The Tasmanian Liberal Government is committed to keeping our communities safe and protecting victims and survivors of crime.
Today I was pleased to see the Dangerous Criminals and High Risk Offenders Bill 2020 pass through the House of Assembly.
This Bill will ensure offenders are dealt with in a manner consistent with community expectations and provides for a new legislative framework for dealing with dangerous criminals and high risk offendersof serious crimes.
This legislation creates a two tier scheme by removing unnecessary restrictions that require a dangerous criminal declaration to be made only by the convicting or sentencing judge, and will see several other reforms to Tasmania’s legislative framework for indefinite detention and preventative detention. The high risk offender order provisions establish a post-detention scheme.
Our Government has already completed a number of reforms with the safety and wellbeing of victims and survivors front and centre, including legislation to address one-punch incidents, the creation of the new offence of persistent family violence, amending Section 194k of the Evidence Act 2001 to provide victims of sexual assault the right to speak out publicly should they wish to do so, and numerous criminal and civil reforms as a result of our commitment to the findings and recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse.
This reform delivers on our election commitment to improve the legal framework for Dangerous Criminal Declarations andmanage the post detention of high risk offenders.