Julia Irwin (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Tonight, I am pleased to take the opportunity to report to the House about several aspects of the work of the Petitions Committee.

Today has been an interesting one for the committee. It held a public hearing into a petition regarding the convictions of Messrs Morant, Handcock and Witton by British Military Courts Martial during the Boer War in 1901. It is quite something to think that now, 108 years later, this case and the issues it raised are still being considered and that the process of a petition to the House of Representatives is being used to argue for a review of the convictions and sentences by the British Crown. The petition also seeks a Crown pardon with respect to the convictions for murdering Boer prisoners.

The petition argues that aspects of the courts martial raise questions about the fairness, the legal process and the sentencing of Morant, Handcock and Witton. Morant and Handcock were executed in 1902. Witton was sentenced to penal servitude for life but he was released in 1904. There are other points of view, as might be expected, about the convictions and subsequent executions of Morant and Handcock. The crimes of which they were accused and convicted were extremely serious. The sentences imposed on Morant and Handcock were severe. There has been some coverage of the issues raised in the petition—for and against—in the media recently. No doubt the different views will continue to be felt and expressed.

This leads me to consider the next step in consideration of the issues raised in the petition. One of the Petitions Committee’s roles under the standing orders of the House is to refer petitions to relevant ministers for a response. In this case the petition was referred by the committee to the Attorney-General. The Attorney’s reply to the committee on the petition has been presented in this House and is published on the committee’s webpage. The Attorney has referred the petition to the British Secretary of State for Defence, as the appropriate authority to review the decisions that were made at that time, for review and any further action he considers appropriate. It will be interesting to see a response in due course.

The hearing has been a fascinating glimpse into matters of history. Most petitions that the committee receives relate to current issues and concerns, but it is interesting to observe that petitioners may seek to use the committee’s processes to look back and to ask that decisions that were made by another country, and in another time, be considered again.

To come back to the present day, I would also like to remind the House of the committee’s current inquiry. The committee was first formed in 2008 and it is now examining its role and operations and the standing orders that are relevant to petitions. As submissions to the inquiry are received by the committee they will be published on its webpage on the Parliament House website, so that the various viewpoints can be made accessible to all those people who are interested in the process of petitioning and the work of the committee. The committee is pleased that it can provide on this webpage easy access to such comment, as well as to the collection of terms of petitions it has received and to the responses that government ministers make to them.

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