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FORENSIC PROCEDURES BILL 2000 (No. 105)

Second Reading

Dr PATMORE (Bass - Minister for Justice and Industrial Relations - 2R) - Mr Deputy Speaker, I move -

That the bill be now read the second time.

Mr Speaker, the purpose of this bill is to introduce a regime for carrying out forensic procedures on suspects, charged persons, prescribed offenders and volunteers and to provide for the use and destruction of material derived from those procedures and to set out rules for placing and matching profiles derived from forensic material on a DNA database.

Modern scientific research and technological advances have resulted in DNA profiling becoming universally accepted as one of the most powerful, contemporary techniques for identifying individuals.

Recognising the enormous potential that DNA profiling has for the prevention and detection of crime, the Commonwealth Government has committed $50 million over three years to establish in cooperation with the States and Territories, a national crime investigation system known as Crimtrac. It will be an information system that will give police operational information. Most importantly, it will contain a national DNA database.

In 1998 the Australian Police Ministers' Council agreed to the establishment of a national DNA database. It is now a matter for each State and Territory to examine their laws to see what changes are required to enable their police to utilise the national DNA database for police investigations.

The advance in terms of what information can be obtained from a small sample of human tissue, blood or excretion has led to an increased potential for solving crime from the use of DNA information. DNA testing is extremely effective provided police have the authority to take appropriate forensic samples from selected individuals.

In Australia DNA profiling has become an integral part of the investigation and prosecution of crime and is now routinely used in murder, rape and sexual assault cases. DNA biological samples from individuals and crime scenes can provide compelling evidence of identification to link offenders to crimes. These samples include blood, semen, hair, saliva and even residual sweat deposited on handled objects.

The implications of DNA profiling for police agencies in the prevention and detection of crime is enormous and Tasmania has the opportunity to be at the forefront of criminal investigation using this important tool. In Tasmania this has led to the successful conviction of offenders in relation to a number of high profile cases.

The law in relation to forensic procedures is currently contained in the Criminal Process (Identification and Search Procedures) Act 1976 which authorises certain records to be taken such as fingerprinting and photographing. In addition, it enables forensic samples to be taken from persons who have been arrested and charged with certain offences. However this act does not allow Tasmania Police to utilise the full investigative potential of the advances in DNA technology or the information stored on a national database.

There are a number of problems with the current act. The samples which can be taken are limited and do not include the easiest and most effective sample which is that taken by means of a mouth swab - called in the bill a buccal swab. Samples can only be taken once a person has been arrested and charged with an offence.

The amount of evidence which is required to charge a person may not be available until the result of a forensic test is available to the police. Without this forensic evidence the police may not be able to charge the arrested person with an offence. Samples cannot be taken from suspects. The evidence obtained by taking a forensic sample can only be used in relation to the offence with which the accused has been arrested and charged. If the police wish to take a sample to link to another specified offence an order from a magistrate is required.

In order to meet the requirements and potential of the national DNA database, Tasmania Police will require greater authority to take samples than they currently have at the present time. The bill, therefore, sets out the procedures that may be carried out on suspects, charged persons, prescribed offenders and volunteers. A procedure is categorised as either an intimate forensic procedure or a non-intimate forensic procedure.

It is important to note that the bill does not just contain procedures that produce material containing a person's DNA, but other forensic procedures such as the taking of photographs, fingerprints and scrapings from under a fingernail.

The bill, unlike the 1976 act, also covers suspects who are not under arrest and not in custody. The purpose of this is to allow procedures to be carried out without having to arrest those persons under suspicion in order to bring them within the scope of the provisions. This is because DNA testing and other forensic material have the potential to eliminate an innocent person from suspicion and free up the police to focus on other suspects. The extension of the provision to suspects is also consistent with Commonwealth legislation and legislation in Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales.

The procedures to be followed by the police vary depending on whether the person to undergo the procedure is under arrest or is merely a suspect, or whether the person is under the age of fifteen years and whether the procedure to be carried out is intimate or non-intimate. The bill also applies in respect of what are defined as 'serious offences'. This definition is contained in clause 3 of the bill.

Where a person of the age of 15 years or above has been arrested and charged with a 'serious offence', a police officer may order that person to undergo a non-intimate forensic procedure. If the police wish the person to undergo an intimate forensic procedure, then that can only be done with the informed consent of the arrested person, or if there is no consent, on the order of a magistrate. If the person in custody is under the age of fifteen years, then no forensic procedure can be undertaken without the informed consent of the arrested person and the person's parent. If there is no such consent, then it can only be undertaken by order of a magistrate.

For suspects not in custody the procedures are different. An intimate forensic procedure may be carried on a suspect of the age of fifteen years and above with the informed consent of the suspect or on the order of a magistrate. A non-intimate forensic procedure, however, may be carried out on a suspect with the informed consent of the suspect or by the order of an officer of police of the rank of inspector or above.

Before making such an order the police officer must be satisfied that there are reasonable grounds to suspect that the forensic procedure may produce evidence tending to confirm or disprove that the suspect committed a serious offence.

Where the suspect is under the age of fifteen years, then a forensic procedure can only be carried out with the informed consent of both the suspect and a parent or upon the order of a magistrate. Where a suspect, charged person or a parent is asked to consent to a forensic procedure, the bill provides that they must be given information relating to the way in which the procedure is to be carried out, the fact that the forensic procedure may produce evidence relating to the suspect or charged person that might be used in a court of law, the right of the suspect, charged person or parent to refuse to consent and the consequences of this refusal, the fact that the information obtained from the analysis will be placed on a DNA database and the right of a suspect or charged person to have the forensic material destroyed.

The bill contains provisions relating to applications for forensic procedure orders from a magistrate and the powers of the magistrate to make such orders. In addition, there is provision for interim forensic procedure orders in the circumstances where evidence relating to the commission of a serious offence may be lost or destroyed if there is a delay in carrying out the forensic procedure concerned.

Part 3 of the bill provides for the testing of prescribed offenders serving sentences of imprisonment in a prison or persons who are serving a period of detention in a detention centre within the meaning of the Youth Justice Act. It also includes persons who are currently on release on parole. These provisions apply to prescribed offenders irrespective of whether they have been convicted before or after the legislation comes into force. The rationale for targeting these offenders is the likelihood that they have committed or will commit other offences. This approach is based on the view that, if a person is convicted of a serious offence and has been sentenced to a term of imprisonment, it is reasonable for society to expect that the person be required to give samples to assist with the detection of a repeat offence. The bill, therefore, authorises a police officer to order the carrying out of a non-intimate forensic procedure on a prescribed offender.

Part 4 of the bill provides for the carrying out of forensic procedures on volunteers. A forensic procedure may be carried out on a volunteer with the volunteer's informed consent and if the volunteer is under the age of fifteen years, it must also require the informed consent of a parent. The bill sets out a number of safeguards in relation to carrying out forensic procedures on volunteers. For example, the police must inform the volunteer of various matters including the way in which the procedure will be carried out, the use to which the material derived from the forensic sample may be put, and that the volunteer is under no obligation to undergo the procedure. These safeguards are necessary to ensure that volunteers have confidence in providing samples for DNA analysis.

The carrying out of forensic procedures, whether in relation to suspects, charged persons, prescribed offenders or volunteers, is governed by legislative requirements to ensure that the procedures are carried out safely and with respect for a person's privacy. The bill requires these procedures to be carried out in a manner consistent with appropriate medical or other relevant professional standards.

The bill also sets out who may carry out a procedure depending on what it is. For example, a buccal swab may be taken by a police officer whereas a dental impression may only be taken by a doctor or a dentist. A medical practitioner or dentist of the person's choice may be present during the carrying out of certain procedures such as the taking of blood samples. If practicable, most intimate forensic procedures are to be carried out by a person of the same sex as the suspect, charged person, prescribed offender or volunteer.

Where a forensic procedure is to be carried out on a person who is under the age of fifteen years then this cannot be done unless the parent is present, or if there is no parent available, an independent witness.

The bill contains no rules regarding the admissibility of evidence obtained from the carrying out of a forensic procedure. At the present time the courts have a discretion to exclude illegally, unfairly or improperly obtained evidence. Clause 45 states that these rules apply to evidence obtained under this act. This means that if police fail to comply with the requirements under the legislation, then it will be a matter for the courts to rule as to whether or not they will exercise the discretion to exclude the evidence so obtained.

Mr Deputy Speaker, the bill also provided for the destruction of forensic material obtained from a person and any information obtained from an analysis of the material. Mr Deputy Speaker, the bill had provided that where forensic material is taken from a suspect or charged person and no proceedings have been commenced within twelve months of the material being taken, that person can apply to the Commissioner of Police to have the forensic material destroyed and the Commissioner of Police must do so unless there is an outstanding warrant against the person. In addition, a magistrate could order the extension of the twelve-month period if there are special reasons to do so. Mr Deputy Speaker, as a result further discussions we have had, it has been decided to amend those sections so that the bill effectively mirrors the other legislation within Australia. Mr Deputy Speaker, the amendments that I will be moving, and I will circulate those so that people have plenty of time before it is debated, will lead to the automatic destruction of DNA material after a period of time.

Mrs Swan - Oh, good. I'm pleased with that, Peter.

Dr PATMORE - We were not exactly mirroring the other States' legislation.

Mrs Swan - Yes, it did worry me a bit.

Dr PATMORE - Yes, well, as you can see, we have accepted their concerns and I will be moving those amendments.

Provisions regulating the recording, retention and use of information obtained from forensic procedures on the DNA database system are set out in Part 8 of the bill. There are specific provisions for the permissible matching of DNA profiles against indexes contained in the database. For example, DNA profiles taken from suspects and offenders may be matched against the crime scene index which contains profiles taken from an unsolved crime scenes. By contrast, DNA profiles taken from volunteers for limited purposes, may be matched only against the crime scene in respect of which the volunteer has freely provided his or her DNA.

This part also creates offences relating to the supply and use of forensic material. The offences of unlawfully supplying forensic material, unlawfully accessing information stored on the DNA database and improperly matching profiles attract maximum penalties of two years' imprisonment or a $10 000 fine or both.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I should point out that simply because a sample of a person's DNA is linked to a sample found at a crime scene does not automatically mean that that person is guilty of the crime. The DNA sample simply forms part of the prosecution evidence. The police will still have to investigate the crime in the usual way. The admissibility of this type of evidence will be a matter for the courts to decide and the weight to be given to the evidence will be a matter for the courts.

The Government's goal is to make Tasmania the safest State in the nation and it remains committed to further improvement in the protection and safety of all Tasmanians. This bill is part of the Government's commitment to addressing crime.

The Government has committed $5 million in the next three years for equipment, staff and training to accompany this legislation which has the potential to improve the gathering and identification of evidence at crime scenes resulting in greatly improved crime clear-up rates.

