Page 4310 - Week 14 - Thursday, 24 October 1991
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The purpose of the Children's Services Act is to provide an enlightened regime for dealing with young persons who come into conflict with the law. To make the parent criminally responsible for the acts of the child runs counter to that approach and, rather than enlightened, would be taking us back in the wrong direction.
It is interesting to note that an equivalent provision which was in the old New South Wales Child Welfare Act is not present in the current New South Wales legislation. Victoria, I am advised, does have an equivalent in the current Children's Court Act, but when the Children's and Young Persons Act becomes effective, which it is expected to do this month, the provision will no longer be there.
So, again, this is going against the tide of reforms in Australia in relation to criminal law for children by trying to make the parent responsible for the acts of the child. In all areas of criminal law it is the individual who offends who is responsible, and the law should be directed to making the person face up to their responsibility in changing their behaviour, not putting a criminal penalty on someone else.
MR COLLAERY (5.08): Mr Speaker, this attempted amendment, I regret to tell Mr Stefaniak, will fail. It will fail because of the comments made by the Attorney, with which I mostly agree. I do not think we can run the legislature here by rubbing the lamp and asking for some genie to come back out.
I do not know what Mr Stefaniak dreams about at night, but clearly he wants to see some of the provisions that it took us years and years to get out of the statute books re-created. I do not know whether we want, in the early years of self-government, to reinvent some wheels. When you talk about prosecuting parents for neglect, you get back to those horrible old cases years ago when the outcome of even a successful prosecution often meant that the parents absolutely detested their own children as a result because the children became embroiled in providing the evidence against their parents. Those of us who saw some of this saw that it had a whole lot of horrendous results. It really is an untidy proposition - I say to Mr Stefaniak, through you, Mr Speaker - to try to bring this about.
You get to fundamental criminological questions here that were assumed in the nineteenth century but are no longer assumed. What is neglect of a child? Those of us whose children have grown up and gone away know that you never know at some times where you are with your own child - whether you have done the right thing; whether you have contributed enough to their sense of security, love and affection. There are many issues that arguably can be neglect.
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