Alexander Marc: Criminal Procedure (Mentally Impaired Persons) Bill — Third Reading 
Alexander Marc: Criminal Procedure (Mentally Impaired Persons) Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:612;Page:9553] 
MARC ALEXANDER (United Future) 
: 
 I rise once again on behalf of United Future to support this bill and endorse its third reading. Both this bill and the Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care) Bill have been around for some time which has meant that United Future has not had the kind of involvement with this legislation that it would have had had the legislation been actively considered by the current Parliament. It seems that legislation that languishes in this way typically tends to be the kind of legislation that is non-controversial in nature and at the same time has no particular urgency surrounding its enactment. Alternatively it waits on the Order Paper because the Government is continuing to prepare significant amendments. In this case I am sure that the bill will prove to be non-contentious in terms of the level of support that it will attract from the parties across Parliament. We have Supplementary Order Paper 161 in the name of the Minister which includes a significant number of amendments to the bill as reported back from the Health Committee. But I would argue that because this bill is far from contentious it has not been given the urgency it deserves. 
This bill justifies a much higher position on any Government’s agenda than it has had because it seeks to alter the rather blunt and monolithic way that the criminal justice system deals with those who are mentally disabled. In the case of mental illness one concept of care does not suit all. Those afflicted with conditions loosely described as mental illness vary greatly as does their degree of disablement. Since the introduction of the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act in 1992 controversy has arisen because that legislation states that no person may be placed under compulsory psychiatric care by reason of intellectual disability. As a consequence some people may have been imprisoned unnecessarily and others may have been inappropriately released from all legal control. 
The main aim of the mental health reforms was to establish a clear distinction between the services for the intellectually disabled and those for the mentally ill. Advocacy groups considered that this distinction in services would not become properly established as long as compulsory care for both groups was covered by the same legislation as it tended to direct both groups into the same facilities. So the intellectually disabled were excluded from that Act leaving it with a more clearly defined focus on compulsory treatment for mental illness. However the difficulty that emerged was that insufficient attention was paid to the small number of intellectually disabled people who still required compulsory care and there was inadequate legal provision for the even smaller number charged with criminal offences. So this bill permits intellectually disabled people who are charged with offences to be readily removed from the criminal trial process and placed into the compulsory care regime thus providing the option of care in a secure facility. 
My concern is about how many people have suffered in the meantime while waiting for this kind of legislation to appear. National introduced these twin bills in 1999 to some degree in response to concerns that Barry Allan Ryder who has a 17-year history of sexual offending would be released back into the community. These bills would have provided for those kinds of dangerous individuals to be held in a secure facility within the mental health system once they had served their prison sentence. Unfortunately in Ryder’s case he has consistently been allowed to reoffend against young boys in a copycat manner to his earlier crimes after being released twice: in 1994 and again last year. Authorities were warned on both occasions that he posed a serious risk of reoffending. They were warned the first time by the whistle-blowing Lake Alice psychiatric nurse Neil Pugmire. Even if this legislation had been in place I am not sure whether it could have been applied retrospectively to Ryder. I know that Mr Ryall and Mr Goff have traded insults over the years about exactly who was responsible when they were alternately the former Minister and present Minister of Justice. But I think the most important point is the principle that this kind of legislation should have been a priority to protect citizenry against those types of offenders and in a few specific cases to protect those who are truly unable to comprehend their actions from themselves.