Stephenson ToddTODD STEPHENSON (ACT): Thank you Madam Speaker. Firstly I'd like to congratulate my Government colleague Rima Nakhle on getting this bill drawn and bringing it to the House. I think as we've heard it is a very simple bill but I think a very important bill. It does really go to the heart of actually strengthening protections for victims. ACT has been a supporter of increased victims' rights and ensuring that we do get a balance in our justice system between obviously people having a fair and proper trial and making sure those rights are protected but also ensuring that victims are actually heard and what they want is also acknowledged and understood.We've campaigned on a number of things during the election. Obviously some of them are around actually getting a bit tougher on some of the areas we think have been deficient—things like restoring three strikes changes to the Sentencing Act etc. In fact in the first 100 days we've seen a number of advances made with the defunding of section 27 reports. Let me be very clear section 27 reports are still allowed they are still available it's just they're no longer funded by the taxpayer.So I think this bill really fits nicely into some of the Government's other objectives in the justice area. We've talked a little bit about some of the other things we will be doing around youth offending. My colleague Minister McKee's actually done something around virtual participation in court proceedings and making that more available. And I think we may see another bill actually around some victim-centred and witness-centred improvements this afternoon which we'll be discussing. But we really do want to try and get some real balance in our justice system. We know that cuddling criminals hasn't worked and we actually need to put victims first and their rights. Again while some of these obligations might already be in the Corrections Act I think making them explicit and actually placing an obligation on prison management through the amendments to section 8 and section 12 and having those obligations spelt out around unwanted contact or stopping unwanted contact with the victims particularly as James Shaw pointed out when those victims are actually from family violence situations where it can be very very unpleasant and people can be retraumatised by unwanted—whether it's phone calls emails postal mail. Again I know the member had some examples.So we're very happy to support this through to the Justice Committee. I know some of the people on that select committee. I think it can then be examined and some of this overall context—again as the Labour member said some of the overall context of what that committee's looking at how can this actually be used to really strengthen this focus on victims and make sure we are getting a balance in our justice system so that everyone's rights are protected and that's really the key that ACT would like to focus on.There may be some administrative burdens. There may be ways we can improve this bill in the select committee. And I look forward to actually hearing hopefully from some of the people who would benefit from this bill and having this obligation put on prison management. And I'm sure they will be able to give us firsthand accounts of what a difference this could potentially make. And I think again we could look at any other improvements or anything else that needs to be considered as part of that process.So I look forward to hopefully if this bill is referred to select committee working on it. But ACT certainly will be supporting it. Thank you.