The bill will enable Tasmania Police to identify or exclude suspects by comparing forensic samples taken from them with material found at crime scenes. It will link seemingly unrelated crimes by comparing DNA profiles found at different crime scenes. It will also allow the targeting of crimes that have had historically low clearance rates using only traditional methods of investigation. The bill will provide Tasmania Police with an effective, investigative tool and in detecting crime will assist in deterring offenders from re-offending, thereby making the community safe.

I commend the bill to the House.

Mrs SWAN (Lyons) - Mr Deputy Speaker, the Opposition will be supporting the legislation. Mr Attorney, I was delighted to hear your comment with regard to the automatic destruction of evidence; it was something that I observed and it did cause me some concern so I am most pleased to see that.

This bill is an important one; it is a bill which is complex, if not complicated. I did want to make some remark on the fact that it is now being debated where, I suppose by preference, I would have felt a greater degree of comfort in being able to cross-reference a little more of the material with regard to procedures than I have currently been able to do. Notwithstanding I have had some conversation or at least some comment from Mr Bill Griffiths who is the chairman of the Criminal Law Committee of the Law Society, and he indicates to me that he is satisfied with this legislation, and as is the Opposition, I have to say, fully supportive of it.

The indications I have from him are that he did some cross-referencing with respect to the Commonwealth legislation that covers forensic procedures, and finds that he is quite comfortable with this bill before us. Notwithstanding there are some differences and, as we go into Committee, which I know we will do because of the extensive nature of this bill, I will be making some remarks about different aspects of the changes in procedure which occur as a result of the fact that we are repealing the Criminal Process (Identification and Search Procedures) Act 1976 and the amendment to that act in 1985, and the further amendment in 1995. We, in looking at that legislation, have observed what was before us at that stage, what sorts of powers of search and examination the police had; the fact that of course they had the capacity to look at fingerprinting and taking evidence from the body of a person.

There are some differences, as the Attorney would readily recognise, with respect to the process that has been adopted. I think the matter of a medical practitioner in attendance, for example, under the current act allows a police officer to be in attendance under the bill in front of us; we are in a position where a single authorised person can undertake an examination. I understand fully that the protocol that will be observed will no doubt mean that there will be two people at least in attendance. I notice that the bill further provides that there is to be a maximum number of people in attendance, so that is not an overwhelming process for the person who is undergoing the examination. So there are a couple of matters there. The destruction of evidence was of concern and, as I have said, I am delighted to see that the minister has responded with an amendment there.

I do want to speak just generally about the provisions of the bill and the excellence of this new scientific mechanism that is now at our disposal. It is clearly a huge advance and while this bill provides, I suppose, an omnibus of the forensic procedures that can be undertaken in order to produce evidence that will assist in clearing up crime, it also has the other aspect of setting up a national or a database for DNA which will be part of the national database for Crimtrac which covers a more extensive regime with respect to fingerprinting and other matters that will give us a very effective and important tool for the solution of crime in the Commonwealth of Australia. As I say, the advent of this scientific method is immensely important and I am sure the Attorney himself would be the first to say that in the conduct of trials inside the court system, this adds a new dimension entirely to the aspect of evidence and the certainty of evidence and the ability of not only the police but the law to look at crimes in a way that has less to do with debate, if you like, and the aspects of evidence that we already have at our disposal, but allows us to travel to that greater degree of certainty which is provided by the inspection of DNA that is taken from body samples, whether they be fingernails or hair or pieces of skin or blood or swabs from the mouth, of course, which will allow us to take the print of someone's DNA and then match that in order to secure the evidence that we are looking for. Under the provisions of the old legislation of course swabs could not be taken, so this advance in the legislation is, as the Attorney rightly says, absolutely critical in providing the police with the tools to be part of the new national format and they of course cannot play a proper role unless we bring in legislation of this type.

I am assuming because this legislation is omnibus in style that what we have done here is take the DNA database provisions and they are uniform or somewhat uniform in their aspect, but there are other areas of the bill that are different, and my understanding is that different States have adopted different regimes in the way they respond to the national arrangement.

Dr Patmore - That's right.

Mrs SWAN - Some have moved to reform their whole forensic procedures. Others have simply moved to look at the DNA database and associated matters and moved on that arrangement. But, Mr Attorney, I will be asking questions with regard to the uniformity of those provisions that are dealing with the DNA database.

Ms Putt - I have the model bill here and this definitely doesn't conform to that.

Mrs SWAN - Very well. Our understanding under the second reading is that the model bill is the one that we are working from and I will just be interested to note if there is much divergence from the format of that model legislation. But again, I go back to the fact that while I will make comment on certain procedural matters in the Committee stage, there is no doubting the importance of this tool and I think everybody who is concerned about making sure that criminal activity is properly attended to and crimes are resolved quickly, will favour the aspect of being able to introduce DNA testing in particular. We would all recognise that only recently of course we have had cause to be aware of the use of DNA testing in an important case in Wee Waa which we are all aware of, the very cruel and horrific rape of an elderly woman where all the men of a town, in fact around 600, volunteered in order to have DNA testing to find out who might in fact have committed this horrific crime. So it has been very much at the national forefront in recent times and that has produced an example which makes us realise how particularly critical this new tool is.

I have also found in doing a search that there has been some further revolutionisation of DNA testing by a Queensland researcher, a Dr Angela Vandal, who indicated that she is advancing this technique to the extent that she will soon be able to say all the people who volunteered and so kindly turned up at the Wee Waa investigation might not have needed to do so, if she manages to progress her research a little further. She is now saying that the evidence that she will find through her DNA research will allow her to indicate the kind of suspects who are likely to be involved in this criminal activity to the extent that people who have blonde hair, for example, may be of no relevance; that people who have blue eyes, for example, may be relevant. But the extent of her investigations - and she is at the forefront of this type of investigation - will result in making very determined and specific areas of interest when it comes to investigating suspects.

Of course, this is another aspect of this legislation that the current act does not allow us to take material from suspects. This clearly does. There is a provision in this bill that quite clearly extends to the taking of samples from suspects. That in itself is immensely important. The Attorney, in his second reading, indicates that this is something that is not limited to Tasmania, that other States have, in fact, carried out the section of the legislation which will extend the taking of evidence from suspects. I think he mentioned the Commonwealth. I think he mentioned Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales, if I recall correctly - and that is correct. So we are not alone in doing that. The extension to suspects is clearly important. I think that everybody recognises that the solution to crimes exists in that very field. There are many unsolved crimes out there, that but for this provision we would have cleaned up long ago.

The view, of course, taken by criminologists on the fact is that there is a very small body, a confined body of people, who play a role in criminal activities. So that someone who is involved in property crime is not unusually or in a number of instances involved in further and more serious criminal activity. The view - rightly taken, of course - is that, if we are able to crossmatch some of this material from people who have already been convicted of crimes, it is quite likely that we will go on to find that they are in some instances responsible for other criminal activity. That obviously is immensely important because it may well be that we have people in the gaol system already who are responsible for further criminal activity and this particular tool will allow us to go on and investigate further and, no doubt, provide the solution to many outstanding crimes that will increase that sense of law and order in the community, and contribute to the wellbeing of society. So it is immensely important that this is done.

Of course, as I say, on the other side of the argument, it has to be done fairly; it has to be done so that we do not compromise people who might be wrongly used in this sort of process. So the way it is used is important. That is why we are looking through the procedures that will be adopted. I will certainly be asking further questions with regard to those matters as we go through the bill.

The bill is further confined, of course, to matters of a serious nature. In fact, it applies only to matters that are defined as serious offences. Serious offences are defined in clause 3 of the bill. We will deal with that when we reach Committee. It does, in fact, mean an offence under the law of this State or of a participating jurisdiction that is punishable on indictment even though in some instances it may be dealt with summarily or, in fact, offences under certain sections of the Police Offences Act and against section 51 of the Poisons Act. It is a prescribed area of interest as far as this bill is concerned.

As the Attorney has indicated in his second reading speech, the procedures relate to intimate and non-intimate forensic procedures. They also relate and the procedures change with regard to the age of the offender or the person suspected, so that different procedures are applied for people who are over the age of fifteen from those that are applied to people who are under the age of fifteen. The bill quite clearly states that no-one under the age of ten is affected. That is the age of criminal responsibility and the bill does not have an effect on anyone under that age, although we would have to say, with a great deal of sadness, that we are finding in this modern world that there are indeed very young people who are now in a position of committing criminal acts and I think we all regard with a very great deal of sadness the fact that there are people who are beginning to appear at a very young age who have committed very serious crimes, indeed even murder, and that is extremely distressing for society as a whole and does indeed challenge the concept of the age of criminal responsibility being struck at ten as it currently it is in the Commonwealth.

I do not need to go through the different provisions. We will have a look at that when we get to the matter. I was interested to hear from Mr Peter Maloney, and I thank the Attorney for the opportunity to have a short briefing with him with the regard to the use of this technique, and he not surprisingly was extremely interested in and welcoming of the legislation and did explain a little of the provisions as to how we would take DNA and how we make certain that the DNA is of a match. He indicated to me that as many as eleven loci points are likely to be used in order to attain a position of certainty; in fact that would be the level that we would be travelling at. We would be attempting to find eleven loci or places, positions, spots where the material matched and that would give us a huge degree of certainty when it came to establishing the identity of someone who has committed a crime.

Another aspect to this legislation of course is the appearance of a table or a index in it which is, I think when we look at it, extremely helpful. It sets up a cross-chart, if you like, so that we can look at those who have been at a crime scene and how we can cross-reference them if they are volunteers or they are volunteers for one crime scene and not others, whether we look at those who are suspects and cross-match them with the DNA of those who have appeared at a crime scene and so we get a cross-referencing arrangement that gives us the ability to go back and index and use this on a continuing basis.

We have described the provisions for destruction. They are immensely important of course for those people who have been acquitted of crimes, who may have been charged and the charge has not been proceeded with, may have in fact been apprehended on a warrant and yet this has been discontinued and of course if someone is found innocent of a crime or is put in a position where proceedings do not go ahead, then there has to be, as a matter of justice, a way of removing that material from the database because that is clearly correct unless that person chooses to be a volunteer. So we will look at the amendment that is being proposed with respect to that because I think that it is important, at least at this stage, to work on the principle that those who are convicted are kept on reference; those who volunteer are kept on reference for the period that they identify or in fact in perpetuity, for the length of their lives as long as they wish to keep their records on the base. That is their ability or their right to provide under an identifying period under the legislation. That is an important matter.

The other aspect of volunteers of course is important, that volunteers can come forward and give body samples in order to contribute to forensic material, but the police of course are not allowed to solicit that evidence from them and the bill provides that in a mute fashion, if you like, by saying that this is not to be done, a volunteer must come forward of their accord, that the police must not go up and say, 'Would you like to volunteer?' That is not permissible under this legislation and I think that is immensely important because we are trying to get a midway house if you like between -

Sitting suspended from 1 p.m. to 2.30 p.m.

