Barker Rick: Parole (Extended Supervision) and Sentencing Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Barker Rick: Parole (Extended Supervision) and Sentencing Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:618;Page:14158] 
Hon RICK BARKER (Associate Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I will make just a few introductory remarks. This part of the bill has been introduced so that the Government can put in place active management of child sex offenders. I make the observation to the member who has just spoken that this is part of a complicated web. The previous legislation has made changes. For example preventive detention is now available on a first offence not as it was previously on a second offence. The age for preventive detention has been lowered. The third element is that the range of offences for which preventive detention can be imposed has been widened. The current law addresses a number of those concerns. Judges now have the option to impose preventive detention in more circumstances than they did before. So we see that going forward we will be incurring fewer concerns. 
What this bill seeks to do in part is to address the inadequacy of the sentencing law historically where it was left undone. The second point I make in response to the member who talked about people being eligible for parole at a third of their sentence is that this is true but there has been eligibility for parole in many many instances at a third of a sentence for a long time. 
Richard Worth 
: No it was a different regime. It wasn’t the Parole Act. 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: The member cannot deny it. But what has changed—and the member will not like listening to this—is that under the previous legislation an offender was automatically eligible to get out of prison after serving two-thirds of his or her sentence regardless of the circumstances. So an offender serves two-thirds of his or her sentence and then effectively that person is out of prison. The law has been changed now so that offenders are not entitled to automatic parole at two-thirds of a sentence. If the circumstances are such that the offender is not contrite shows no remorse or exhibits bad behaviour he or she can be held in the system for the full extent of his or her sentence. [ 
Interruption 
] The member says that we could but everybody knows that there is automatic parole on serving two-thirds of a sentence. 
The other point I want to make is that this is aimed at improving the management of sex offenders in the community. We are modelling this work on what has happened in other countries such as Britain and Canada where they have seen these provisions put in place. We are looking to be able to have some effective oversight of these offenders for an extra 10 years beyond the length of their sentence. I stress to the member that we are very concerned to ensure that people do not get the wrong impression. For example the previous speaker made reference to section 15A inserted by clause 6A. I say to the member that there is a Supplementary Order Paper to strike that clause out of the bill because there was a concern that it could have the unintended consequence of letting more people out of prison thereby weakening the legislation. This section has been drawn out because we do not want that to be the case. We do not want that to be the unintended consequence. I think the member would be very happy to see that his concern is being assuaged somewhat. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: That’s what you call an effective Opposition. 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: An effective Opposition maybe but we appreciate all the good advice we can get. Sometimes it is good and sometimes it is not. There are those elements of it. The overall effect of this is to strengthen the control that the State has on sex offenders beyond the time they have served their prison sentence. I am sure that all in the community would welcome that.