Former Director of Public Prosecutions Stephen Pallaras QC launches political party, announces candidacy

Former Director of Public Prosecutions Stephen Pallaras QC is launching his own political party ahead of the upcoming state election.

Former Director of Public Prosecutions Stephen Pallaras QC is launching his own political party, named Real Change SA, and has revealed his priorities as a candidate at the upcoming state election.

Mr Pallaras, who served as the state’s top prosecutor from 2005 until 2012, will run as an independent candidate in the Legislative Council after he was told by the Labor Party the preselection process already had been finalised.

Drawing on his legal background, Mr Pallaras has identified the low conviction rate among sexual crimes as a priority if elected as an MP.

He will run on a platform of improving domestic violence services, care and housing of the elderly and the state of the health system, as well as areas of law reform.

Mr Pallaras said that, in order to register the party with the SA Electoral Commission, he needed 200 people to sign up as members by the end of the week, which marks six months until the election.

Former director of public prosecutions Stephen Pallaras QC has announced he will contest the upcoming state election. Picture: Matt Turner

He said on Wednesday he had collected about half of the required signatures.

Mr Pallaras, pictured, said he approached Labor but did not sound out the Liberals.

There was also speculation about his political intentions in the lead-up to the 2018 state election.

“I had to actually decide do I want to do it badly enough or just talk about it and I decided I did want to do it badly eno-ugh,” Mr Pallaras said.

“And by the time I made that decision I only had a week to go.”

Mr Pallaras has released a list of issues of concern but said he would draw on his legal background to improve outcomes for victims of sexual offences.

“When we do rape trials and sexual related trials, of every 100 assaults that might take place, we get about one or two convictions, which suggests, on the face of it, that 98 women out of 100 are lying,” he said.

“Now that just can’t be right. There must be something amiss with the system, which I think there is, and I want to tend to and fix so that we get a result which is in the same ballpark of trials in relation to every other offence.

“The way that we treat those sorts of cases does not do women any favours at all.”

Mr Pallaras said he had developed certain policy ideas to fix the issues but said it was “not yet the time” to make them public.

“I think South Australia has a lot to offer, it’s a great state, but there are many things that need fixing,” he said.

“There are things that we can do and what bugs me most is that nobody’s actually doing anything about them.”