Mrs SWAN - Mr Deputy Speaker, if I could just resume on the note that in all these matters, as I have indicated during the contribution I have made so far, the balance of course is between civil liberties and law enforcement and the use of a remarkable tool in order to deliver justice in the way the Government and the Parliament are wanting to do.

The balance of the two is of course the critical issue and I know that as we go into Committee there will be a number of questions asked that the Attorney, no doubt, will be able to help us with, with reference to the other States' and the Commonwealth's legislation which is designed to achieve similar effects and also of course in comparison with the model bill there will be some questions in addition to matters that I have already put forward.

The bill itself - perhaps there is no need to go much further except to say that we know that Part 3 will allow the testing of prescribed offenders serving sentences of imprisonment or serving in detention centres within the meaning of the Youth Justice Act. It includes people who are on release on parole and it does apply to the prescribed offenders irrespective of whether they have been convicted before or indeed after the enforcement of this legislation so that aspect is allowing us of course to detect those people who are likely to be guilty of repeat offences so it provides us with that additional resource that will no doubt be helpful in pinning down some offences based on the proposition that we believe a small number of people tend to repeat offences and often, as I said earlier, have been involved in lesser crimes. They may also be involved in the more serious crimes and this provides us with that ability to check to see whether in fact they are the people who are being looked for in matters of unsolved crimes.

Again, as I said before, I am grateful to the Attorney for having put forward an amendment to the destruction of data and I have had a look through that during the lunch hour and when we deal with this in Committee I do want to just address one matter to him. While it neatly answers all the problems that have been of concern to me - and I will wait till I get his attention because I think it is something that I do need an answer on.

Just one matter I did want to draw to your attention. It is to do with the amendment as to destruction of data which I have had a look at during the lunch hour and I just thought I would give you some advanced comments so that you might be able to respond. That is answering, in very large measure, the problems that I had, thank you very much. There is just one comment that I have to make with respect to the provision and that is that while we cover volunteers both limited and unlimited and those who have offended, the matter of suspects does not appear to have been covered.

You may have a comfortable answer for that but if you do a quick read through there just to see whether there is need for some further addition to that provision, I would be grateful if you could just give me an answer in your response or in fact during Committee but it is a comment that I needed to have answered with regard to the application of the period of time that the suspect's material can be put on the database and used for cross-reference. I cannot find an answer to the period that should be set out there and you may indeed have an answer for me.

All I need to do is conclude probably, Mr Deputy Speaker. I do note that there is a cross-jurisdictional aspect to this legislation so that we are able to apply the laws of other jurisdictions to the extent that if the application of them offends our own laws then that is still to proceed. In other words the other jurisdiction is to have dominance in this case where we are using laws of other jurisdictions. So that is an important aspect to note.
There is of course a liability or an indemnity arrangement provision in the miscellaneous area and that simply absolves any person including a police officer who helps to carry out a forensic procedure if there was a reasonable-grounds belief that informed consent had been given and the carrying out of the forensic procedure without informed consent had been duly authorised by an order made by a police officer or a magistrate. It was done in good faith and the doing of the thing was reasonable in all the circumstances so that is an important format in the sense of covering the officers and those people who are carrying out those investigations with respect to the reasonableness of what they do.

The other aspect, I suppose, of this legislation is that when we talked about this at the briefing it is trying to provide an arrangement whereby the officers and the authorised personnel who are carrying out the investigations are not so impeded in carrying out their work by a series of procedures that it is impossible for them to effectively get the evidence without offending one of the provisions within the procedure.

So, as I said earlier, the balancing of the processes and the respect for civil liberty is terribly important in this particular bill but I do note that the Government has committed over $5 million in the next three years in order to set up this legislation and I am pleased to see that. I think it is most important that resources are put behind something that will be such an invaluable tool and this, of course, is part of the overall program that the Commonwealth has committed with respect to Crimtrac and the $50 million that they have allocated over three years in order to establish the whole of Crimtrac across the nation.

I think, indeed, that it is significant. We all welcome it but again, as I say, the test for this sort of thing is the appropriate balance between civil liberties and the need to get a reasonable set of procedures so that a very valuable tool can be used in tracking down crime.

So I welcome the legislation and look forward to discussing it further in Committee and again signify the fact that the Opposition supports the bill.

Ms PUTT (Denison) - Mr Deputy Speaker, unfortunately the Greens are unable to support this legislation at this time. Obviously the technological advances in detection of criminals that should enable us to clear up crime are of great interest and importance to all of us. We should be able to utilise them for that purpose within a system that, at the same time, properly safeguards the rights of citizens and ensures that the use of these new procedures does not adversely impact innocent people to any significant extent. However this Government has failed to live up to its promises to adequately consult on this legislation. There has been no broad or proper consultation with members of the public and most people would not be aware that as a result of this legislation the protections that currently apply to them are about to be drastically watered down. They would not know that, as of the time this legislation comes into force, no longer will it be the case that they can only be fingerprinted if they have been charged with an offence. That instead, all of the measures relating to fingerprinting are to change and that a person can be hauled in on suspicion of having done something and can be forced to have their fingerprints taken where they will not have been charged. They will almost certainly not have legal advice present and they can be down to the age of fifteen years with no responsible adult to give any sort of parental consent or to be there.
That is pretty dramatic for a change in the civil liberty status in this State and for people who have had no opportunity to understand that that is the situation or to debate it. Similarly, the impression has been given by this Government that there is no ability to collect DNA samples at the moment and that we have to have this in order to be able to use DNA sampling to solve crime. Of course that is completely wrong. DNA samples can be taken at the moment and are and, of course, have been used to solve crimes in Tasmania.

It can be argued that there is a need to revamp these procedures so that we can be more proactive in some instances in our use of DNA. I do not deny that that is an argument and it may well have some validity. But we have not adequately debated what the safeguards should be and what the circumstances should be in which DNA is able to be collected and to be stored: from whom, when and then what happens to it. All those are very important issues. People are concerned about them. Of course, in the broad generality, people are concerned about clearing up crime. They are told there is legislation to help us clear up crime. They think it is great but when they discover that their son has been hauled in off a street corner and is essentially being harassed by having DNA samples taken when all they have been doing is annoying people by their particular behaviour, then I think there are going to be problems.

It is quite clear to me, just from what we have heard already in this Parliament today that the members who are meant to be debating it have not had time to get acquainted with the provisions and actually make a sensible assessment. The speaker prior to me made a number of major errors of fact about this legislation. It is hardly her fault. She has not had the opportunity to do the research and discover the problems. I will go through a number of those matters for you, yes.

Mrs Swan - What errors of fact?

Ms PUTT - Yes, I will go through the errors of fact as I elaborate.

The minister's second reading speech is most informative for what it fails to address. There are very significant matters about this legislation that you do not address at all. Never anywhere do you specifically address the departures in the Tasmanian legislation from the national model bill. As you would know, unless you are not at grips with it, Minister, there are many departures from the model bill and from the provisions that were deemed to be the correct ones for all the States of Australia, and in every case they water down the protections for citizens in Tasmania from what they are more generally in the bill that is the model for all the States of Australia. You would think that that was at least worth a comment and a justification but it was not there.

When I asked you questions about this legislation, which had been announced in May by the Premier during the Estimates committee hearings on 6 June this year, about whether there would be public consultation on the bill, you said:

'Instructions are currently being prepared for Parliamentary Counsel for preparation of legislation which is going to be released for public comment prior to approval being given by Cabinet. So Cabinet has agreed to allow me to proceed, the legislation will be prepared, it will be publicly disseminated and only once it has been publicly disseminated and the comments received will it then go back to the Cabinet for Cabinet's approval on the bill. So it is a two-stage process by Cabinet, which' -

and I emphasise this -

'guarantees the public full rights to discussion and debate.'

Mr Speaker, that has not occurred. There has been no public informed discussion and debate on this. The Attorney-General apparently sent the bill to a very restricted number of organisations with a farcically short time line to comment and most people were totally left out of it. In fact, of the two organisations I know were consulted, one at least responded: 'It is impossible to reply to you in this time frame, we will get back to you'. That was the extent of their comment because they were given two weeks or less in which to respond. That is nothing like full public discussion and debate. It is the sort of consultation you are having when you are not having a consultation, a Clayton's consultation.

Also on that day I asked you why you would water down the protections relating to DNA testing so that they were less for citizens than those that currently apply to fingerprinting. And you responded, Attorney-General: 'There is no decision made to change the fingerprinting at this time'. That is what is says in the Hansard , those are your words. When do we first discover that the rules around fingerprinting are to be completely changed by this legislation? When it was introduced a mere week ago into this House. And here you are on the record saying, 'no decision made to change the fingerprinting at this time, the fingerprinting will stay'. So the Government has completely deceived and misled people. In fact, the Premier in his announcement said that the restrictions and guidelines that applied to fingerprinting would also apply to DNA. He did not say, 'And we will water down the restrictions applying to fingerprinting, so that is what we mean'. No. People were to take from his statement, and it was a deliberate deception I now believe, a deliberate deception on behalf of the Premier, that the guidelines would be as stringent as those that we accept as the normal level of safeguards up to this date in Tasmania. But no, that is not what we now discover is happening.

I understand the Hobart Community Legal Service, which is one of the organisations I was citing, received the bill for comment and did not have sufficient time to give feedback on it. I know the Tasmanian Council of Social Services, which is very concerned about a lot of aspects of this bill, was not consulted at all. I also understand that the Tasmanian Council for Civil Liberties was never consulted. I believe that the Aboriginal Centre was consulted and I know from the information that they have provided to me that they have expressed a whole range of problems with what has been proposed by the Government, none of which are resolved in this bill. So the question that further arises is: was there anything you did to modify the legislation after you apparently put it out to some extremely small select group with no time for them to comment on it or was this all completely a smoke-and-mirrors trick?

What occurs of course is the downgrading of protections and expansion of police power and erosion of civil rights. In your second reading speech you give absolutely no justification for this in respect of fingerprinting. I have not heard anybody express a problem over the years or more recently with the way that fingerprints are currently collected and that there is any need to radically expand the circumstances under which that is done. And you are so arrogant in the way you brought if forward, you do not even attempt a justification. What is the dissatisfaction with current procedures? Where has the public debate been on that?

As I have said, we can collect DNA now. We probably do need to make changes to enable a participation in the national database but changes that are contained in this bill go much further than that. And I think it is going to be, as people come into contact with it, that they begin to realise what has been done.

I am going to move a motion to refer this bill to the Community Development Committee for further consideration and, in so doing, I would like to point out that in New South Wales this is exactly the procedure that has been followed by the Labor and Liberal members voting in the upper House together with most of the Independents. As I pointed out to you the other day in question time, the only two members of the New South Wales upper House who did not support the referral of the bill to a committee similar to our Community Development Committee were David Oldfield of the One Nation Party and the Reverend Fred Nile. All the other members agreed that, because of the substantial erosion of civil rights and the questions about expansions of police powers, they needed to go through the elements of the legislation and satisfy themselves that they were necessary and why, or if they decided that in order to tackle a particular problem the measure that was there was not appropriate, to come up with an alternative proposition.

