Shane Ross (Independent)

This legislation is flawed, because age-related legislation is, almost by definition, flawed. It is unfashionable to use age as a criterion when deciding on many issues and this applies particularly to older people in relation to driving and so on — ageism is frequently condemned. However, regarding young people, we need to consider the issue. The Minister has a difficulty because we discriminate on the basis of age between 15 year olds and 17 year olds and in this Bill we identify these ages as crucial. Senators Walsh and Norris pointed out the problems that this can cause because it has been frequently said that one man's 15 year old is another man's 21 year old. There are mature 15 year olds who can make mature and sensible sexual decisions and there are also extremely vulnerable ones. To introduce legislation of this crude nature is almost self defeating. We will have case after case of injustice under this Bill, but it is difficult to find any other means of protecting young people except by making rather crude judgments of this sort. There is a case for having special courts with special witnesses and special expertise in this area.

What Senator Jim Walsh said is right in that the idea of bringing children aged 12 into courts under what is an extraordinarily robust adversarial system is completely unacceptable. The Minister will know that the rough and tumble of cross-examination in the courts is something for which children are utterly unsuited. Special rules should be introduced in these cases if children have to be asked questions of an extraordinarily delicate nature to which any adult would find it amazingly difficult to respond.

I do not know, nor I believe does anybody in this House, the answer to many of the questions in regard to this Bill. I do not believe there is a perfect answer, but we are making some effort, albeit certainly a flawed one, to resolve them. It should be said by Members on the Independent benches, and Senator Norris has said this as well, that this is not an issue for political gain or political damage. There is a desperately serious issue. I would be the first to say that something very odd happened in that the result of this court case apparently was not anticipated in any way by anybody anywhere. There was obviously some gap in preparation by people, perhaps high up politically or high up in other areas, but we are all to blame for that if we are honest.

The Law Reform Commission apparently flagged this problem in 1990. I was not aware of it, and I have been a legislator since that time, nor was I aware of the dangers of it. I do not believe it is fair or right for the Opposition to blame the Government for a problem which has obviously been sitting there ready to bite us, as it were, for 16 years. The Opposition parties were in Government during that period as well. I do not know enough about it and I have not researched it but I do not believe there were any plans on the Statute Book or in the offing when they were in Government or any great recognition of this problem. It has bitten the establishment, including us all and has caught us unaware. We should all be, to some extent, embarrassed by it. To dig for political skeletons on an issue of this sort is a bit beyond the pale. It is something which should be removed from the area of political skirmishing. The important point is to ensure it does not happen again. To be fair to most politicians, there is a reluctance by many members the main political parties who could dig for political capital to do so. Some people have called press conferences to make cheap political points but most of us have not been involved in that activity.

I hope this matter will shake us into a realisation that the behaviour of young people is something about which many of us were out of touch. I heard the Minister say on a radio programme the other day that he thought it was out of date to legislate for people's sexual behaviour in various matters under a certain age. The reality is that young people are much more sexually advanced than they used to be. Old men and old women in these Houses are legislating for young people outside these Houses and perhaps the legislators are not in touch with the behaviour which young people find acceptable.

We have a great deal to learn from this Supreme Court decision and I hope we do so in as non-divisive and apolitical an atmosphere as possible. The atmosphere in this House has been fairly responsible and I congratulate everybody on that approach. We should not score political points over the traumas of the children of this nation.