Michael Johnson (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In the Australian parliament, as the representative of the people of Ryan, I have great pleasure in speaking on the Crimes Amendment (Bail and Sentencing) Bill 2006. I very strongly commend it to my electorate and to the House of Representatives. This is an important bill that the Howard government is again putting before the parliament. It is all about reconciliation and ensuring that this is a strong and united country irrespective of whether we are Indigenous Australians or white Australians. I think this is a piece of legislation that is very important for all of us to take note of.

I want to briefly mention the notion of reconciliation before I go on to the substance of the bill because I think it is important. Reconciliation with our Indigenous communities is one of the most important challenges facing our nation. I think that for any federal government this should always remain a priority irrespective of the political colour of that government. I think that true reconciliation is something that needs to be worked on—it is a work in progress—with all stakeholders of goodwill coming together. I want to quote the views of this side of the parliament as to what embraces true reconciliation as expressed by the Prime Minister in his Menzies lecture in December 2000 on the very important issue of Indigenous Australians. He said:

True reconciliation is, in our view, to be best found within practical means to improve the well-being and happiness of indigenous Australians and raising standards to levels enjoyed and expected by all of us.

The essence of that is that we are all Australians and we all have every entitlement to enjoy equal standards, equal opportunities and equal prosperity. These should not be limited to any section of the Australian community.

Of course, we all know that Indigenous Australians in the past have suffered greatly. No-one should try to deny that. No-one should try to walk away from that fact. But as a modern, sophisticated, 21st century nation it is time that we look forward and have a vision to come together and to address the challenges and the difficulties that we have in this country. That is why this bill is important. It reconfirms that the Indigenous Australians of this country ought to be treated in the very same way as non-Indigenous Australians in our criminal justice system.

I know that the electorate of Ryan, which I represent here in the parliament, would have been very shocked to see the Lateline program of several months ago that alleged the abuse of children in the remote Mutitjulu community. These allegations came on top of claims earlier in the year that petrol sniffing and substance abuse was also rife within the Mutitjulu community. I think those allegations have again highlighted the need for reconciliation efforts to be a priority of any Australian government, and the Howard government does make this a very strong priority. People of goodwill in this parliament, people with a genuine desire to make a difference in our country, should try and work together on this issue, as we should on many other issues that we face.

According to the 2001 census, Australia’s Indigenous population was some 458,000. Of course, that was five years ago and no doubt that figure is well and truly past the half-million mark. I do not have the precise figure but it would be well and truly past that. The census of this year will reveal the most up-to-date figures when it is made public some time soon. That figure represents approximately 2.4 per cent of the overall population of Australia. However, Indigenous people make up 24 per cent of Australians living in areas classified as either remote or very remote. More than half of all Indigenous people live in New South Wales or my home state of Queensland—the greatest state in the Commonwealth, of course! In 2001 Queensland was home to just under 126,000 Indigenous Australians. The Indigenous population in our country is growing faster than the non-Indigenous population. Non-Indigenous growth is some 1.8 per cent compared to Indigenous growth of two per cent.

We, as the duly elected government of this country, have an obligation to pass laws in this parliament that seek to make a difference in the Australian electorate. Indigenous affairs is a very important area, and at the moment that portfolio is under the stewardship of Minister Mal Brough, who is doing an outstanding job. We are trying to get away from the ideologically driven policies of previous Labor governments which focused more on rights than responsibilities and more on division than unity. Labor clearly neglected to make any practical advance in the areas of Indigenous health and education and tried to promote more of a handout than a hand-up mindset. In my home state of Queensland, Noel Pearson is a highly respected voice on Indigenous affairs, and I might say I had the pleasure of going to the same school as him in Brisbane—St Peter’s Lutheran College, in the suburb of Indooroopilly. He has become one of this country’s significant spokesmen on Indigenous affairs, bringing a clear intellect and voice to this important area of policy.