I am not suggesting that we refer to the committee whether or not we have this legislation; we clearly need to legislate to sign on to the national database and to in some way deal with procedures that police do need to have for DNA testing that they do not have now. I acknowledge that, but let me be very clear - what we do need to do is to protect Tasmanian citizens. Once this bill is passed, Crimtrac is basically beyond our control, so if we are going to protect Tasmanian citizens, we have to do it now. We want the committee to be able to get to grips with the individual provisions and the adequacy of those. We want to be able to reassure the public that we have endorsed what the Government decides or have made it better, otherwise there will be a legacy of fear and trust and suspicion.

So what I am saying is: it is not a vote of distrust of the need for this legislation; I am saying, give us a breathing space to get it right for Tasmanians, so that everybody can be confident about what we have.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I move -

That the motion be amended by leaving out all words after 'That' and inserting -

'this House -

(1) refers the Forensic Procedures Bill 2000 to the Community Development Committee ; and

(2) defers debate upon the Forensic Procedures Bill 2000 until the Community Development Committee has completed a public review and examination of that legislation'.

I have already referred to the fact that the New South Wales Parliament has done exactly this: referred this legislation to such a committee for such a consideration. They have not finished their deliberations yet; they are still under way. So it is not as if the whole of the rest of Australia is going to be onto this thing next week or in a fortnight or a month and we are not. In fact, we could delay and do this, and do the thing properly and get it right for Tasmanians. If we do not, then we have to question what the Government's motivation is in this. Is the motivation, in fact, to get it through before people realise quite what they have here because a vote against having this committee review in my view says exactly that, that there is the ulterior motive there.

I want to go into some of the issues that have been raised that we ought to be discussing at such a committee and there are of course quite a number of them. Under the new bill, DNA and fingerprints will be taken without the requirement for a person to have been charged. Instead they need only be a suspect of a serious offence. That sounds all right when you think of a serious offence, to some extent, does it not? When I think of serious offence I think murder, I think serious assault, I think robbing a bank; I do not think motor vehicle stealing and resisting arrest, and a range of other offences that are actually covered by this. A person who is a suspect but not charged of course will not have access to legal advice, as is one's right if one has been charged, and that is an issue we need to debate.

The legislation only requires the agreement of anyone of the rank of police inspector or above to approve the taking of non-intimate DNA samples: hair, fingernail clippings - mouth swabs in our bill but not in the model bill - or fingerprints. That is, if a person has said they do not want to, then an inspector can determine they will do it anyway and can use reasonable force to make it happen. Only in the case of intimate DNA samples is the approval of a magistrate required.

One of the matters that was brought up in the discussion paper that went with the model legislation was the distinction between intimate and non-intimate samples. What is defined as an intimate sample in the model bill is quite different from what is defined as an intimate sample in the Tasmanian bill, and similarly for non-intimate. What has happened is a number of samples which are defined as intimate in the model bill and have a range of additional protections applying to them, are defined as non-intimate in our bill and do not have those protections applying to them for the person who is the suspect. You have not seen fit, Minister, to point that out or to explain why, and one of the matters -

Mr Hidding - What are they?

Ms PUTT - What are they? For example, mouth swabs, swabs for blood samples. Both of those are defined as non-intimate in our bill but are defined as intimate in the model bill which we are meant to have reproduced here, according to the national agreement. Not only that, but there was a discussion in the discussion paper that went along with the model bill about exactly this issue and about comments that had been made by the Federal Privacy Commissioner who said very clearly that there was no justification for watering down the intimate samples definition to non-intimate. So why has it happened? This is the sort of thing we really need to discuss thoroughly at a committee hearing with informed witnesses to help the members of parliament go through it; it is not the sort of thing that should be gone through on the blind side because Parliament is in a rush before Christmas. We owe the citizens of Tasmania better than that.

There are more, of course. In the model bill people of eighteen and above are subject to these provisions about the way that suspects will be treated in the taking of intimate and non-intimate DNA samples and there are separate provisions for people who are juveniles under the age of eighteen years. But in Tasmania, children of fifteen, sixteen and seventeen years of age, as well as people aged eighteen and above will all be treated the same way under the provisions that apply to adults. They will not have to have a responsible adult there, they will not have to get the consent of a parent or person responsible for them. Again, this is a major departure from the model bill and from what is happening all around Australia, and again there is no justification given for why this should happen in Tasmania and nowhere else. These again are serious matters that we have to take seriously. This opens the way, I believe, for victimisation of young people. I wonder how long it is going to be before all the kids down at Franklin Square have their DNA on the database, I seriously wonder. We need to work this through.

To have the DNA sample destroyed - until today people were going to have had to be aware of and take up their right to request that the material was destroyed after they were cleared of an offence. Now that will automatically occur, so at least if you have got it right, that is it - and Mrs Swan is wondering whether the amendment is, in fact, quite right - it is all being done on the run; this is evidence that you did not get it right to start off with and you are starting to make amendments on the run, and that we really need to step back and have a good look at it because that was not the only thing that was wrong with it. I have already given you a number of other concerns.

Of course you have said that prisoners will be tested and their DNA registered on the national database. I have to say there is clearly some benefit in having a databank of prisoners' and ex-prisoners' DNA, because one thing that we know about crime is that there is a high level of recidivism. I have to say, it also points out that prison does not work very well for deterring people, but that is an aside.

I guess the major concern that comes in there is in respect of young offenders, with children at Ashley being subject to these same provisions, and I have some matters here from the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre that I will go into. But before I do, there is another major departure that I should draw your attention to between the model bill and the provisions that are brought in by this bill and that is in respect to internal body cavity searches. The provisions are again quite different and again, of course, much more stringent nationally than here. I hope the Attorney-General knows all about this and has very good reasons for every single departure because I would expect him to, if he is not going to support its going to a committee, otherwise you have had one pulled over you as well. It is extremely important that we do get this right for the good of citizens and that we understand the extent to which this goes further than what is happening anywhere else in Australia.

Another thing that I have just recalled about the model bill is that it sets up a system where a person can have an interview friend. This is taken up in the New South Wales legislation for people of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island descent. In the model bill it does not restrict it to any category of person by descent but says that 'an interview friend of a suspect, serious offender or volunteer who is a child or an incapable person is ...' and then defines the interview friend who will accompany that person while these procedures are practised on them and the decisions are being made and they are working out whether they are giving consent or not. This has been totally abandoned in the Tasmanian bill - it does not appear at all; there is no mention of it. I keep on recalling, out of the corners of my mind, more and more aspects that are different in this bill than in the other bill and, of course, I have not had time to go through them all; this is not a thorough recitation by any manner or means. I am going to sit down and think, 'Oh, I forgot to mention this; I forgot to mention that', and I do not know all of them because I have not had time either.

I have a job to do here; I have a job to do on behalf of the people I represent and because you have raced this in so hastily, because it is so complex, because it is so different from what has been proposed for the rest of Australia and because even what has been proposed for the rest of Australia is controversial, there is absolutely no hope of being able to go through this thoroughly, so I feel that I have been treated with contempt by you insisting on bringing this through so hastily at this time without the public consultation which means that all the people whom I represent are being treated that way. I really do plead with you to think about this and to let us take this to a committee to give these important considerations to it and I stress again, this is not in order to knock it off; this is in order to make sure that what we do is really the very best thing.

In the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre statement, Michael Mansell gave qualified support for the bill because he said - again, as I have been saying today - that he believed it would enable police more quickly and better to deal with very serious crime. But he then went on to say:

'However, provisions in the Bill go beyond dealing with serious crime, do not have appropriate safeguards to prevent abuse and in some cases deceitfully infringe on civil liberties'.

Mr Mansell said:

'Although the proposal is being sold on the ground the Bill is necessary to catch murderers, rapists and other serious offenders, the Bill in fact has a wider coverage.

For instance, it covers the breaking of a street lamp by children, street offences such as swearing at a police officer or obstruction of a police officer and receiving stolen property.

If the intention behind the Bill is to deal solely with serious criminal offences then the Bill should be amended and it should be spelt out' -

Another reason to refer it to this committee. As it stands, the public are being told one thing but the bill provides something more.

'The public need not be concerned about safeguards of DNA or forensic testing of children under the age of 15. The Bill appropriately provides for youth or their parents to refuse consent for any forensic procedure. Where consent is refused, police are required to seek independent authority from a Magistrate.

Yet some provisions allow, for example, an ordinary police officer to order a person over the age of 14 to subject themselves to forensic procedures (not involving contact with any body cavities other than the mouth).'

Of course in the model bill the testing of the mouth was an intimate procedure but it is not down here again; a much weaker provision for protection of people in Tasmania. He goes on to say:

'The police officer is not required to seek a court order or even an order from a police inspector. There are other problems in the Bill which, in our view' -

that is the view of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre -

'require the Government to slow down' -

and I stress that -

'and take account of submissions before moving forward further. They include:

1. There is no legal requirement for information obtained from the Forensic testing to be automatically destroyed after 12 months.'

That perhaps is sort of dealt with, which is an admission that there was a problem.

2. As it stands a police officer could order a youth over the age of 14 at Ashley Detention Centre to be stripped of their clothing and provided the police officer did not touch the genital or anal areas or in the case of a female, the breasts, could carry out forensic tests on every other part of the body. Children in Ashley are treated differently in the Bill than children picked up by the police in the street. It is not clear why.

3. The Bill fails to apply appropriate safe guards to ensure police presence at forensic testing to be of the same sex as the person tested. The Bill encourages police officers to be of the same sex as the accused person but it is not obligatory.'

Again, this is a matter that requires public discussion. This will be a matter of concern when it starts happening and you need to deal with it properly now. He continues:

4. The allowing of police to both order and carry out forensic testing could not only cause conflict of interest but encourage abuse. In many instances nobody else is authorised to be present when a police officer acting on his own order to carry out a test, does so. A parent of a child is not even authorised to be present when a child is subject to testing.

5. The Bill rightly provides for volunteers to provide forensic material. Unfortunately there are no safeguards when Police argue forensic material was voluntarily given but the person from whom the material was taken argues they were tricked or coerced into giving their consent, or deny they gave consent at all. This ought to be looked at.'

The matter of informed consent, of course, is an extremely important one in this bill because if it is not got right and if what happens at the police station when samples are taken according to the legislation does not meet the test of the court for admissible evidence, then we are going to end up with a real mess, and there is absolutely no assurance at the moment that this will be admissible evidence, and this has been a major point of contention nationally, as no doubt you would be aware in the lengthy debates in the other parliaments, because it is of very real concern. People could be subjected to all this, and then the evidence may not actually stand up.

