Belich CamillaCAMILLA BELICH (Labour): Thank you very much Madam Chair. Thank you. I appreciate very much the opportunity to take part in this committee stage of this bill the Rights for Victims of Insane Offenders Bill. Unlike some of my colleagues I wasn't on the select committee that looked into this bill but I did approach looking at this bill with a great degree of interest. So I do have some questions and I apologise—I don't have the expertise that some of my colleagues have or obviously the member whose name the bill is in Louise Upston has in this area. So I would be quite interested to hear the answers to some of these questions—and also to just commend the Justice Committee for their work on this area. It seems to me that there's been a lot of collaboration which has been apparent since the second reading. I was in the House for the second reading and I commend the member and the select committee for working together to create this bill.The areas of the bill that I wanted to draw to the member's attention are mainly in four areas. The first area as someone who previously practised law and studied law was the removal of the mens rea component of the offence. When I studied law it was very much a necessary component to have that particular element of it and it's very novel and different to have this bill put forward without that component necessary as part of the conclusion of finding and the ultimate determination in this particular area. So that's one thing that I found particularly interesting but I do understand why the member has proposed that.I was very moved by the way that the member has spoken about her constituent and how she came to put this bill forward. I think it's in many ways the way that we should bring members' bills—you see myself being a backbencher MP—as non-ministerial members of Parliament: to listen to the concerns of our constituents and then bring these forward. I do think that she has spoken about the victims of the crimes that have been committed and their families in a very respectful and appropriate way and so I think that's really added to the quality of this debate—and also by other committee members who have spoken to this too. So I just wanted to commend the member for that. And so I do understand the reason that we have moved away from that element of mens rea.The second element that I would be interested in is the role of the Minister is unusual—as someone who hasn't been involved in the deliberations—and it might have seemed quite usual and it is probably a very good way of solving some very immediate issues under this Act. So the role of the Minister of Justice in essentially approving leave—that is a very novel element of criminal law that I had not often been familiar with. I hadn't practised criminal law very much at all—a very short amount of time as a very very junior lawyer. So that is one element of the bill and specifically within this part that we discussing and a part to which I wanted to bring to the attention of the member.The third part which is discussed in detail in this particular section in Part 2 was the interrelationship between the criminal law and our health system. Now this is something that as a student of law you might not often consider to be particularly apparent but it is clear from the experience of people that it is absolutely necessary that the criminal law especially when dealing with insane offenders interrelates and works properly and seamlessly with the health system. And so I commend the member for putting forward a system which looks at these two very important elements of our society and brings them together and I wanted to give her the opportunity to explain how that works.The last thing I had is really a genuine question which—I hadn't read all the submissions and been present at the select committee to hear a lot of the comments but one thing I would be interested in and I haven't actually heard it mentioned by any of my other colleagues yet either is: has she heard from any families of insane offenders of their view of this particular bill? Because it became apparent to me in reading it that it might be that they too would appreciate this change in terms of the clarity of the decision that ends up being put forward. So I just wondered if she had heard from any of the families of insane offenders—obviously for them a very difficult position to be in. And it is appropriate that we have clarity in our law. So I just wanted to ask her if she had heard that and if she could share that with the House. Thank you.