CRIMINAL LAW (UNLAWFUL
CONSORTING AND PROHIBITED INSIGNIA) BILL 2021
747. Ms M.M. QUIRK to the Attorney General:
I refer to the McGowan Labor
government's commitment to keeping Western Australia safe, which
includes implementing the toughest and most comprehensive reforms to combat
organised crime in the country.
(1) Can the Attorney General outline to the house how the
Criminal Law (Unlawful Consorting and Prohibited Insignia) Bill will
improve the system of consorting notices for sex offenders compared with the
current system?
(2) Can the
Attorney General advise the house whether he is aware of anyone who does not understand
the bill or is misleading the community about what it will do?
Several members interjected.
Mr J.R.
QUIGLEY replied:
Here's a lollipop!
(1)–(2) I
thank the member for her question. She is not the only person, of course, who
thinks that these laws and the Criminal Law (Unlawful Consorting and Prohibited
Insignia) Bill that we have before the chamber at the moment are a vast
improvement on the current system. Legislation was introduced, firstly, in the
fortieth Parliament. It passed this chamber and was before the Legislative
Council before prorogation. The then shadow Attorney General, Hon Michael
Mischin, who is an experienced prosecutor, said of these laws that the proposed
changes will go much further than the existing laws and ''correct some
of the problems with the current regime''.
He noted, ''The regime that is proposed by the government seems to
be a sensible one'', noting the expanded scope of people in the new
consorting offence. Mr Mischin said, ''The legislation potentially will
have very broad operation.''
Whilst the bill was being considered
in the other place, Hon Nick Goiran also praised the bill and raised none of
the criticisms that had been raised in the Liberal Party's press
release, dated 9 June this year, which is no more than a tableau of lies. I will
take members through some of those lies. On page 2, the press release says —
''Effectively under WA Labor,
Child Sex Offenders will go from not being allowed to consort at all �
That is not true; that is a lie.
Under the existing system—section 557K(4) of the Criminal Code—firstly,
the policeman has to give a sex offender a warning that the other person is a sex
offender and can proceed to a consorting notice only when that person
habitually consorts with the other person, with there being no definition of ''habitually''.
Far from what the Liberal Party says, which is that under the current scheme,
they cannot consort at all, the police officer has to show that they have been
consorting habitually before they can invoke the legislation! That is not so
under our new scheme. Under our new scheme, if the police believe that a child sex offender or other
relevant offender, including a bikie, is in the company of—just the
company of—another relevant offender, a consorting notice can be
issued. That will be much easier than under the old scheme.
Secondly, in the tableau of lies, the
Liberal Party says that a police officer can issue the consorting notice only
if they are, and I quote —
� engaging in conduct constituting an
indictable offence.
That is a lie. In fact, in clause
9 of the bill, if the person is in the company of another person who has
committed an indictable offence, and if the officer thinks it is appropriate to
issue the consorting notice—if the officer thinks it is merely
appropriate—he can issue the consorting notice. There does not have to
be proof of an indictable offence at all. It is outrageous what the Liberal
Party is doing to try to undermine public confidence in this bill.
Thirdly,
there is no definition of consorting in the old legislation, so we just have to
say, ''What is consorting—association?'' But the
world has moved on. Does it include WhatsApp? Does it include Facebook? Does it
include retweeting somebody? All this has been made clear in our new bill,
which has a definition of consorting, which is communication by electronic
means—by any other means. So, what the government is presenting is far
stronger.
Finally, we are upping the maximum
penalty from two years to five years on indictment. The reason for upping the
maximum penalty to five years on indictment is that it invokes the section of
the Criminal Investigation Act that allows a policeman who sees people
consorting in defiance of a notice to effect an arrest without a warrant. They do not have to go away with their evidence,
see a justice, give evidence and ask for a warrant. If they see two
child sex offenders, two bikies or any other organised criminals together in
defiance of an anti-consorting notice, they do not have to go and see a justice.
They can collar them and take them off the
street immediately. Labor is introducing, as the member for Landsdale has
described, the toughest anti-consorting laws in the nation, and they are
recognised to be so by none other than former shadow Attorney General Hon Michael
Mischin. They were not criticised at all by Hon Nick Goiran in the last
Parliament, but he now comes out with this tableau of lies to try to undermine
public confidence in the best anti-consorting laws in the nation.