An Act to amend the Crimes Act 1900 to increase penalties for the reckless infliction of grievous bodily harm, to replace malicious as a fault element of offences, to modernise blackmail offences and to make other reforms of the criminal law.
This Act is the Crimes Amendment Act 2007.
Sections 1–6, Schedule 1 [7], Schedule 2 and Schedule 3.1 (except item [2]) commence on the date of assent to this Act.
This Act commences on a day or days to be appointed by proclamation, except as provided by subsection (1).
The Crimes Act 1900 is amended as set out in Schedules 1 and 2.
The Acts specified in Schedule 3 are amended as set out in that Schedule.
The matter appearing under the heading “Explanatory note” in any of the Schedules does not form part of this Act.
This Act is repealed on the day following the day on which all of the provisions of this Act have commenced.
The repeal of this Act does not, because of the operation of section 30 of the Interpretation Act 1987, affect any amendment made by this Act.
(Section 3)
Insert at the end of the definition of
, and
any grievous bodily disease (in which case a reference to the infliction of grievous bodily harm includes a reference to causing a person to contract a grievous bodily disease).
The amendment extends the definition to make it clear that causing harm to a person includes causing a person to contract a disease. As a consequence, item [9] omits the separate offence under section 36.
Omit the section.
This section (which defines “malicious” for the purposes of offences under the Act) is being repealed as a result of the replacement of that term in offences under the Act with the modern fault element of “intention” or “recklessness”.