Page 4092 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 22 October 1991
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This service is done in lieu of a gaol sentence, and it is done at a stage when a court would otherwise send a person to gaol for the first time. In the ACT such a person would obviously be a previous offender - and often a previous offender on many occasions. It is an effective and sensible way of dealing with certain offences and the adult court can impose a maximum of 208 hours' community service.
This Bill before the Assembly has a similar provision for young people for up to 104 hours. I would like to see the rationale behind that because my understanding was that there were technical difficulties, as much as anything else, in relation to community service orders. There probably is no real justification for young people to be treated any differently from adults in terms of the maximum number of hours because, especially in the case of young people, it is often far more effective to make them realise the error of their ways by getting them to do some useful work to bring it home to them rather than to put them in an institution. It strikes a chord at the right time and it does assist in their rehabilitation.
When we talk about young offenders I think it is important to note that two-thirds of young offenders, after their initial court appearance, do not come back. It is often the remaining third who are a real problem. There are many problems, of course. We have young people who are multiple offenders. There are further problems with this Act in relation to such people which I would seek to highlight and which, indeed, are addressed by some of my proposed amendments to this Bill.
I think those are a couple of positive aspects in relation to this piece of legislation. There are a number of other amendments that the Attorney has highlighted. I note that sections 103 to 105 have still not been gazetted, and that is because of the continuing controversy over compulsory reporting of child abuse. Despite that, and regardless of whether or not those sections should, in fact, be gazetted now, they still can be amended. As a result of very lengthy discussions I had with Mr Mark O'Neill - who is, of course, president of the National Association for the Prevention of Child Abuse, a very learned man in this area, and also a member of the ACT court staff - I have come up with an agreed amendment with him to section 103. I will say more on that later.
I will be interested to see how some of the new provisions of this Bill will, in fact, operate. I think there is always a danger in terms of restricting the number of hours for the authorities to take certain actions. Sometimes it is a balancing act; but I think that what are perceived to be the rights of the child should not be confused with the rights of the community, and there has to be a balance there.
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