6. The Bill also extends police powers of search of an accused person in custody under the Police Offences Act.

The Police Offences Act deals with summary matters not serious criminal matters. Yet this Bill is being used to extend police powers of search so that a person can be forced to be stripped naked at the behest of a police officer acting without any independent authority.'

So there is a list of concerns for you from the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre. I presume you received them and decided to do nothing about them, and that that is what you mean by consultation, but I suppose you will be able to let us know. Mr Mansell said, which is quite true:

'The Bill has good and bad in it. It is the right of every citizen to be comfortable with a massive extension of police authority to effectively carry out an assault on the body, particularly in the most humiliating circumstances. This should not only be authorised by law but have safeguards against abuse. The real fault with the proposal is that it unnecessarily extends extraordinary police powers over areas seemingly unnecessary (street offences) and fails properly to safeguard the innocent from overzealous police who abuse their powers. In our view the Bill ... should not proceed without amendment.'

As far as I am concerned, that represents a fairly cogent argument for why we need to go to a committee with this.

Of course, there are other matters that have been in debate in respect of it; it does not stop there. One of the issues, which is a question of some substance, is who owns the information, your DNA information, once it gets onto the database. I understand that generally in legal argument it is held that in such a circumstance the people holding the information are the owners of it, so that is that the police with the database and holding the DNA, their ownership extends to that information in respect of the DNA. Have you followed that question up, because of course it is a critical one that is under discussion nationally, and I would like to know what you have determined on that.

Similarly there are ongoing, unresolved issues that are in debate at the national level at the moment on this. Some of them relate, of course, to the actual types of sampling that are required and the information that can be obtained from various samples, and how that relates to intimate and non-intimate sampling. For example, a buccal swab gives much less comprehensive DNA information than a blood sample, but both the blood sample and saliva are defined as intimate in the model bill but non-intimate in our bill. Why is that and how have you determined that in relation to the national debate? In the model bill, non-intimate is defined as only external examination, basically, in terms of forensic procedure, and in terms of forensic procedure no internal examination, except for the mouth, is encompassed, but our bill covers a range of internal examinations that are not even covered nationally, so there are major concerns there.

And again I want to know: what is the rush? Why are you doing this so swiftly without discussion of these vital issues when other jurisdictions have not even passed theirs yet, so you cannot be using the argument that we have to catch up with everybody else.

There is another matter that just came to mind, and I am trying to recall it. This is exactly what I thought would happen. It has, of course, slipped my mind because there is so much to try to encompass at such short notice and without necessarily having the full opportunity to go through all the material.

Mrs Swan, by now you will see that there are a number of concerns that perhaps you were not cognisant of when you gave your second reading speech and some of the matters that I have covered you appeared to believe that what was in this bill was basically more or less the same as what was in the model bill. I have probably illustrated that that is different.

Also you talked about the instance of Wee Waa and again it is really important when referring to that case to understand that you may have been misled in your understanding of what occurred there. The convicted man actually did not participate in the voluntary DNA process but was arrested via other investigation methods. So you cannot say he was picked up because of a DNA test - that is not what occurred.

Mrs Swan - I was using it as a use of the mechanism, that was all.

Ms PUTT - It is wrong for people to believe that that is what has occurred.

Then, of course, there is a range of questions about the DNA database nationally itself. Whether there is actually a need to hold DNA material - that is not to say that there is not a need to hold a database - but having been analysed it is possible to hold the computer analysis and destroy the actual material. There have been arguments made about whether that is the more appropriate thing to do because you cannot plant someone else's fingerprint somewhere but if you have a bit of someone else's DNA material, you can. There is always going to be a fear about where it gets to. This is an issue that has been and is under debate nationally. I do not actually know what to conclude about that. I would like to have more discussion of that as well at a committee.

There is a range of issues that has been expressed about people around the issues of ownership of genetic material and uses to which it will be put. The matter that I have now recalled that I keep meaning to raise and then it slips my mind is that I would like the Attorney-General to explain to me what the necessity is of some of the forensic procedures that are set forward in the bill. In particular, I wonder why - I cannot imagine - I have been trying to imagine a crime where it is actually important to take the impression of the breasts of a woman and I cannot begin to imagine what it is. So if you can tell me how the impression of the breasts of a woman is going to prove that that woman has committed an offence - I would really like to know. I cannot imagine that a woman is going to use her breasts to beat somebody up and leave impressions of them on the person. But I really cannot begin, in my imagination, to understand how some of these matters are actually going to be helpful to police.
Mr Hidding - If one of us said that, we'd cause a crime.

Ms PUTT - This was raised in the New South Wales Parliament and, of course, there was no answer, so I am wondering if in Tasmania we are a little smarter and we do have some sort of answer to that.

I will not go on too much longer except to say that as matters are under development in this area, and it is undergoing rapid change, one of the matters that has arisen, of course, was that there was an initial assumption that hair samples could be taken by snipping the hair and it has since been determined that of course it has to be pulled out by the roots. This perhaps tends to cloud the definition between intimate and non-intimate, if you are starting to pull people's hair out by the roots, and there will be other instances of this sort of matter which need to be very carefully discussed and taken into account.

So, Mr Speaker, I am hopeful but never certain that there will be some support for my motion to refer this to a committee. If the committee got down to it we could be back in here talking about the legislation in March and I do not think there is any boat that we would have missed but we would have been able to assure ourselves of the provisions that they were adequate but not over-the-top and that what is in here is necessary or not, and to review it in that light.

As I have already made a bit of a meal of saying, I will say again: I am not suggesting that we have a committee in order to get rid of the whole bill or to oppose this bill. Technological advances are very useful but Crimtrac is beyond our control. Measures in this bill go way beyond those in the model bill; the Government has not in any way justified them. People have not had the public consultation they were promised and do not understand and have not had the opportunity to discuss the provisions of this legislation and their implications. We have to protect Tasmanian citizens. A similar motion was accepted by Liberal and Labor members in New South Wales and their bill is at that committee currently.

The job of the committee would be to get to grips with the individual provisions and to access their adequacy. It would also be in substantial part to reassure the public about what this means for them. It will catch criminals but that it will not unreasonably trample on their civil rights. I do not feel that we can give them that assurance at the moment, particularly when the provisions here go so far beyond those that were agreed nationally.

I think if we do not do this, then what we are going to have as a result of this legislation is a legacy of fear, distrust and suspicion. What we need to do is to provide a breathing space, have a proper look at these provisions, get experts in to work through the particular clauses and proceed on the basis of the conclusions we reach there.

Mr HIDDING (Lyons - Deputy Leader of the Opposition) - The motion is that this bill be referred to a standing committee of Parliament. I will make some comments on that and proceed with my second reading speech, as I take it the minister will deal with both of them.

This motion will not get our support today for a very good reason and that is that we believe that this legislation needs to be dealt with speedily but in a proper consultative manner. It would appear to us that from our point of view we have been given a very substantial bill a few days ago, a briefing that was gratefully accepted a few days ago - a brief briefing. Other than that, we have had a matter of days to absorb all the import of this bill, to go back to our stakeholder groups within the Liberal Party organisation, for instance, various interest committees within there on policy development. I would have dearly loved to take this to everybody, all the stakeholders that I have in the matter of law and order, and come back into this House after a reasonable period of time.

The reason I am not supporting the motion is that we do not see this lasting until just January through to 30 March. I can see it will be about June or July by the time that committee that we do not have any control over, and neither does the member for Denison, Ms Putt, actually does all this work and comes back in about July and then the thing goes through. We have lost six months' worth of valuable crime detection ability.

If I was I suppose more sanguine about the crime statistics in Tasmania, I might actually consider that, but I am horrified by the level of - and just the recent examples of very serious crimes in Tasmania and especially the report of the actual trials that are taking place and some of the evidence that is coming forward is really quite horrendous stuff. You could be forgiven for thinking you were living in Los Angeles or somewhere, for some of the brutal comments and unfeeling nature of some of the people who are on trial. I do not want to comment any further on matters that are under way -

Dr Patmore - All of which can be helped with DNA changes.

Mr HIDDING - Yes. I am not of a mind to be part of something that puts a six-month brake on that. For all that, I am persuaded enough from the contribution of the member for Denison, Ms Putt, on the matter of consultation because we were feeling just the same and until we hear back from the minister just how far this consultation has gone, I will at this point say that we are most concerned about the low level of consultation because there is one thing better than a strong DNA bill and that is a strong DNA bill or Forensic Procedures Bill that has the broad support of the Tasmanian people. The problem here is that if this goes through unconsulted, it will, in one way, shape or form, pass both Houses of Parliament.

If there is a whole rump of Tasmanians who are fired up about the matters of detail and do not have those matters of detail addressed nor feel as though they largely have had their say, then this provides problems for police officers in the field and I am sure later, when matters get to court, there will be dramas over what procedures were taken and this police officer did that wrong and this was not quite done, and informed consent was not quite informed consent. It is pretty sad that what in a positive sense could be seen as a major crime-fighting tool could have had a much better tick from the community of Tasmania.

The other matter is that we are told by the previous speaker that there are substantial departures from the model bill. I really would have enjoyed having the model bill and this side-by-side in a precis -

Ms Putt - Yes.

Mr HIDDING - it would have been a much more honest attempt by this Government to show what they are up to in this short period of time; that could have been done by the Department of Justice showing a straight matrix of measures and where they depart from each other and why, what the reason is, why should we be expected in a matter of a day or two to do a substantial exercise such as that. While we do not shirk from that, it is physically impossible for us to do that amount of work and again the minister could be accused later down the track of hiding things from Parliament. That is an unhelpful situation.

On the bill itself, I note from the minister's second reading speech, it might give some lead as to why, with the haste that he is going in that the last paragraph of his second reading speech says, 'The bill will provide Tasmania Police with an effective investigative tool and in detecting crime will assist in deterring offenders from re-offending, thereby making the community safe'.

Well, of course, I am not sure if that is a typo but I think 'safer' would have been a little better. It would be a wonderful outcome if this bill on its own made the community safe but it is going to need a lot more than that of course and we on this side of the House have always made and always do, when making public utterances on law and order, make the point to the broader community that crime and the prevention of it is a community issue. There is a political spectrum to it, there are many matters to consider but the community itself has a broader -

Mr HIDDING (Lyons - Deputy Leader of the Opposition) - As I pointed out, we are not going to support the amendment, and I will now limit my comments. I guess in an oblique way they are still on the amendment, but I will discuss the bill, and I take it that the minister will put the amendment at the end of the second reading speech. Mr Speaker, I also place on the record a suggestion that at the end of my contribution, which will go for about another twenty minutes, I suppose, we should break for an hour or so or for some shorter time, whatever is reasonable, for a meal break - as has been arranged on the last few sitting days by the Leader for Government Business - but I will leave that in the hands of the Government, as always. We are here to work, but it ought to be in a sensible environment. We have staff who are caught up in this as well.

