Northern Territory Second Reading Speeches

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CROSS-BORDER JUSTICE BILL 2008

Madam Speaker, I move that the bill now be read a second time.

In June 2003, approximately 50 people met in Alice Springs for the Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankuntjatjara (NPY) lands tri-jurisdictional justice initiative round table. The round table was attended by members of the NPY women’s council, magistrates, senior police, court administrators, Community Corrections officers, lawyers, and others with an interest in addressing the damaging effects of domestic violence, child abuse, sexual abuse, substance abuse, and other forms of offending behaviour in communities in the NPY region. Serious problems were identified at the round table, among them the complex justice issues and needs of people in this remote cross-border region.

The cross-border region of the Northern Territory, Western Australia and South Australia covers some 475 000 km2 and comprises approximately 10 000 people, 7500 of whom are Indigenous. These people are amongst the most isolated and disadvantaged in Australia. A cross-border justice project was established to respond to these problems which identify the need for legislation to respond.

The Cross-border Justice Bill 2008 is one of the most innovative and groundbreaking legislative responses to a profound community problem that we have seen in this country. This bill seeks to break down the barriers that borders create in the administration of justice in the cross-border region of Central Australia. Some of the major issues facing communities include: geographical isolation; poverty; remoteness and a small population base; lack of meaningful employment and training and limited educational opportunities; significant substance misuse problems including petrol sniffing; serious family violence and sexual assault issues; very poor health status due to a range of social and environmental factors; significant mental health issues; and lack of services including justice services.

The population of the cross-border region is highly mobile and the state and territory borders are of little significance to the residents in the region. Borders are seen as constructs for the communities who have lived in this region for centuries, well before the artificial and intangible borders were created. The people lived in and moved about the region according to their own long standing traditions and customs. Until now, government services have been framed around the borders, rather than the needs of the communities they are intended to serve.

Additionally, the borders enable wrongdoers to evade police and the justice system, as justice services operate individually in each region. This further undermines the safety of communities in the region. The frequent movement of people throughout the region also causes significant difficulties for delivery of Justice services as they cannot operate outside their jurisdiction. The three jurisdictions identified the importance of creating legislation to allow cross-border delivery of Court, Corrections and policing services.

Madam Speaker, this bill will enable the Northern Territory to participate in mutual cross-border justice schemes with South Australia and Western Australia. The effect of the cross-border justice scheme is to relax the rigidity with which state and territory borders are enforced, and therefore remove the legal restrictions in place by the borders under the cross-border scheme. For the cross-border scheme to operate, each jurisdiction needs corresponding laws. A working group comprising the Solicitors-General of Western Australia, South Australia, and the Northern Territory developed the legislation to be enacted in each jurisdiction and support the cross-border justice scheme.

It requires each jurisdiction to enact provisions in relation to three aspects of the criminal justice system: the exercise of the police powers; the jurisdiction of summary courts; and, the enforcement of sentences and orders. This is achieved through legislating to authorise the application of one jurisdiction’s laws in the geographical areas of other jurisdictions. Additionally, legislating to allow the application of the laws of the other jurisdictions in the geographical area of the legislating jurisdiction. This effectively extends the geographical area of each jurisdiction. Each jurisdiction will enact provisions so that, for each provision authorising the application its law in another jurisdiction, there will be a corresponding provision enacted by that other jurisdiction allowing that law to apply in their jurisdiction. This creates a legislative and administrative framework that will allow the justice systems to operate much more freely across the borders of the Northern Territory, South Australia, and Western Australia.

Madam Speaker, Western Australia was instructed and drafted a model bill for the mirror legislation, a Cross-border Justice Bill 2008, which was assented to by the Western Australian parliament on 31 March 2008, and I thank the Western Australian government, and I digress here, and the former Attorney-General, Jim McGinty, for taking the lead in drafting the model legislation. This bill is based on the model developed by the Western Australian government.

I will now outline the major features of the bill. This bill, in conjunction with the mirror legislation of Western Australia and South Australia, will allow police to be appointed as officers of all three jurisdictions, and to exercise the powers under the three jurisdictions. The concept of cross-border policing is not new.

For the past few years, multi-jurisdictional police stations have operated at Warakuna in Western Australia, and Kintore in the Northern Territory. Each police station is staffed by both Western Australian and Northern Territory police officers. The Western Australian police officers hold appointments as Special Constables of the Northern Territory, and the Northern Territory police officers hold appointments as Special Constables of Western Australia.

Patrols of areas in both jurisdictions are conducted out of those police stations. However, legal restrictions mean that, whilst operating a patrol in the Northern Territory, the officers can only exercise their powers as Northern Territory officers, and while in Western Australia, they can only exercise their powers as Western Australian officers. Therefore, if on patrol in Western Australia they come across a person who is alleged to have committed an offence in the Northern Territory, the patrolling officers cannot arrest the person in Western Australia under the Northern Territory warrant. The person would have to be arrested and then dealt with under extradition laws.

Madam Speaker, this bill allows police to be appointed as officers of all three jurisdictions, and to exercise the powers under the three jurisdictions. Indeed, not only police officers, but also magistrates and corrections officers will be able to exercise powers under the three participating jurisdictions. This bill enables police, magistrates, fine enforcement agencies, community corrections officers, and prisons, in one jurisdiction to deal with offences that may have been committed in one of the other participating jurisdictions.

The bill requires a certain criteria be met before a matter can be dealt with as a cross-border matter. This restricts the application of the legislation to those occasions where the interests of justice warrant the use such an innovative scheme. The matter will fall within the scope of the Cross-border Justice Scheme only if the offence is connected to the relevant cross-border region.