The federal Labor government of past years had an ideological focus, whereas this government is trying to focus on making a real and meaningful impact on health, education and related issues such as safety and security for Indigenous women, particularly young women who are very much at risk from criminal behaviour by Indigenous men in their communities. Clearly, this bill is all about what the government is doing to address that. I want to quote Senator Chris Evans of the Labor Party because he made a very interesting speech in which he gave an instructive acknowledgement of Labor’s dismal failure to address this issue. He acknowledges himself that this ideological commitment is the wrong approach. He said:

Labor’s ideological commitment to the rights agenda, self-determination and reconciliation was not matched by a successful attack on the fundamental causes of Indigenous disadvantage. We put too much faith in the capacity of the rights agenda to contribute to overcoming entrenched Indigenous disadvantage.

He goes on in the speech to make remarks about trying to address Indigenous wellbeing under a future Labor government. Of course, this government’s record stands proudly because it is making a difference. In April 2004 it became clear that the ATSIC experiment, which was introduced by the Labor Party, had failed to respond to the crisis in confidence in this supposedly peak and supposedly representative Indigenous body. The government responded swiftly and decisively, announcing sweeping reforms that included the abolition of the ATSIC organisation.

In terms of the budget that the Commonwealth allocates to this very critical area of national policy, real spending on Indigenous-specific programs has increased by almost 50 per cent over the last decade from the levels when the Howard government was first elected in 1996. The 2006-07 budget provides the biggest investment in Indigenous affairs. More than $3.3 billion of Australian taxpayers’ money is allocated by the Howard government to areas of health, education, housing and security for our Indigenous Australians. All taxpayers in this country would expect that that money is allocated and invested appropriately and that it does produce outcomes that improve the lives of our Indigenous Australians. This $3.3 billion includes almost $500 million in additional spending to support 24 new Indigenous projects spanning six portfolios. I commend that.

The background to this bill is about leadership from the government over the issue of extensive reports and allegations of violence in Aboriginal communities. With this bill the government is taking the lead to implement the outcomes of the Intergovernmental Summit on Violence and Child Abuse in Indigenous Communities, held in June 2006, which were later confirmed by COAG at its July 2006 meeting. The summit was concerned about the examples of customary law being used to mitigate the punishments for criminal offences, resulting in the guilty parties getting significantly lighter sentences than would otherwise be condoned by the law. In particular, there were concerns over the lack of testing of what defendants claimed to be customary law. This is a totally untenable situation where we have two sets of laws in this country: the common law and the statute law of this country, on the one hand, versus customary law that is applied to Indigenous Australians. I know the overwhelming majority of the Ryan electorate would not accept that as being in the best interests of a united Australian nation.

A woman who, for example, is the subject of sexual abuse in an Aboriginal community is entitled to the same justice as a victim who lives in any other part of Australia, in any other suburb of the cities of this country. They should not be treated differently. They are entitled to see the guilty party appropriately punished and not given a lesser, and in some cases much lesser, sentence simply because that person claims the act was condoned by customary law. There is the example of the 55-year-old man who was initially only jailed for one month for anally raping a 14-year-old girl. The judge in that case accepted that, under tribal law, the victim was his promised bride. In 21st century Australia, to me as an individual in this country, separate from my Ryan electorate representative duties here, that is absolutely untenable. Someone who rapes a 14-year-old girl being jailed for one month is just beyond the pale. This government must ensure that those sorts of examples do not become part of an Indigenous legal culture, if I can put it that way.

In another example, a 29-year-old Aboriginal man choked his pregnant wife to death before burning her and their unborn child on a bonfire. In that case, his conviction would have dictated a sentence of ‘strict security life imprisonment’ with a minimum term of between 20 and 30 years of imprisonment. The man in this particular case, however, had already been subject to traditional punishment by his tribe, which the judge took into account, instead imposing a life sentence with parole after only 19 years. So it was 19 years versus, potentially, 30 years of imprisonment simply because his tribe had, in their view, in their wisdom and in their culture, dealt out traditional punishment. In this country all of us are subject to the same laws of the Commonwealth and the states. I want to assure my electorate of Ryan that under the Howard government the Australian judicial system, the Australian laws of this land, will not condone such serious offences as sexual violence and abuse in order to allow guilty parties to escape appropriate punishment.

