Page 4094 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 22 October 1991
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And, of course, it is always the experienced young offenders who would be laughing at the law in this situation. It is not the two-thirds of kids who turn up for one day in court and that is it; you do not see them again. It is the ones who know the system. They are the ones who, after the initial bond or rap over the knuckles with a wet tram ticket, tend to get a fine after a few appearances, even in our courts. But there is nothing one can do, really, to enforce the payment of a fine.
I went to court, in fact, to give evidence in a civil case, as a witness, a month or so ago, and this great anomaly in the Act was brought to my attention by the court staff. Hence my first amendment to ensure that, if a young person does not pay a fine, the situation prior to 1986 - the situation that applies for any adult - will apply, and that is that they will do time in an institution.
The court staff told me - and it is quite right - that before 1986, under the Child Welfare Ordinance, young people who did not pay a fine, when the warrant was issued, either would pay up very quickly or, if they could not, would come back to court and then an arrangement would be made for them to pay it out. Indeed, usually if there were parents there, they would pay up very quickly, rather than have the child go off and do the time out in an institution.
Should anyone here be likely to say, "No, we do not want a Jamie Partlic" - and I think the Attorney mentioned that to me in passing - let me say that Jamie Partlic was put in a very nasty gaol. Young people here, if they did not pay a fine, were put in our institution, which is Quamby. I think some members of the Assembly, those on the Social Policy Committee, have been there. Quamby certainly is not a particularly nasty place for kids to go to. In fact, some of the criticism is that it is a bit like a motel.
I would be quite happy, actually, to book myself in there for a week, for a little bit of a rest. I am quite happy to make that offer, if the Attorney can arrange it. I think I would have a quite good time, and would welcome the rest. I do not know whether I would make the same offer in relation to Long Bay or Goulburn, but I certainly do in relation to Quamby. So, there is no problem there. But the mere fact that the young person's liberty would be taken away for a couple of days to work out the fine has, in the past, invariably been enough, as it is with adults, for the fine to be paid up.
But, at present, there is really nothing that the court can do to enforce a fine. The Clerk of the Children's Court has shown me folders full of unpaid fines, which the court simply is unable to enforce. Looking through section 54 of the principal Act at what convoluted procedures the court
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