Explanatory Memorandum
(Circulated by authority of the Attorney-General, the Hon Mark Dreyfus KC MP)GENERAL OUTLINE
1. The Crimes Amendment (Strengthening the Criminal Justice Response to Sexual Violence) Bill 2024 amends the Crimes Act 1914 to implement trauma-informed measures that better support vulnerable persons when appearing as complainants and/or witnesses in Commonwealth criminal proceedings, whilst maintaining appropriate criminal procedure safeguards.
2. The Bill implements recommendations 52, 53, 56 and 61 of the 2017 Final Report of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (Royal Commission).
3. The Bill advances Theme 2 of the First National Action Plan of the National Strategy to Prevent and Respond to Child Sexual Abuse 2021-2030 (National Strategy), which seeks to support and empower victims and survivors through recognising that the effects of child sexual abuse can be cumulative, complex and long-lasting. Consistent with the National Strategy, the Bill strengthens existing protections afforded to victims, survivors and witnesses in criminal proceedings involving child sexual abuse-related Commonwealth offences.
4. The Bill also supports the Standing Council of Attorneys-General Work Plan to Strengthen Criminal Justice Responses to Sexual Assault 2022-2027 by strengthening the legal frameworks necessary to improve justice outcomes and protections for victims and survivors.
5. The measures in this Bill have been developed in consultation with community and government stakeholders. They strengthen protections for vulnerable persons involved in criminal proceedings by:
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- expanding the range of offences to which special rules for proceedings involving children and vulnerable adults in Part IAD of the Crimes Act apply, in order to more comprehensively protect vulnerable persons. The expanded offences include crimes against humanity, war crimes and drug offences involving children;
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- making the evidence of a vulnerable adult complainant's reputation with respect to sexual activities inadmissible in a vulnerable adult proceeding;
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- restricting the admissibility of sexual experience evidence of vulnerable adult complainants unless the court grants leave and considers specific criteria, including that the evidence is substantially relevant to the facts in issue. The court must also give regard to whether its probative value outweighs any distress, humiliation or embarrassment to the vulnerable person;
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- empowering a court, if it is satisfied that it is in the interests of justice to do so, to order an evidence recording hearing for a vulnerable person to give evidence and sets out conditions on how the evidence recording hearing must be conducted;
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- requiring all evidence given by a vulnerable person outside of an evidence recording hearing, including on cross-examination and evidence in chief, to be recorded so that it may be used in later proceedings, with the aim of minimising re-traumatisation that might be caused by providing evidence multiple times in relation to the same matter; and
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- clarifying that the current restriction on publishing material that identifies (or is likely to identify) another person as a child witness, child complainant or vulnerable adult complainant in a proceeding does not apply to a vulnerable person who publishes self-identifying material, as well as streamlining the requirements for another person to publish the identifying information of a vulnerable person with their informed consent.
FINANCIAL IMPACT
6. There is no financial impact associated with this Bill.