Clendon David: Evidence Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeClendon David: Evidence Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 02 July 2015. Volume:706;Page:5091. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DAVID CLENDON (Green):I am pleased to take a call on behalf of the Greens to express our support for this legislation. We think it is a good bill that will achieve some good outcomes. We note that to a large extent it follows of course the recommendations of the Law Commission review in 2013 of the primary legislation of the Evidence Act 2006. The preamble to the review essentially says that the Evidence Act is pretty robust and quite fit for purpose. The Law Commission did not find too much wrong with it. It did nevertheless manage to generate a fairly substantial document with a lot of detailed commentary in it and that is a good thing. Out of that has emerged the provisions of this bill and we see them as being quite positive and forward-looking.The Minister of Justice in her introduction as has been noted made some comments about the importance of doing as much as we can to reduce the stress of people who are obliged to give evidence in a court. That is almost inherently going to be stressful particularly for complainants. There is a risk of revictimisation of people who are obliged to speak to and describe events—often very traumatic events—which no doubt they would much prefer to put behind them and speak no more about. Of course the legal system does quite rightly require them to give evidence so anything we can do to reduce the likelihood of revictimisation and to reduce the stress and trauma involved in the legal process is to be desired. We think that this bill will make some contribution to that.In terms of some of the specifics of course the bill does seek to enable more previous consistent statements to be admissible and to extend the privilege that currently applies to settlement negotiation and mediation in civil proceedings to include plea discussions in criminal proceedings. I must confess that as a non-lawyer and a person who to date has managed to avoid being embroiled in significant legal proceedings I was unclear initially exactly what the background to those statements was and what the implications were. I am fortunate to have an executive assistant who does have legal training who was able to guide me through some of that. I am sure the select committee will deal with those matters but clearly they are matters that do seem to have positive potential outcomes in terms of the matters that will come to the court.The restriction on video recording of evidence—essentially putting in some boundaries and ensuring the safety and security of any recordings by either victims of violence or sexual violence or all evidence given by children—is important. Clearly people in that position of giving such evidence are vulnerable. It is a very difficult time for them. It would be unfortunate if video of their contribution and them giving their evidence was made more generally available than was absolutely necessary for the court to do its work—so that is a good provision of the bill.Similarly we wholeheartedly support the requirements for evidence of previous sexual history. Sadly in the past it was possible for complainants—particularly in matters of sexual violence—to be subject to some really quite aggressive irrelevant and very intrusive questioning around their entire sexual history that was often more to unsettle the complainant to challenge their credibility than it was to actually bring matters of relevance and value to the particular proceedings. This is changed to the extent that any investigation or any questioning of a complainant’s sexual history will be in relation only to the defendant and it has to be agreed upfront by court that it will be heard and matters of relevance and justification will be considered. It is a kind of no-surprises approach. It does enable people who will nevertheless be required to reveal quite intimate details of their personal lives to at least have the security of foreknowledge of that and be able to prepare for it to the extent that one can do such things.Similarly we are pleased at the change to a presumption that children or those under the age of 18 giving evidence in court will use alternative methods and will not simply stand in the dock in the way that an adult might. We have not always been fans of the change around presumption matters. I think back to some of the legislation passed last year or the year before where the presumption of innocence was overturned for some offences in favour of a presumption of guilt which we were not terribly thrilled about but in this instance the switch of presumption is we think positive. It may well be that some 16 or 17-year-olds are perfectly confident to stand in court and give their evidence as if they were adults. Certainly the presumption change does not preclude that but it does make it clear that any arguments will need to be made for other alternative mechanisms to be used. We think that is a very positive thing. We do have the technology and the capacity now to protect young people when they are giving evidence and it is important that we do that. I am interested to hear some of the comments about the nature of the support person who might be considered appropriate. I am sure that the select committee will come to those matters as it does others.I do look forward to the select committee investigation of this bill—to hearing evidence and submitters on it. It is a good and well-functioning select committee. We do for the most part get to the bottom of matters. I assume that the evidence and the submitters we will hear let me say—I should not get too presumptive—will for the large part be supportive of this. But nevertheless invariably the initial draft can be improved on and I look forward to being part of that work. Thank you.