While it is important to take into account a person’s background during sentencing, the cultural background of a person should not be held up as something of particular and special consideration in the sentencing process. Moreover, it should certainly never be used to sideline the rights of the victims and avoid full and proper punishment for any offence. It is interesting to note that COAG, in its joint communique presented at the July meeting of COAG, reflects this view. What COAG stated is very instructive to all of us:

The law’s response to family and community violence and sexual abuse must reflect the seriousness of such crimes. COAG agreed that no customary law or cultural practice excuses, justifies, authorises, requires or lessens the seriousness of violence or sexual abuse. All jurisdictions agree that their laws will reflect this, if necessary by future amendment.

I take the opportunity in parliament to commend the Northern Territory government because I understand that they have been very much on the front foot to pass legislation that reflects the COAG statement. The Deputy Chief Minister, Mr Sid Stirling, has said publicly that the laws of the Northern Territory do reflect what COAG agreed to. He said:

In the Northern Territory we’ve change the rules on customary law—you can’t use it as a defence and in sentencing it’s controlled, tested and limited.

On the other hand, I want to highlight the absurd position of the Western Australian Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Sheila McHale, who strongly supports tribal law and told the summit in Canberra that Western Australia did not support the elimination of Indigenous tribal law. That was rebuked by magistrate Sue Gordon, the chairwoman of the National Indigenous Council, who very commendably hit out at plans to give Western Australian judges and magistrates great discretion to consider Aboriginal tribal law when dealing with criminal cases. I commend her in the national parliament for her position.

Regrettably, time is getting away from me, as it always does when I am speaking on a very important bill in the interests of this country’s future. The Australian government wishes to ensure that all Australians are treated equally under Australian law and that victims receive the justice to which they are entitled. The bill therefore amends the sentencing and bail provisions in the Crimes Act 1914 to require a court to consider the potential impact on victims and witnesses, and specifically the potential impact on victims and witnesses in remote communities, when granting and imposing bail conditions for Commonwealth offences. Most significantly, the bill deletes the reference to ‘cultural background’ in section 16A of the Crimes Act for all Commonwealth offences and ensures that no customary law or cultural practice excuses, justifies, authorises, requires, or lessens the seriousness of any criminal behaviour with which that act is concerned.

Essentially, the bill confirms that no customary law or cultural practice excuses criminal behaviour, including unlawful violence or sexual abuse. Of course, a lot of sheer nonsense has come from the opposition. I hope that the Labor speaker who will follow me, a highly respected member of this parliament and a senior counsel, will not follow the remarks of the speaker before me, who talked about this bill as simply being about getting headlines and about mere political opportunism. I very much hope that he does not follow that course of conduct because that allegation is quite an affront to those on this side of the House—that we would pass this piece of very significant legislation taking away cultural background as an aspect of a Commonwealth act simply for headlines. That is an affront to me personally, and an affront to this government. I hope that the quality of his presentation exceeds—and I am sure it will—that of the speaker before me in the debate on this bill.

In conclusion, I end my remarks by supporting this bill very strongly and by quoting the opposition leader and shadow Attorney-General of the Northern Territory, who made a very significant point. He said:

The women and children who are brutalised every day in Central Australia are, apparently, meant to take great comfort from the knowledge that their violent, and usually drunk, attackers have some passing acquaintance with, and at best tenuous involvement in, some cultural practices.

Of course, they are not. This bill ensures for victims that terrible and brutal crimes committed by Indigenous men cannot be hidden under the charade of customary law when it comes to them facing legal sanction for their behaviour. (Time expired)

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