Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Mental Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The measures in the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Penalty Units) Bill are not controversial and modernise existing legislation. Labor are committed to cracking down on serious crime and deterring unlawful behaviour, and we support this bill as contributing to those objectives.

The bill amends the Crimes Act 1914 to increase the amount of the Commonwealth penalty unit and provides that the amount will be automatically adjusted every three years in line with inflation. 'Penalty units' are used to describe the amount payable for monetary penalties imposed for criminal offences in Commonwealth legislation and territory ordinances. Commonwealth penalties are generally expressed in terms of penalty units, rather than specific values, to assist with the adjustment of penalties across the Commonwealth statute book. The amendments in this bill increase the Commonwealth penalty unit amount from $170 to $180 and provide a mechanism for the amount to be indexed every three years according to CPI.

The penalty unit mechanism allows the maximum monetary penalty for all offences under Commonwealth law or territory ordinances to be automatically adjusted with a single amendment of section 4AA of the Crimes Act. This removes the need for multiple legislative amendments and ensures that monetary penalties in Commonwealth legislation and territory ordinances remain comparable.

Maintaining the value of the penalty unit over time ensures that financial penalties for Commonwealth offences keep pace with inflation. When the penalty unit was first introduced in 1992, its value was set at $100. This value was adjusted over time, in 1997 and in 2012, and both increases were made in line with changes to the CPI. The 2015-16 budget included this measure to increase the value to $180 with effect from 31 July 2015. The budget measure also provided that the government would introduce ongoing automatic indexation. Indexation will occur on 1 July every three years, with the first indexation in July 2018.

Labor want to ensure that the courts have the ability to impose appropriate penalties to deal with serious offenders and organised crime. We need to consistently send the strong message that crime does not pay and, therefore, we support this increase and the mechanism to index the amount every three years according to CPI.

Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I commend the bill to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.