The Hon. H.J. GUMBYS (16:07): I rise in support of the Statutes Amendment (Attorney-General's Portfolio and Related Matters) Bill 2026. The work of parliament does not end when legislation is enacted. Laws must be examined in practice, tested against the circumstances in which they operate, and corrected when their wording produces uncertainty or unintended result. That process is essential to maintaining public confidence in our legal system.
People should be able to understand how the law applies, public authorities should be able to perform their responsibilities with certainty, and legal consequences should remain proportionate to the conduct involved. This bill advances those principles through targeted amendments to four acts. The amendments address different areas of law, but each responds to a situation in which the existing legislation no longer operates with the clarity or fairness that parliament intended.
The amendment to the Child Safety (Prohibited Persons Act) 2016 concerns the protection of criminal intelligence during reviews of working with children check decisions. Working with children checks exist to minimise the risks posed to children by people who work or volunteer with them. In some cases, a decision to prohibit a person from working with children will rely upon sensitive information classified by the Commissioner of Police as criminal intelligence. That information may concern an active investigation, a confidential source or intelligence-gathering methods, the disclosure of which could place people or operations at risk.
A person affected by a prohibition decision may seek review in the South Australian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (SACAT). The present act requires a court to protect criminal intelligence used in those proceedings, but it does not expressly refer to a tribunal. The bill removes that ambiguity. It confirms that SACAT may receive and consider criminal intelligence and requires the tribunal to take appropriate steps to preserve its confidentiality. The amendment reflects the way the provision was intended to operate and provides certainty for SACAT, the Commissioner of Police and people involved in review proceedings.
The bill also corrects an inconsistency in the extreme speed provisions of the Criminal Law Consolidation Act 1935. South Australia's extreme speed offence is directed towards driving that demonstrates a grave disregard for public safety. It carries substantial penalties, including imprisonment and lengthy licence disqualification. A temporary speed limit of 25 km/h applies when a motorist passes a stationary breakdown service vehicle displaying flashing amber lights. Drivers must obey that limit, and a specific offence applies when they fail to do so.
However, the current legislation would also bring that temporary limit within the calculation used for the indictable offence of extreme speed. This creates the possibility that a motorist travelling within the ordinary highway limit but failing to slow sufficiently for a breakdown vehicle could satisfy the numerical threshold for an offence designed to capture far more serious conduct. The bill aligns the treatment of breakdown service vehicles with the existing treatment of school buses and emergency service speed zones.
The specific road traffic offence and its penalties will continue to apply. A driver whose conduct considered as a whole involves genuinely extreme speed may still be charged with the indictable offence. This is a sensible correction that preserves road safety, while ensuring that criminal liability remains proportionate to the conduct.
The most significant amendments in this bill concern the counselling records of sexual offence victim survivors. Seeking counselling requires trust. A person may disclose experiences, thoughts, fears and emotions that they have never shared elsewhere. They do so because the therapeutic relationship carries an expectation of privacy. For victim survivors of sexual offending that confidentiality can be essential to seeking help and beginning recovery.
Division 9 of the Evidence Act 1929 establishes a protected communications scheme for therapeutic records relating to victims and alleged victims of sexual offences. Those records receive public interest immunity, limiting their disclosure and use in legal proceedings. In Central Adelaide Local Health Network Inc. v Whitehouse, the Court of Appeal interpreted the scheme as requiring a connection between the purpose of the therapy and the sexual offence. That interpretation narrowed the protection previously understood to apply. It also created a difficult practical task for health providers who may be required to examine individual records and determine whether each communication has a sufficient link to the offending.
Therapy rarely divides a person's life into neat legal categories. The effect of trauma may emerge through discussions about relationships, family, work, identity, physical health or emotional wellbeing. Requiring each communication to establish a direct connection with the sexual offence risks excluding deeply private material from protection.
The bill restores the broader operation of the scheme. It clarifies that a therapeutic communication does not need to concern the sexual offence, or a condition caused by it, to qualify for protection. The amendments will apply to current proceedings, while preserving decisions and disclosures that have already occurred. They will also extend protection to relevant therapeutic communications made before the scheme commenced in June 1999. The date upon which a victim survivor sought counselling should not determine whether their private records are treated with dignity.
These amendments provide greater certainty to victim survivors, councillors, health services, lawyers and courts. More importantly, they reinforce the principle that seeking therapeutic support should not expose a person's private life to unnecessary scrutiny. The government is also undertaking a broader review of that protected communication scheme. That review will consider how protections can be strengthened, how retraumatisation can be reduced and how victim survivors may be given greater agency over their records. The amendment before us addresses the immediate consequences of Whitehouse, while that more comprehensive work continues.
The final amendment concerns the resentencing of offenders who cooperate with law enforcement. Section 43 of the Sentencing Act 2017 allows a court to re-sentence an imprisoned offender where their cooperation with the law enforcement agency was not taken into account at the original sentence hearing. The heading currently refers to subsequent cooperation, which may suggest that the cooperation must have occurred after the original sentence. There may be legitimate reasons why cooperation provided before sentencing was not disclosed to the court, including concerns for the offender's safety or the integrity of an ongoing investigation.
The bill removes the word 'subsequent' and confirms that the court's power applies to cooperation given either before or after sentencing. The court will retain responsibility for determining whether resentencing is appropriate and what weight the cooperation should receive. This provides clarity while preserving judicial discretion.
The quality of a legal system is revealed in how it responds when experience exposes a flaw. Parliament must be willing to correct ambiguity, restore proportionality and protect the people whom the legislation was designed to serve. This bill does that carefully. It protects sensitive intelligence without compromising the review process. It ensures that serious criminal penalties remain directed towards conduct of corresponding seriousness. It restores meaningful confidentiality to victim survivors seeking therapeutic support. It also gives courts clear authority to recognise cooperation with law enforcement whenever that cooperation occurred. These are targeted amendments, but their effects are real. They will make the law more certain, more proportionate and more faithful to its intended purpose. I commend the bill to the chamber.