His exact words were: “Only a public registry will work.” He said it was a law that made him go straight and not reoffend. 
My colleague Stephen Franks has done an excellent minority report in which he states that we go into the dangerous area of double jeopardy and we do not need to do that. It is just because of our stupid privacy legislation and conventions which put the so-called rights of the offenders ahead of the rights of victims that we have to pass laws that breach all conventions of justice. We would not need to do that if we just got tough on crime and kept our word about supporting legislation going through Parliament and supporting each other. I said I would support the Minister’s legislation because he said he would support mine and the legislation would go through together. Instead this Government is keener to pass a law for a national registry of dogs than a national registry of sex offenders. The Government thinks it is funny but I do not think it is very funny at all. 
Several years ago when Peter Liddell was released on parole I went on the  
Holmes 
 show. The Parole Board thought that he would not reoffend. Peter Liddell ruined the lives of children and drove them to suicide and parents to despair. What happened? The Parole Board deemed him ready to be released and last week he was back in jail.