The criteria which will determine what the connections are:

· the alleged offence occurred in the cross-border region;

· the alleged offender was arrested in the cross-border region, and

· or the alleged offender normally resided in the cross-border region either at the time of arrest or of the alleged offence.

Location of where the alleged offence occurred is the factor determining which jurisdiction’s laws will apply to the alleged offence; that is, if a person is arrested in the Northern Territory and charged with an offence alleged to have been committed in Western Australia, the Western Australian laws of apprehension, court procedure, criminal liability, and sentencing would be applied.

An important point to note is that the bill will only apply to matters which can be dealt with in the Court of Summary Jurisdiction, the Youth Justice Court or certain prescribed matters under the Traffic Act, including vehicle impounding matters, dealt with by the Local Court and the Alcohol Court. So matters falling within summary jurisdiction and aspects of indictable offences the magistrates are able to deal with, such as bail hearings and matters within the jurisdiction of the Youth Justice Court, fall within the scope of the bill.

More serious offences alleged to have been committed in the Northern Territory will continue to be dealt with by the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory.

Generally, the Cross-border Justice Bill does not create new laws for the administration of justice. Rather it allows existing laws to be applied in other jurisdictions and allows the laws of those other jurisdictions to be applied in the Northern Territory. For example, each jurisdiction will appoint magistrates of the other participating jurisdictions to the own magistracy though their legislation governing the appointment of magistrates. Therefore, magistrates of South Australia and Western Australia will be appointed as Northern Territory magistrates under the relevant provisions of the Magistrates Act to administer justice under the cross-border scheme.

Convicted offenders will be sentenced according to the law of the jurisdiction where the offence occurred. However, the sentence will travel with the offender; that is, a person convicted of a South Australian offence but serving a custodial sentence in the Northern Territory will serve the sentence as if the person were in South Australia.

This bill enables a Northern Territory police officer to:

· arrest an alleged offender under Northern Territory law in a community in South Australia;

· take the alleged offender to the nearest police station, which may be, depending on the community involved, in Warakuna in Western Australia;

· charge the alleged offender under Northern Territory law; and then

· take the alleged offender to Alice Springs to have the matter heard before a Northern Territory magistrate.

The arrest, charges, hearing, and possible imprisonment can all be dealt with quickly, minimising the amount of travel for the alleged offender, victim, and witnesses.

This bill will create a much more effective system of justice administration in the cross-border regions. Currently, the Commonwealth Service and Execution of Process Act 1992 is the only law which deals with the apprehension of alleged offenders to allow them to be brought before a court in extradition proceedings. This means that if a police officer has arrested a person in connection with an offence alleged to have occurred in another state or territory, the police officer must bring the person before a magistrate in the state or territory where the arrest occurred.

The magistrate, however, can only remand the person to come before a court in the jurisdiction of the alleged offence. The person would then be admitted to bail or taken into custody to appear in that jurisdiction. The magistrate has no power to deal with the matter to the end.

The Commonwealth Service and Execution of Process Act will need to be amended for the Cross-border Justice Bills of the Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia to take effect. The Commonwealth has announced its intention to make the necessary amendments to that act to accommodate the operation of the Cross-border Justice Bills.

Fines enforcement is one area where substantive law is changed by the bill. The bill will allow a fine imposed under the law of one jurisdiction to be enforced against property located in any one of the other participating jurisdictions. This is necessary as currently, once a fine is transferred from one jurisdiction’s fines enforcement agency to that of another, the receiving agency is only able to enforce the fine as if it were a fine of that jurisdiction. Under this bill, if the offender’s property is located in one of the other participating jurisdictions, it can be accessed for the purpose of enforcing the fine.

The inaugural cross-border scheme covers the cross-border regions described, being the area where the boundaries of Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory intersect. However, the bill enables multiple cross-border schemes to operate. It allows for additional cross-border schemes to be introduced in the future where other border regions are shared. Each scheme will focus on a prescribed region, for example, the Kimberley region, or the Western Australian/South Australian border area of the Nullarbor Plain. At present, only the Western Australian/South Australian/Northern Territory boundary region will be prescribed at the commencement of the scheme.

There have been more than 250 officials who have been involved with this project since its commencement and they are to be congratulated for their efforts. Countless effort has been contributed by relevant government departments to create the legislative framework and administrative details that will make this important initiative work at an operational level. There has also been overwhelming support from the judiciary.

In conclusion, I express my appreciation to the former Chief Executive Officer of the Justice Department, Mr Richard Coates, now Director of Public Prosecutions, for his insight and that of his counterparts, the Chief Executive Officers of the Justice Departments in South Australia and Western Australia, Alan Piper and Kate Lennon. The guidance of the current Administrator of the Northern Territory who was at that time the Solicitor-General for the Northern Territory, Mr Tom Pauling QC, is also appreciated.

As the Attorney-General for the Northern Territory, I acknowledge the support of the former Attorney-General of Western Australia, Tim McGinty MP, and the current South Australian Attorney-General, Michael Atkinson MP for their strong support in putting in place the plan that underpins this legislation.

Finally, and most importantly, I acknowledge and congratulate the NPY Women’s Council and Jane Lloyd, care of the Chief Minister’s Indigenous and Family Violence Advisory Committee, for their role in the instigation of this reform package.

Madam Speaker, I commend the bill to honourable members and table a copy of the explanatory statement.

Debate adjourned.

 

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