Page 4097 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 22 October 1991
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Mr Stefaniak: It has to be gazetted, actually, Bernard.
MR COLLAERY: Yes. The fact is that this side of the house does not have the power of gazettal; so I am not quite clear what amending section 103 achieves, and I am unclear as to what is intended there. Mr Stefaniak has a chance to speak again, and I have just flagged those issues.
Coming to the Act itself, children's services legislation travels a fine line between juridical processes involving punishment and retribution and reformist processes attempting to deal with accepting children - including not so small children - for what they are, and attempting to contain their youthful zest and anti-social traits under a regime that is not a prison regime, for example, and under a process that is not part of the punitive juridical processes applied to adults. One has to keep that in mind when one considers this Act and the amendments that Mr Stefaniak seeks to move.
The Bill before the Assembly, I am pleased to say, was basically worked up in my time as Minister, but the issues there have been indicated for a number of years. I was particularly keen to see an official visitor appointed, like the official visitor for Belconnen Remand Centre, to Quamby and other institutions. That is provided for in this Bill in proposed section 19B. The Bill tidies up, and it is a timely conglomerate tidying process to the 1986 legislation. It deals with the power of the Minister to enter into agreements - this would be new section 69B, at page 9 of the Bill - with another State or Territory for the transfer of young offenders.
Members will recall the offer that I made, when Minister, to take young offenders from this surrounding region of New South Wales, rather than see them transported down to Minda, Tamworth and other places, so that they could remain close to their families in Cooma, Batemans Bay, Yass, Queanbeyan and so on - because they are being transported within New South Wales. That process has been short-circuited to some extent because the New South Wales Government has built a correctional institution, not in line with modern precepts I wish to say, at Wagga Wagga. That has, to some extent, taken the pressure off on that issue, although I still believe that children from Queanbeyan would be better placed in our institutions, rather than being sent to Wagga Wagga or other places. And such arrangements could be made pursuant to this proposed new section 69B.
There are other provisions here that we have worked up over time, and much of the reform work that has produced this amending Bill is derived from a whole range of officials involved in corrective services, juvenile justice, the courts and the ACT Government Service proper.
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