Mr Deputy Speaker, as I said, we on this side of the House will support this bill. We do not want to be seen to be lying across the tracks of the bill. The alternatives to this are to send it off. The committee will take probably till about July before it is back. We have grave concerns about the consultation on this bill. It simply has not been consulted properly and I believe that will be exposed in the Legislative Council after it has been through this place, because we do not have the numbers to force more consultation or a better presentation of the Government's case which, as I said, should have included a matrix of an overlay between this legislation and the model bill so that we could see the diversions and discuss them very accurately.

As I think I said a little earlier, I am appalled by some of the current reading in the newspapers. I suppose the subculture of violence has always been there, but there does appear to be an increasing desensitisation to very bad crimes, and whatever it is linked to, there is a feeling in Tasmanian society that we may well sadly have seen the best of our little State in terms of law and order, for whatever reasons that might be. I am not going to pontificate on why that might be; that is a separate discussion and I have some strong views on that, but I will not take up the time of the House on proposing my views on that. But there has been some chilling stuff reported, and just recently when I raised the matter of ongoing brawls in the Launceston mall, the ABC radio afternoon show went out - a bit of old-fashioned reporting - and did some vox pops and took out their little tape-recorder into the mall and interviewed some seven or eight young people in the Mall. From the voices I think they were all girls, but some of the responses from those people - they said, 'What about this violence problem in the Mall?' some of the responses would make the hair stand up on the back of your neck. It was just appalling. It was things like, 'If someone gets into my face, that's it. I'm into them'. Just the most aggressive, violent positions taken by these young people that you would almost swear that it was a set-up, that they had been told, 'Here comes the ABC, let's all say the same thing, let's all frighten the heck out of the people listening' and it just served to remind me that there is a growing subculture of desensitisation to violence and for that reason we, the Liberal Party, are going to be rock solid behind anything that swings more power, sensible power, to the - armory is the wrong word - but to the assets available to Tasmania Police to swing the pendulum back to the side of the Tasmanians interested in law and order in this State.

The concerns raised by the previous speaker were genuine, I am sure, but they must be balanced against a crying need for a swinging of the pendulum of law and order back to the lawful citizens of Tasmania. Years ago of course there was debate in the community about various Commonwealth or even State departments giving information to each other. It was an appalling thought that somebody from the Taxation department might actually know what was happening with somebody claiming the dole or somebody at that department and if you dealt with that department and your financial records were there they were not allowed to be made known to another department. Of course that was a complete nonsense and it is now gone, along with things such as laws for bank accounts and those kinds of matters. It has made it a lot easier to combat white-collar fraud and simple rorting of financial systems around Australia and the sky did not fall in. It did not fall in when there were all these regulations to make it tougher to break the law and easier to get caught if you did. Across-agency tax records was just one of them.

I understand that in Australia - the Attorney-General could probably remind me - I do not think there has been too much debate about the situation in the United States where criminals can be asked to account for a massive increase in their personal wealth. I believe that in this country people can one minute not have much money to their name and the next minute be driving around in a Ferrari and nobody takes a scrap of notice. That person was last seen hanging around the street corners selling a bit of dope out of his back pocket and the next minute he is a millionaire. Well, in the United States, I understand, there are requirements - whether it comes from the financial regulators or whoever - to account for increases in wealth.

It is those kinds of things that we, on this side of the House, are happy to contemplate at any time. The other thing is that if this was one of the first pieces of legislation in the world to provide a framework under which a police service could operate in forensic procedures, then I would certainly be calling for a heck of a lot more scrutiny than what is being proposed here in this House. But this is not the first and while I am certainly interested in the departures from the model bill, legislation already exists in developed countries - very modern countries, very cosmopolitan countries, countries with a very heightened awareness of civil liberty issues - and certainly we were briefed some time ago by an exchange policeman from, I think, a United Kingdom police service somewhere - he was here on secondment - who briefed us on the issues and what it has done in that nation, and you cannot say that the United Kingdom is a leading light in breaking down civil liberty issues.

It has operated in most States in the US I think - and probably in all States of the US for some time - quite well and I am not aware of any great breakdown of civil liberty issues. I understand -

Ms Putt - Their circumstances for collecting the material don't go as far as they do here. That's the point I've been making.

Mr HIDDING - Yes, that is the detail we want to hear from the Attorney-General. I am interested in that and I am also particularly interested in areas of Europe where, certainly in Western Europe, there is a very heightened awareness of people's civil liberties and yet the availability of forensic procedures are in place there and are a very powerful crime-fighting tool. So we are not breaking new ground here but while not wanting to be anywhere near as alarmist as the member for Denison, Ms Putt, I do call on the Government to make available a precis, an overview and some detail on how we break away from that model code and why that might be.

There could well be simple answers. For instance how was it that we arrived at the age of fifteen years and over for requiring a parent or guardian present? There has to be a reason for that and I would be very keen to understand why that was the case. I remember my children at sixteen and not to be silly about it, they were not much older than when they were fifteen. It is not as though there was a huge leap between sixteen and eighteen. There is really an understanding that at eighteen you need to make some serious decisions for yourself, you need to arm yourself with knowledge about these matters, know your rights and the rest of it. There wants to be a good story from the Government as why this age of sixteen was selected.

One of the matters that concerns me, Attorney, is the issue of the big-brother database which is the one issue that most people are concerned about. As this bill also contemplates many sanctions on the improper use of databases and there are certain areas where it cannot be used for cross-checking purposes, where it can be used only once for testing on that particular crime and then after a period of time DNA has to be destroyed, there is obviously a major issue of appropriate use of these databases.

One of the issues I want to raise with you is that it is not obvious to me in doing my work on this bill what you propose to do with deceased persons. If we look at clause 3, without wanting to get some detail because we can do that in Committee, in clause 3 where the list is of the various indices, there is an unknown deceased persons index but there is also a volunteers' unlimited purposes index and when you look at that in the bill that includes DNA forensic material from a known deceased person. Surely, the Attorney is not suggesting that the system is going to require a sample from every deceased person or is there some suggestion that if there is some doubt by somebody over the background of that deceased person the police would be able to simply obtain a sample? When you think through the logistics of that, most people involved in, I think, sudden deaths are subject to an autopsy which is I suppose for the coroner but that is still within the system. The system has its hands on all the forensic material that would ever be required for that person.

My question there is, if that is available and you were to take it and you were to check it across the volunteers, unlimited across the whole spectrum of DNA tests, and you were to come across an issue of a violent act or something or other that had happened ten years earlier, the system could well say, we have solved another crime. But, of course, the person is not there to be charged, the person is not there to defend himself or herself and that person could well have been on site of that crime scene two days earlier and have a perfectly good alibi. I am drawing a long bow here but I cannot find any comfort in the bill as to what the arrangements are likely to be and what the protections are for deceased persons after their death and for the families of those deceased persons.

I do not know what the status is of the remains of a deceased person, who has control of them. Is it an immediate relative? Does that person need to give approval for a forensic procedure on that body? There are some interesting issues there that I think ought to be addressed by the Attorney. There may well be a simple answer but I think it is an involved question.

Just turning to police matters because this is my area of immediate interest as a spokesman for Police and Public Safety, there is no question that this is going to be good for policing. The briefing we received from the exchange, seconded police officer from the United Kingdom, was graphic and incontrovertible evidence that it is a significant policing tool with some terrific potential.
I wonder, though, if there is an understanding by Tasmania Police or even the employee body of the Tasmania Police Service that this will, if this bill goes through in this fashion, without too much consultation and understanding of all the delicate matters in this, whether the Tasmania Police Service members are not going to find themselves under quite some pressure as to how they go about their business in utilising this tool and that, having added to their task daily and weekly a great deal more discretion as to some serious matters, as to when and how they should take forensic material. This is a whole new ball game.

I noticed with interest yesterday that the Repeal of Regulations Postponement Bill said that the department is working on a whole new act to regulate Tasmania Police. Given that you have this kind of legislation coming through, with lots more discretion, then I think there are many discussions to be had with employees in the police service.

I wonder if the minister could just confirm - I have been through the bill two or three times and I want to be absolutely sure in my mind that there can be no intimate forensic procedures carried out without the order of a magistrate.

Dr Patmore - Yes, they can be.

Mr HIDDING - They can be - without the order of a magistrate?

Dr Patmore - As long as the person consents.

Mr HIDDING - Of course, as long as the person consents. What I am talking about, I suppose, is if a person does not consent then the police will require the order of a magistrate -

Ms Putt

- It's just that the definition of 'intimate' is entirely different to what it
is in the bill.

Mr HIDDING - and that brings in the magistrate then to say, 'In the public interest, show us your evidence' and then there will be a judgment made.

Mrs Swan - On reasonable grounds.

Dr Patmore - Like they do now - no, less than they do now. At the moment, you don't need a magistrate's order.

Mr HIDDING - For an intimate procedure?

Dr Patmore - Yes.

Mr HIDDING - So there are intimate procedures currently?

Dr Patmore - Yes, of course. You don't need a magistrate's order at the moment for those procedures; under this current bill you will. It tightens it up.

Mr HIDDING - Good. That is what I wanted to clear up. I have been through the bill two or three times and, as I pointed out, we as a team, I suppose, have not had enough time to sit down and talk on the matters of details and I just wanted assurance on that matter.

Could I ask whether there has been any consideration, given that the evidence available to a DNA forensic expert at a crime scene is not just related to things like hair, but it is also to saliva, excretions, sweat - all sorts of things - I wonder whether there has been any consideration given to the fact that police and emergency service workers, who are normally the first on a crime scene - has there been any discussion that their DNA should be available for an immediate removal of those samples, so that there is not a power of work done down blind alleys. Right now I suppose the police department would have on file all serving police officers' fingerprints, you would think, unless the police officers walk around with surgical gloves on all the time. If the police force already have all fingerprints on file, will it now become necessary for all police and emergency workers to have their DNA profile on file as well? If so, has this been raised with the employee body of Tasmania Police?

The other question is: how regulated will the forensic department be? Will there be opportunity for, let us say, a hard-working and aggressive drug squad or crime squad in a major city developing its own unofficial base, because within the rules you are limited to not being able to run this across that, and you can only take a sample under these arrangements? You can imagine having somebody in for a discussion and yet not have them for a suspect, not being able to provide that evidence to a magistrate, that you might give that person a cup of tea or whatever and obtain through foul means a DNA sample. That therefore is an unofficial sample. I just have a spectre in my mind of there being an unofficial blacklist where I just could not imagine how you would manage the forensic unit so that -

Dr Patmore - Clause 46.

Mr HIDDING - Clause 46, yes - well, I guess that is a blanket coverage to proper behaviour of all Tasmanian police and we certainly do not have any concerns about that, but from the point of view of people who do question from time to time just as a general issue the behaviour of police and all emergency services actually, you would think there would have to be very strong procedures in place to ensure that a black-list, off-the-record system of DNA profiles did not build up and become of itself a growing problem for the regulators in these matters.

