Summary Proceedings Amendment Bill (No 2)

I move, That the Summary Proceedings Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a third time. As the House has heard, this bill addresses a misclassification of some minor property offences by adding them to schedule 1 of the Summary Proceedings Act 1957. It also validates the proceedings that have occurred without jurisdiction because of the misclassification.

The misclassification was identified in a recent District Court case. An amendment to the Summary Proceedings Act 1957 that came into force in June 2008 had intended to make some minor property offences purely summary offences, which are heard by a judge alone. The 2008 amendments aimed to do this by excluding them from schedule 1 of the Act. In fact, it had the opposite effect, making them purely indictable offences that should be tried before a jury. This misclassification should be rectified as quickly as possible to minimise its impact on our court system. It is not desirable to leave it to be dealt with by the courts as a matter of statutory interpretation. Leaving the question to be resolved by way of appeals would be a lengthy and costly process that would create uncertainty for the other 46,000 cases. Further, if it was ultimately found that these cases should be tried before a jury, the costs associated with holding jury hearings for those minor offences would be a significant strain on our courts’ limited resources.

This technical error does not undermine the fairness or the appropriateness of any convictions. It is appropriate that low-level offences of this nature be dealt with summarily. There are two steps involved in rectifying this issue. Firstly, this bill will stop any more proceedings occurring without jurisdiction by adding the relevant sections of the Crimes Act to schedule 1 of the Summary Proceedings Act. Secondly, this bill will validate any proceedings that have already occurred.

In the longer term, the proposed Criminal Procedure (Reform and Modernisation) Bill will abolish the terms “summary” and “indictable”, along with the overly complex system of offence classification. The Summary Proceedings Act 1957 will largely be replaced to make court processes clearer and more efficient, improving access to justice for court users and promoting public confidence in the system. That bill is due to be introduced before the end of the year.

I close by acknowledging the cooperation we have had from members of the House in dealing with this matter expeditiously. I commend this bill to the House.

There have been a number of excellent contributions to the debate on the Summary Proceedings Amendment Bill (No 2), although it has been short. I will make a couple of references to those contributions in my third reading speech.

Ironically, one of those contributions, at least in substance if not in form, came from Paul Quinn. He pointed out that this sort of mistake is easily made, and that observation has been made by others, as well. One of the things we need to consider as a Parliament is why we make these sorts of mistakes, given that we have a number of checks and balances in the system. We have excellent officials—that is generally agreed across the House—both in the department and in the Parliamentary Counsel Office, advising on the form and substance of these sorts of changes. It probably is appropriate to reflect on whether omnibus criminal law reform is a good idea. Clearly, the previous Government thought it was on this occasion. As has been pointed out, the Opposition at the time supported that notion. But it is the case that criminal law changes dealing with the detail and the minutiae of the classification of offences, for example, are complex. They involve a level of detail that sometimes we gloss over in the House, particularly when there is consensus on an issue, and I think it is appropriate to reflect on whether we do pay enough attention to these sorts of issues all the time.

It is particularly appropriate to consider that at the moment, because, as the Minister of Conservation has reminded us, we have amending legislation coming into the House this year—if the Government’s legislative programme advances to plan—to remove the summary/indictable distinction, so we will be revisiting this issue. We have the Legislation Bill before the Regulations Review Committee at the moment, which would introduce a new, streamlined procedure for legislation that is certified by the Attorney-General, the Clerk, and others to be simply procedural in nature. That legislation would be enacted through a different form from the first, second, and third readings and Committee stage that we have become used to under the Standing Orders. We need to be very sure that before we adopt that sort of procedure, we have in this House sufficient safeguards to make sure that that sort of streamlined enactment procedure is appropriate for legislation that will not get the sort of detailed scrutiny that, frankly, as we now see—thanks to Judge Marshall’s decision—this legislation should have had and did not get. As was said, it could have happened on anyone’s watch, but we need to look at why it happened and at how we can do our best, I think through the safeguards we have in the form of the officials and the select committee procedure, and through our decisions as parties to vote in particular ways on particular legislation, to safeguard against this sort of mistake being repeated too often, at least.

The only other thing I wanted to say was to reflect on the comments that have been made about retrospective legislation. It is generally offensive to legislate retrospectively, but here it is pretty clear that the safeguards have been observed. There has been a real attempt in the drafting of the legislation to preserve rights as they exist at the time of the giving of the Royal assent, or as they will exist when that assent comes to be given to this legislation. There will be the preservation of rights to challenge proceedings that have been mounted to question the ultra vires of any proceedings under the amending legislation, and that is appropriate while taking a validating approach going forward.

With those concluding comments, I indicate that Labour members continue to support the validating legislation.

It is my privilege to contribute to the third reading of the Summary Proceedings Amendment Bill (No 2). This bill fixes an anomaly in a 2008 amendment to the Summary Proceedings Act 1957 and ensures that only offences that are punishable by more than 3 months’ imprisonment are eligible for jury trial.

I agree with Charles Chauvel that there are many mistakes in legislation that need be fixed. In the debate on my first member’s bill, the Military Manoeuvres Act Repeal Bill, I mentioned that many statutory bills are not used for many years. I had a few meetings with the Attorney-General, and, hopefully, he will look into those bills that have not been used for many years, and we will fix that in the coming time. I commend this bill to the House.

I will take a brief final call. The Greens, the only party that is abstaining from voting on the Summary Proceedings Amendment Bill (No 2), echo many of the comments that we have heard. I am a new MP and I am not a lawyer, but omnibus bills seem to me to be particularly problematic, in terms of consistency. The issues are all over the place, often, in terms of people recognising the consequences of the provisions. We as legislators have to recognise that not only do we have to write fair law but also it has to be seen to be fair. So when we do make mistakes, owning those mistakes and recognising who bears the consequences of them is a very important part of what we are here to do. Although the two major parties may have supported each other on the previous legislation, we certainly did not. We are also very committed to being consistent. We agree with the need to tidy up and rectify the legislation, but we do need to abstain from voting in this instance out of consistency, a commitment to fairness, and the desire to be seen by the public to be fair. Thank you very much.