Life for life law 'doesn't change our lives at all': Dix's father

Aja Styles | WA Today | 20 October 2011

The father of a Bunbury teenager who was gunned down in 2007, says he feels "bittersweet" about proposed increases to manslaughter penalties.

Attorney General Christian Porter yesterday introduced new law reforms to Parliament that would increase the maximum penalty for manslaughter and dangerous driving causing death to life in prison.

Mr Porter said the changes were intended to act as a deterrent and to bring justice in line with community expectations after much publicised outrage following the deaths of Lawrence Dix and William Rowe.

Mr Rowe, a father of five, was bashed to death with a cricket bat on a Geraldton Beach in 2007. His killer received five years' jail, with a minimum three years and nine months, after pleading guilty to manslaughter.

Mr Dix, 19, was shot during an argument outside his house over a $100 drug debt. Jack Benjamin Hall, 20, fired a single shot from the backseat of a car and pleaded guilty to manslaughter after a hung jury failed to convict him of murder.

Hall was sentenced to four years and three months in jail, but only served just over two years.

To this day Steve Dix says the punishment never fit the crime but he remains in "two minds" about the reforms.

"It's a bit of a bittersweet sort of feeling, the bitter bit is basically it doesn't change our lives at all and it just forces us back into a space we were in four and a half years ago and it isn't a good space to be in and I wouldn't wish that on anybody," he told Radio 6PR late yesterday.

"But look the sweet bit of it, I suppose, is in terms of the future. If in cases similar to ours, where the context of the case is very complex and very technical, and is a murder trial and [the outcome] defaults to manslaughter at least judiciary will have some options to play with."

Anger prompts death-law overhaul

Daniel Emerson, Natasha Boddy and Luke Eliot | The West Australian | 20 October 2011

Community outrage over soft manslaughter and dangerous driving causing death sentences have prompted the Government to today introduce legislation raising the maximum penalties available to judges.

Attorney-General Christian Porter this morning said the laws would mean manslaughter cases could only be heard in the Supreme Court and raise the maximum penalty from 20 years to life imprisonment.

Dangerous driving causing death cases could only be heard in the District Court where maximum penalties of 20 years for aggravated circumstances or 10 years for non-aggravated cases would apply.

Currently the charge can be treated as a summary offence in the Magistrates court where a much lesser penalty applies – either a fine or a maximum penalty of three years imprisonment.

Mr Porter said the Government would introduce the laws to parliament today in the belief that the current maximum penalties were “not in line with community expectation”.

Responding to the Government’s announcement this morning, shadow attorney general John Quigley said Labor would support the legislation, but he was sceptical about whether it would bring “about a huge change to the sentencing regime” for dangerous driving causing death.

“It will raise the maximum penalty but whether overall it raises the effective time that a person’s incarcerated, I’m somewhat dubious of,” he said.

“We’re not going to hold it (the legislation) up with unnecessary debate, but we will examine the clause of the Bill as an Opposition is obliged to do.”

WA Police Commissioner Karl O’Callaghan said welcomed the tougher penalties.

“I think there are a lot of victims out there and families who are concerned at the type of penalties that have been handed down and I think many people will welcome toughening the laws and penalties around what is a very serious offence,” Mr O’Callaghan said.

“I think we have to understand manslaughter, in regards to driving a motor vehicle, means that the driver has driven the vehicle extremely recklessly in a manner with no regard for other people and has caused death and I think the laws now reflect the seriousness of that offence.

“There’s no doubt penalties are a deterrent…they won’t stop everybody but I think there will be many people who will go out and drive cars now and think twice about the way the drive them.

“We have seen some pretty horrific crashes in the last few years where particularly young people have been killed and I don’t think the penalties have been adequate.”

West gets tough on domestic violence

Nicolas Perpitch | The Australian | 20 June 2011 

WESTERN Australia will introduce some of the country's toughest laws against domestic violence, requiring a "presumption of imprisonment" for offenders who breach violence restraining orders three times.

One step away from mandatory sentencing and based on a NSW model, Attorney-General Christian Porter said courts would have to presume in favour of locking the offender away.

Under the legislation, to be introduced in parliament this week, offenders could only avoid jail in "exceptional circumstances". Written reasons would have to be provided in the judgment if a jail term was not imposed.

Mr Porter said the stronger laws were needed to address the increasing "scourge of domestic violence".