So again we want to say that this legislation, when you overlay it with the rest of the Crimtrac benefits - and the last time I read a brief on Crimtrac was a little while ago - certainly it is a harnessing of all the available information. If we were one nation rather than a federation of States you would have one single police force, I suppose, and you would probably have a real problem having such a large police force.

Mrs Swan - The FBI.

Mr HIDDING - We have probably the best of all worlds. We in our States can have one strong police force in each State, and then there is the Federal police force. I have spent a bit of time in the United States and I was absolutely flummoxed by the number of police services there are in any one city, where you have transit police, rail police, county police, the sheriff's department. To find a straight old plain copper is not that easy in a city in the United States, and it really is quite confusing. We have a lovely system where each State has its own police force and they come together - I know the commissioners meet regularly and I know the ministers meet regularly - and it is good to see that initiatives such as Crimtrac are recognising that criminals these days especially move from State to State with total impunity and you need a very good central tracking system. I know the Federal police already handle a central register of criminal records. I assisted somebody with an immigration matter recently and had to send off a request to the Federal police and they obviously have access to the records of each State and each jurisdiction and they were able to respond within two weeks to say what they had to say. So it shows that while we are a federation of States, we are very able to work as a team on the big picture and that is very good. We are aware that Tasmania Police has employed forensic experts now for quite some time, and that the investment is in place. We would not want them to be metaphorically twiddling their thumbs. I know they are working, but certainly we want to provide them with their legislative framework to begin their work as soon as possible.

So that is why we will not be lying across the tracks on this, but we do point out that it is headed for a rocky path through the process because I do not believe it has been well handled by the Government.

The final matter I want to raise is that we as elected representatives owe it to our constituents to stay very well briefed on all the matters as they evolve in the issue of genetic codes, right out to the human genome project because before long, as my colleague read out - there was an expert who was able to demonstrate that a simple DNA sample can be extrapolated to, for instance, say that the owner of this DNA material is a blonde person, a male or a female person, who has blue eyes and lives at 3 Smith Street.

Mrs Swan - It's not quite that simple.

Mr HIDDING - That would be nice, but once you go down that track that opens a whole ethical field, and we as a society - as a world society, because this is world-breaking technology - will need to be very aware that here in our small community we do not get out in front of the game, we are sensible about it, we use everything available in our possession to catch the crooks, and we also use everything available in our possession to not persecute innocent people - and this is a very key part of this - that if somebody is genuinely innocent of a crime, then the DNA process and these forensic procedures are very well placed to prove that person is innocent. These are exciting times for law enforcement in this State and we look forward to the police having this stuff at their disposal - sensible procedures that have the support of most Tasmanians.

Mrs SWAN - Mr Deputy Speaker, it is appropriate that I make some comments since I have carriage of the legislation but, as my colleague has indicated, the decision by the Opposition has been to move on with this legislation albeit, as I said in the second reading speech, that it is a complex if not complicated matter. It is complex in the sense of the need to do a great deal of comparative work. The timing of this has, in fact, prevented a deal of that and I suspect in taking the decision that we do, we have given attention to the fact that we will need to examine the clauses and that a deal of refinement may be required when this bill enters the Legislative Council. But it is a balancing act and I have to say that I have only just been in receipt of the model legislation and done some cursory inspection of that bill and indeed there are differences, and the processes that are adopted and are being adopted in our legislation are different in a number of areas.

The member for Denison has, of course, made comment with respect to the classing of a mouth swab as a non-intimate process in the Tasmanian legislation, which of course is the case. The agreement, of course, under the model legislation was that it was to be treated as intimate, so she is certainly correct in saying what she does there.

Our inspection of the bill will really be to address the processes and to request the Attorney, as I have earlier said, for comparative differences between the model legislation in other States and our own bill. But we believe that as a matter of law and order, this is a particularly serious bill and it is obviously immensely important in order to not only see to the business of keeping up with the national innovation with regard to the DNA database, but also to look at how we can use such a tool for better policing and better law and order in the State so we acknowledge that very readily and support it on that basis. But in doing so, I acknowledge what the member for Denison is saying.

This is one of those pieces of legislation that does demand a comparative assessment and we have not been given the time to do that to the degree that I would have liked, I have to say. I suspect, as I say, that a great deal of this work will be achieved in the Legislative Council and it does fill me with a degree of concern that these sorts of matters are addressed in this way, particularly when we have to sit on late into the evening with the threat of gag or an assumed gag, over our heads, because of course we are sitting beyond the time that is normal for the Parliament, under this Government, and that adds a certain pressure to the way we approach the bill. But, having said that, I am indicating that we will not be supporting the motion in front of us, and that is to refer it on to the committee for further assessment, simply because that would indeed delay the matter and delay it to an extent that we think is not appropriate. I have to say that we would have been pleased to have had some further extension for assessment simply by way of the number of days so that we could have taken further advice. I did indicate in the second reading debate that I had taken advice from the chairman of the Criminal Law Committee of the Law Society and he had given it his inspection and feels comfortable with it. He had done a comparison with the Federal guidelines and felt that he did not have any great degree of trouble with it, but I think as we go through the processes we are going to find some differentiation, some difficulty and, by way of remark, I can simply add that there are a number of typographical errors in the legislation -

Ms Putt - There are, yes.

Mrs SWAN - and I have pointed a number of those out to Mr Maloney. I have no doubt they have been referred on to the Attorney but at that level, where there is not even a simple check process, I have to say it is concerning because the typographical material you pick up very quickly but it leads to the assumption that there are other matters within the legislation that have not been properly attended to and that worries us. As I say, this is becoming somewhat typical of the Government's legislation that there is a rush to move these things through, and I have said before that the resources of Parliamentary Counsel may be somewhat constrained. There may be a need for better resourcing of Parliamentary Counsel in order to have the proper checking procedures done. I do not expect to find bills come into the House with simple typographical errors, and I think anyone in the Chamber will concede that is not the sort of thing that we would expect to have in front of us. But the point of the matter, of course, is that it leads to the conclusion that there are other matters within the bill that have not been properly attended to, and that indeed is worrying.

Again I say we will not be supporting the motion. Having said all that I have said, we will go on to inspect the bill further. We think it is unreasonable to delay it to the extent of putting it to an extensive inspection in the committee, but we do think that adequate and proper scrutiny through the parliamentary process is essential and we will be doing our very best in this process and relying, indeed, on the powers of scrutiny in the Legislation Council to do their bit in order to make sure this piece of legislation is appropriate to the cause.

Dr PATMORE (Bass - Attorney-General) - Mr Speaker, the Government will not be supporting the motion. What I intend to do basically is - there were some points raised by the member for Lyons as well. Rather than deal with them now I will deal with them once the vote has been put in my summing up. I know there are some questions in relation to the Committee stage, so we can take our time and go through it there as well. But I have taken notes of the points you have raised, and I am pretty sure I can cover most of them.

Ms Putt - You're not going to put any argument about why you're not going to the committee?

The House divided -

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER - Pursuant to standing order 192, there being no other member supporting the Ayes I declare that the Noes have it.

Dr PATMORE (Bass - Minister for Justice and Industrial Relations) - We will adjourn for an hour after the second reading. I will be about fifteen or twenty minutes.

I made some notes in relation to what was said. I thank Ms Putt for her kindly lecture about the ignorance that both the Government and the Opposition have in all these matters; I do not know where we would be without her. We humble people perhaps do have some answers in relation to these matters that were raised and, dare I say it, perhaps Ms Putt has got some things wrong - but I do that with trepidation.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I will go through some of the points that were raised and I made some notes on these. The first one was the position in the other States. New South Wales has introduced the bill and Western Australia has introduced the bill, all other States and Territories have passed their bills - it is done. Queensland and Western Australia have departed dramatically from the model bill - that is where Ms Putt is under some misconception. The model bill is not a bible that is to be followed by each jurisdiction totally and, in fact, it was never considered that that it would be the way. There are many model bills put up that each jurisdiction used and over the years it is used as a model only and it does not have to be totally followed. It has been modified in the Tasmania context after discussions with Police and Justice.

I also note - and in fact I even went so far as to get the minutes from the meeting where I voted on this and we noted the progress, expressed our views on the model bill and agreed that jurisdictions will give consideration to the model bill when preparing the necessary legislation. I think that clearly answers those points there; in fact, there was no agreement that this was to be totally followed.

The next couple of points were in relation to allegations made that a person would not be able to communicate and they could not have a lawyer under the bill. But Ms Putt is not aware of the Criminal Law (Detention and Interrogation) Bill 1995 which of course is not put aside by the bill. I will read part of that out because she probably does not know it exists. Clause 6, the right to communicate with friend, relative and legal practitioner - and I will not go on because it is in a similar vein -

'6(1) Before any question or investigation' -

which includes forensic procedures I might say -

'under section 4 may commence, the police officer conducting the investigation must inform the person in custody that he or she may communicate with a friend or relative to inform the friend' -

and -

'communicate with a legal practitioner.'

So the law stays as it has been and the safeguards are still in place. This bill does not put aside any safeguards.

Ms Putt made great play about, 'Oh, this is terrible' - about the fingerprinting. She wanted basically the Criminal Process (Identification and Search) Procedures Act to continue through for fingerprinting. 'Oh, you've got rid of it'. Well, there are a couple of good reasons for that. The first one is: why, when you have DNA that has different safeguards, would you leave the old lines for fingerprinting? You would have the ridiculous situation where you could perhaps have a glass at a crime scene where DNA could be taken from the glass and tested but the fingerprint could not - a nonsense, an absolute nonsense.

What Ms Putt also forgot to mention in her mock outrage was what is currently allowed under the Criminal Process (Identification and Search) Procedures Act. I think I commented to Mr Hidding in relation to that. A person in custody can be subjected to body searches already. I will read this out. Section 5 of the current act:

'Where a person is in lawful custody ... a police officer may search that person in any case where he believes on reasonable grounds that it is necessary to do so'.

A police officer - it does not need an order, a police officer can do it. Then section 6, 'Examination of accused person in custody for evidence of offence charged' - and that is intimate procedures:

'Where a person is in lawful custody having been arrested and charged with an offence referred to in the Schedule, and the offence is of such a nature alleged to have been committed under such circumstances that there are reasonable grounds for believing that an examination of his body may afford evidence of the commission of the offence, it is lawful for a medical practitioner acting at the request and in the presence of a police officer' -

to carry out these procedures.

Intimate procedures under the current bill in front of us have to be approved by a magistrate so unfortunately, Ms Putt, was not aware or chose to ignore those aspects because there is a couple of things you can always know will get the Greens rolling: multinational corporations, woodchipping and police, three buttons, press them and off they go, the knockout road starts. This is nothing more than a manifestation of a continuing paranoia and dislike these people have of the police, although they are very quick to call the police if they get into trouble on a picket line. Anyway I am not going to worry about that.

