Page 4099 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 22 October 1991
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
that does not offend the trade union movement by offending against occupational health and safety regulations. In fact, cleaning graffiti off is probably beyond my proposals because one needs to use fairly sophisticated steam cleaning equipment. Some of the big, muscly young 16-year-olds could do it; but for a lot of the kids it may be beyond them and it may be unsafe.
But, subject to all of those things, the real remedy, Mr Stefaniak, is to do what Mr Jensen has foreshadowed and has given instructions for to parliamentary counsel; that is, to work up further section 57 of the parent Act to provide for the youngsters to do community service work - not just to go to Quamby to attend attendance sessions.
Mr Duby: A paintbrush.
MR COLLAERY: As Mr Duby correctly interjects, we can put a paintbrush in their hands; they can all do some painting - and we have seen the results of some of their not so artistic work.
So, I do not think we should support this fining proposal. It is olde-worlde; it is punitive; it is not on. I will support my colleague Mr Jensen when he brings up his amendment to widen community service activity. I was present with Mr Jensen when he, in a passing moment, discussed it with the Chief Magistrate, Mr Ron Cahill. I believe that the proposed widening to include CSOs will be supported by the magistracy.
When we come down to section 103 - the unproclaimed section 103 - I cannot see what is to be achieved by leapfrogging the Community Law Reform Committee, to whom I commenced the referral of mandatory notification of child abuse when I was Attorney. I think it is properly with that committee now. We need to make a decision in this Territory; it is going to be a difficult decision. While Mr Stefaniak may be well intentioned, he is really jumping the gun on it. If we are considering requiring the Youth Advocate to refer every case of incest to the police - and we have a police force which, at the moment, has very strict internal guidelines on responding to complaints and not ignoring them - we must remember that we get these complaints in family law matters, regrettably.
In my experience, that is the worst time to get those complaints because the motive is sometimes suspect - they have not been raised before; only when the parties are in dispute - and the police can be left in the middle. Perhaps one party wants a prosecution for reasons exterior to the welfare of the child; another party, for all we know, may or may not be unjustly accused. I do not know whether child abuse is properly always the province of the police. It is a very difficult situation. I applaud the work of Sergeant Fiona Crombie and her officers at the sexual assault unit. They also want to consider carefully, I am sure, mandatory reporting in this context.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .