Page 4309 - Week 14 - Thursday, 24 October 1991
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I can recall the old section 64 being used sparingly between 1979 and 1986, the time of my experience in the Canberra Children's Court. This is an offence, if enacted by this Assembly, which I would not expect to be used very often at all. On occasions, magistrates would comment on how atrocious the parents were in not providing any sort of guidance for their children and on how parents really must accept a very huge proportion of the blame for their children's activity. Often those parents might provide materially for the child, but that would be about it. Accordingly, the old section 64 was used, albeit sparingly, by the magistrate sitting in the Children's Court.
Proposed new section 139A would re-create that old offence under section 64 of the Child Welfare Act, to enable a court, on those rare occasions, to prosecute and convict parents who were in that category. I do not envisage it being used very often at all; but again this is certainly a problem which the professionals who work in the Children's Court, and some practitioners, drew to my attention and is something which, on balance, we in the Liberal Party thought should go back in, along with the other clause which members have seen fit to reject. I commend it to the house. I would stress that I do not see it being used very often, but certainly there is a need for it. There was in the past, and the professionals who operate in that jurisdiction perceive a need for it again.
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (5.05): Mr Speaker, the Government cannot support this proposed amendment. What it effectively does is seek to make a parent criminally responsible for the act of a child. The criminal law basically is directed to making an individual responsible for their own conduct. We had a debate earlier on about whether prison was appropriate, in some circumstances, for fine default. Various members spoke about more effective ways of forcing young people to accept responsibility for their own actions, short of imprisonment - better counselling, community service orders, that sort of thing. Surely the least effective way of making children responsible for their own action is to impose criminal responsibility on their parents.
My advisers have come up with a number of fairly horrific possibilities that could occur from this type of legislation. Children may be encouraged to offend as a way of getting back at their parents. Perfectly normal and responsible parents of extremely difficult children could become liable. It may encourage parents to prematurely abandon their difficult youngsters who are starting to get into trouble, in order to avoid their own liability later on. In short, it is a counterproductive amendment.
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