Derek McDowell (Labour)

The point is that Senator Norris would probably have access to a solicitor who would take out an injunction for him.

I urge him to now picture himself in an apartment block run by a local authority, where he does not have the wherewithal to go down to his local solicitor and obtain an injunction or does not even know about the law relating to injunctions. The Senator should try to picture himself in circumstances where, as Senators Tuffy and Cummins have said, he feels that the only way to keep his sanity is to move out and get away from people who are ruining his life on a systematic basis by venting hatred at him in a low-key way and making it clear to him that as long as he lives beside them or on their street, they will make his and his children's lives hell, if he has guests, they will insult them on their way in or out, and so forth. That is the reality we are dealing with and if Senator Norris does not think that happens, he should consult Senator Cummins about what he found at his meetings. It happens regularly. People become fixated and driven by an evil passion to make other people's lives unbearable.

What is the difference between the ASBO procedure and a civil injunction? The latter is handed to a wealthy person, relating to his or her neighbours, on the balance of probabilities, after a court hearing. The judge puts a penal endorsement at the end of a civil injunction which states that if the person disobeys it, he or she can be sent to prison. If the neighbours disobey the injunction and keeps shouting abuse over the garden wall or harasses guests, they go back to court. They appear before the judge, the plaintiff swears the behaviour happened, despite the order made by the court. They go to prison and are fined.

That is the law and it is what happens when wealthy people's lives are made a misery by neighbours from hell. That is what they do. They go to solicitors, get an injunction to prevent themselves, their children and guests from being harassed. They bring the offenders to book and obtain a remedy. The remedy is based on the civil standard of proof, exactly as here, and when it is breached, the person is brought to court and jailed. That is what happens. That is the contempt jurisdiction.

What we are dealing with here is nothing new but it is bringing this remedy to Joe and Josephine Soap, to use the phrase used earlier, who at the moment could not imagine getting their act together and putting their house up on hazard for civil costs.