Page 4254 - Week 14 - Thursday, 24 October 1991
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The proposal that Mr Stefaniak is moving goes against the grain of movements in adult corrections in Australia, let alone juvenile corrections. The concept of imprisonment for fine default really goes back to the nineteenth century. We have all read Dickens. We know of the poor house, and those terrible institutions in nineteenth century England where people ended up imprisoned, effectively for debt, because they could not afford to pay a fine or pay a debt.
We all saw the very tragic circumstances a year or so ago in New South Wales of Jamie Partlic, who was just 18; he was an adult. He elected not to pay a traffic fine and to do some time in the Bay to cut it out. The phrase "cutting out traffic fines" is widely used around the community. Some years ago it was seen as a bit of a laugh to cut out your fine; to keep the couple of hundred dollars in your pocket rather than the government's and spend some time hopefully sitting in the sun at a remand centre. The tragic consequence for young Jamie Partlic was that he was assaulted by a very hardened prisoner and has been effectively rendered a quadriplegic as a result.
Imprisonment for fine default is an uncivilised way of approaching the matter for adult prisoners, let alone children. For adult prisoners, let alone children, the Labor Party takes the view, and is proud to take the view, that imprisonment is a last resort. Mr Stefaniak rhetorically was wondering whether we would give Jack the Ripper 30 days of anger management.
Places of detention are appropriate and of course imprisonment is appropriate where persons are a threat to themselves or to the community. Imprisonment is appropriate for violent offenders in particular, but also for other offences. Imprisonment is appropriate for major fraud cases, because the community has to send a message that it is not just the poor who will end up in prison, although sadly that is what tends to happen. If the wealthy and the powerful seek to rip society off through clever use of computers or clever use of accountants rather than a gun or a cudgel, holding up a bank, it is still theft and imprisonment is still appropriate. But in practically all cases it is a last resort, particularly for young persons.
This Assembly last year endorsed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Child, and Mr Collaery read the appropriate article the other night, article 37, which says that imprisonment of a child shall be used only as a measure of last resort. We think that is entirely appropriate. We think that our law should correspond with that.
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