Ms Putt mentioned a couple of other points in relation to this too and she said, 'Oh, well, these police offences, they are not serious offences'. Ms Putt, they are motor-vehicle theft, possession of stolen property amongst others - go and tell someone who has had their car stolen that it is not a serious offence. Now, might I also say that -

Ms Putt - What about the ones that were quoted by Michael Mansell?

Dr PATMORE - Ms Putt, I heard you in silence, have you no manners? Let me give an example in relation to that about how you are not supposed to dare take DNA samples from a car and link someone to that, good heavens. I will give you an example. A car can be stolen to commit a crime, that can be extremely serious - it could be a murder, it could be a rape. The DNA from the car can lead the police back to the other offence so there is logic in relation to the Government's position in this. It is not a matter of giving the flag to the police to trample uncontrollably across people's civil liberties. It is logical, consistent and commonsense, words that, again, Ms Putt has some problem with, but never mind.

Now, I will give some examples. Ms Putt did not want this aspect of the bill because it was extending powers. Yes, it does extend powers; it extends powers to suspects as well and under the current Criminal Process (Identification and Search Procedures) Act, a person must be arrested and charged before DNA samples can be taken. You are quite correct, DNA samples can be taken under the current act, but can only taken from the person who is arrested and charged.

Ms Putt - That is the point I was making.

Dr PATMORE - Now, I will again, in case Ms Putt has short-term memory loss, go into examples.

Ms Putt - I do not have any worse short-term memory loss than you. You have just completely misrepresented what I said. Either you did not understand it, or you deliberately do it.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER - Order, order. The Attorney was right, Ms Putt, you were heard in silence, I would ask you to extend him the same courtesy.

Dr PATMORE - Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. In relation to the matter of Hyland there was a thirteen-year delay in the solving of that murder. The police suspected who the person was but he refused to assist. They could not under the current act arrest him because they did not feel that they had sufficient to arrest him on. They could not charge him. It took changes of the DNA technology because a part of his defence was actually that the girl was never in the taxi with him. What finally was found is that DNA samples from the girl, the victim, were identified which punched a hole in his story, but that then allowed the police to take a punt on it, charge him and then get the DNA. Once that was obtained, he pleaded guilty. If the police had been able to act upon the bill we have in front of us now, that matter would have been solved much earlier.

Ms Putt - It probably also would have been solved if they simply had to go to a magistrate which they do not have to do for certain procedures here, which again is the point that I was making.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER - The Attorney -

Dr PATMORE - People are so rude, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER - It astounds me.

Ms Putt - It is just that you are misrepresenting the points I have made and then knocking down an argument that is not the point I made.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER - Ms Putt, you will have plenty of opportunity; I am sure that we are going to be here very late and I am sure that you will have plenty of opportunity to ask any questions and make any comment that you choose to do. In the meantime I am giving the call to the Attorney.

Dr PATMORE - In relation to another example of Brown, murder and rape, an extremely vicious murder and rape - they did not have sufficient evidence to arrest him and charge him to get the DNA samples under the current 1976 act. Unfortunately it took another rape that allowed them to find DNA samples to go back to the first murder and rape. There is no doubt whatsoever that if the current bill in front of this House had been proclaimed, that rape would not have occurred - no doubt whatsoever - and that is why I draw issue with Ms Putt's contribution in this. She is just wrong.

Mrs James - The innocent have nothing to fear.

Dr PATMORE - In relation to volunteers, the police cannot solicit, they cannot ask people to volunteer. There has to be an advertisement put on the radio, an advertisement in the papers, a public call. There cannot be solicitation, so again, that is wrong.

As Mrs James commented, remember that this legislation and this technology clears the innocent in many cases and in fact allows a person very quickly to be shown to be not a suspect. But in all the carryings-on by some people who have chosen to misunderstand the act or misrepresent its ramifications, they have focused on the fact that a person, if they are a suspect - and I will talk about how you become a suspect later; it is not just, 'You on the street, we want you'; the police officer has to have a sustainable view that the person has probably committed the crime. So they are not just pulled in off the streets, they are suspects. The bill can quickly eliminate that person as a suspect. I would have thought that civil libertarians would absolutely welcome those points.

In relation to children, a decision was made that fifteen was the age upon which people would be tested. It was a judgment call but it was not just, 'Let's flip a coin and pick a number between ten and twenty'; there is a rationale behind that as well. The statistical profiles show quite clearly that the ages of fifteen, sixteen and seventeen are almost exactly the profile for burglaries, car thefts and damages. We may not like that and we may all regard fifteen-year-olds as little innocents but I would have to say that if you go out into the wide world you may come across some who are not.

I seem to recall also that we have minors - technically minors at the moment - who have been charged with murder. From my point of view you are just as dead if you are killed by a fifteen, sixteen or seventeen-year-old as you are if you are killed by a 21-year-old. That is the feedback I am receiving in the community. I listened when I heard the contributions made by Ms Putt about there being no consultation and the community being outraged but my phone has not exactly been ringing off the hook, my emails have not been clogged, my letterbox has not been stuffed by outraged people but what I can say is that there has been almost unanimous support and congratulations for Parliament bringing in this legislation.

Might I also say - because these are all the points on why we were not supporting this delay - that there is no doubt whatsoever that we will have almost immediate results on unsolved crimes when this bill is proclaimed. I am sorry, Ms Putt, I do not want crimes to continue to be unsolved for another seven months while we push it around from pillar to post because people do not want to make a decision.

Ms Putt - For another how long, sorry?

Dr PATMORE - She is at it again!

Ms Putt - You said for another seven something - it was weeks, months or years and I didn't hear.

Mrs Swan - I think it was seven months.

Dr PATMORE - Mr Deputy Speaker, I think I have pointed those issues out. Ms Putt made a comment about why you would need a cast of a breast or something like that. Ms Putt, I hate to say it, but there is currently provision under the 1976 act with less safeguards.

Ms Putt - That doesn't make it -

Dr PATMORE - 'Give me an example', I heard. Let us have a think about it. It could be for scratches, it could be for bite marks.

Mrs James - Mother's milk.

Dr PATMORE - Do you not have an appointment, Mrs James? It could be for bite marks, it could be for bruises - all of which can show that a person was involved in an offence. That is one very quick example. But let me make the point, those powers are currently in place with fewer safeguards. But of course we will not hear that from those people who wish to criticise the bill. I have already commented that the procedures do not affect the current acts and procedures, both in how a person is spoken to, the right of a person to have witnesses, the right of a person to seek legal advice.

I think I have covered most of the points raised. In relation to public consultation, it would be lovely to have more public consultation - it would be great, it would be wonderful, we could consult for another year. But it is not as if this is matter that people are not aware of. I seem to recall Inspector Napier from the United Kingdom getting incredibly large coverage this year. And I have spoken to Assistant Commissioner Prins and he tells me at a rough estimate that he has spoken to about 50-odd Rotary clubs in relation to this, making people aware. I have done the same. I have been to Neighbourhood Watches; I have been to community groups - I have spoken at length. There is no surprise that the Government intends to do this. In fact, Mr Maloney handed to me a while ago an Australian magazine, which is April 2000, front page, hard sell, pros and cons of the DNA database. If this was a plan by the Government to keep something secret and then drop it on an unsuspecting public, this would have to be the worst kept secret I have ever come across.

There is absolutely no doubt that the public is aware and might I say, incredibly supportive. The public, when you talk to them, are just sick and tired of the offences that are occurring and they want these people caught. They want them caught and to be quite blunt about it, they do not care if they are sixteen years of age, they do not care. A sixteen-year-old will cause just as much damage, probably more so than a 21-year-old. So when the effects of crime are tallied, there is no difference. A person can be just as much affected by anyone of any age. And the victims - talk to the victims in relation to this. I hate to say it, but there are some people who are just bad. I cannot think of a better word for it. And I have dealt with them myself.

Mr Hidding - Sociopaths.

Dr PATMORE - I have had eighteen-year-olds in my office with prior convictions five pages long, I used to represent them.

Mr Hidding - Used to get them off?

Members laughing.

Mrs Swan - Used to get them on the straight and narrow.

Dr PATMORE - Now I see their children out at Risdon. Sometimes I was able to get them off and sometimes I did not. But you could pick them and I would get them; they would be brought in with their family, mum and dad or often mum when they are fourteen years of age.

Mrs Swan - That's the time.

Dr PATMORE - They would be sitting there and I would take them to the Children's Court and represent them - I would try to do what I could. But you knew they would be back. Return trade is very important in legal firms. You knew they would be back and, unfortunately, that was the case. Which leads me to final point. Again, we are talking - and Ms Putt was saying these matters are not serious, you are trying to tell me that motor vehicle theft is serious or possessing stolen property is serious or resisting arrest, assaulting police is serious.

Mr Hidding - It is.

Ms Putt - Swearing at a police officer, is that really so serious?

Dr PATMORE - Unfortunately, yet again with a touch of reality is that inevitably those people who commit serious offences as in murder or rape, as I keep hearing -

Mr Hidding - All started on the other stuff.

Dr PATMORE - inevitably have started with a swath of offences -

Mr Hidding - It's true, read the criminology stuff.

Dr PATMORE - And I can read them out. I have a couple of charge sheets in my mind.

Ms Putt - That's quite different to saying that everybody who swears at a police officer goes on to rape someone. That is what you're implying.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER - Order.

Dr PATMORE - No, I am not implying that and I have had to respond to that interjection, Mr Deputy Speaker, because she is wrong again. What I am saying is when you look at a profile of a criminal who has committed a series of violent, serious offences - grievous bodily harm, burglary, assault, rape - it is very rare to find that they do not have prior convictions and to find that they do not include burglary, motor vehicle theft, possession of stolen property, obstructing police and assaults.

The aim of this bill is first of all to recognise, without the rose-coloured glasses, that these people will go on to offend; know also that the minority of people cause the majority of offences; know also that once you get them on the DNA, you will get them again and, sooner or later, you will get them for an offence that will put them away for a very long time, or sooner or later they will wake up to themselves and stop offending. Either way, society wins. I would much rather they woke up to themselves and stopped offending. In fact that indeed has been the United Kingdom experience: that there was a spike in the graph when the DNA testing was brought in; that solved a lot of outstanding crimes; it heightened for a while, while clear-up rates continued to improve and then it dropped once the penny finally dropped that people were going to get caught if they committed offences and having given a DNA sample previously, knew very well that the police had that on their database. I cannot think of a better deterrent so, Mr Deputy Speaker, I am sorry that the member for Denison feels that this is an all-out assault on civil liberties. It is not. I would have thought victims have just as many rights of civil liberties as anyone else. They do not choose to be victims, so I commend the bill to the House and I look forward to its passing.

The House divided -

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER - Order. There being no member supporting Ms Putt, in accordance with standing order 192, I declare that the Ayes have it.

Second reading so agreed to.