Goff Phil: Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Goff Phil: Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:625;Page:20034] 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I listened carefully to the member who has just resumed his seat and by and large he was of course repeating comments he made in earlier calls. I have answered a great many of those so I will not repeat myself in that regard but I raise just the question of the age of consent. I think every member in this House believes that the age of consent should be at least 16. Children who engage in sex under that age risk doing real damage to themselves emotionally rather than simply physically because they are not ready for the emotional side of that sort of relationship. So naturally I would take offence if the member was intending to say that any other member of this House believed that under-age sex was a good thing—we do not. 
What I have done in this legislation is considerably toughen the penalties for having a sexual relationship with somebody under the age of 16. We have increased the penalties. The maximum jail sentence has been increased from 7 to 10 years. We have removed the protection that people had before whereby if one did not bring a case within 12 months then the offender would escape scot-free even if there had been a predatory relationship between a much older male and a young girl. So we have taken the law further than it has ever been taken before. But we also made the point that of course it was not our intention to see two 15-year-old teenagers experimenting in a sexual relationship locked away for 10 years. Nobody in the House thinks that that is a sensible idea. Nobody in the country thinks that that is a good idea and that can be taken from the fact that the police simply do not bring prosecutions. Parents do not take kids to court because they are indulging in under-age sex. Schools do not try to take this matter up through a pathway of prosecution. 
Originally the bill contained the same defence that California has that Victoria has that Canada has and that a great many Western jurisdictions have which is to say that if there is a close similarity of age then that would be a defence that might prevent imprisonment. I would have stuck with that defence if I had thought it was necessary because I do not want to see 15-year-old kids who are experimenting in sex locked up in jail—nobody does. Nobody in this House wants to see that. I know that basically the police will follow the same practice as they did before and they will not take that action but the “similarity of age” defence was a protection against that happening. That was deliberately misconstrued. 
I have a quote here from Russell Brown a well-known media commentator who says: “I’m afraid Ryall knows very well that what he is saying is untrue and scurrilously so.” I think we all know that that was politics but the politics played out its role. We have removed that provision and kids will not be prosecuted when they should not be. The member should not pretend to the Committee that this was anything other than simply a bit of grubby politics because that is obvious to all of us. 
The member raised a question about unintended consequences. I thought Mr Ryall wanted answers to his questions but clearly he does not. He has walked out so I will not bother with him. I would like to come back to the point made by Deborah Coddington. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. A member— particularly a Minister who has been out of the debating chamber during most of the debate on his own bill—cannot refer to the absence of a member. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: Speaking to the point of order Mr Chairperson I was answering the member’s questions in good faith. I have a list of the questions he has raised and I was going to go through them point by point. Surely under the Standing Orders it is grossly discourteous for a member who has asked questions and taken up the time of the Committee then to walk out as soon as the Minister gets to his feet to answer them. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: It may be discourteous but it is wrong and against Speakers’ rulings to refer to a member leaving the Chamber. We will just proceed as we were. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: I was about to address my comments to Deborah Coddington who I thought made some very sincere and good points about the legislation what it intends to do and about the appalling situation that occurs in our community including the case of Peter Douglas Liddell whom I tracked earlier in my career in Parliament. I was appalled at the incredible damage done by a man like that. In my opinion no law can be tough enough to deal with a man who blights people’s lives and in the incident she referred to led to the suicide of a young man who was offended against and then disbelieved. People who act in this way as predators act in a way that gives them credibility. They are often respected figures. He was a counsellor at King’s College and a child would not be believed against a man in that position. I deplore that sort of behaviour and this legislation in so far as it toughens up the penalties against those people is well merited and I will be pleased to have the support of members for it. 
Deborah Coddington raised a question about suppression orders. Suppression orders generally should not be relied on. In fact only in about 0.4 percent of cases suppression orders are issued and they are largely in cases where it is the intention of the court to protect the victim. However I think that Ms Coddington made the fair point that sometimes the victim does not want that form of protection and the court is imposing it against the will of the victim. That is why I amended the Criminal Justice Act back in 2002 to require the court when seeking name suppression for the accused to take into account the views of the victim. 
Clearly that was a message to judges. If the victim says: “Look I might be the daughter of this person who is supposedly a respected pillar of society but I want the world to know what he has done and if the price of that is to expose me as the victim I am prepared to pay that price.” then the court should heed the views of the victim. I think that that is very important. 
Finally I will just touch on the question of the definition of rape. I know that a number of members—Sue Bradford Marc Alexander and I think Ron Mark has indicated support—have in good faith said that they wanted a change to the definition and that a variety of other things should be regarded as rape. The select committee considered that very carefully and I have no fundamental opposition to what each of the members is asking for but each of the solutions has inherent in those solutions its own problems. 
The fundamental point is that whether it is rape or sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection the penalties are exactly the same and I think everybody understands that. I want to put on record for the courts which do refer to the  
Hansard 
 of the debates that this is the intention of Parliament and whether it is a male sexually violating another male or whether it is oral anal or vaginal the penalty should be the same regardless of the gender of the offender or the nature of the penetration that is committed. The law provides that the offence is the same in every case. So we get down to what terminology we should use. We thought about extending the definition of rape so that it could include male on male and I looked very carefully at Sue Bradford’s amendment but then I am left with all the questions at the end of it. Yes I could live with all of that but then what about penetration with an object? Should that be rape? That is not covered by the member’s amendment which I have looked quite closely at. Maybe it was intended to be covered. 
Sue Bradford 
: Yes subsection (1)(a). 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: I will take the member’s word for that. But in the end there was not a consensus on this matter at the select committee and in an area where I believe we should try to find a consensus if we cannot do so we stick with the status quo. I am comfortable with the status quo in the sense that it does not affect the penalty that applies to any of the forms of offending that have been discussed by members and in their amendments. I respect their points of view. I am not strongly opposed to what they are advocating. I have searched for a consensus. The wider consensus at this stage that I have found is around maintaining the status quo. I accept that and for that reason I will with some regret not be advocating support for the amendments moved by various members on that issue.