Page 4313 - Week 14 - Thursday, 24 October 1991
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I again expect, as a result of what has been said here today, this proposed new clause not to succeed. I would impress upon the Attorney-General, and indeed I would impress upon Mr Collaery and anyone else in this house, the importance of listening to the professionals in the criminal justice system and the juvenile justice system. They know what they are talking about; they practise there, and their voices should be heard. Sometimes I feel like I am talking in this house to dumb rocks or breathing stones in relation to people's ability to just adopt a little bit of commonsense and listen and talk to the people who know, who deal with it day in and day out.
Those are the court staff, the magistrates, the practitioners who regularly appear in those jurisdictions, plus quite often the people who go through them, from victims to defendants and other people involved in the system, and of course police and parole officers as well. They know what they are talking about. Their voices should be listened to. They experience concerns and problems with Acts because they have to deal with the ramifications and the workings of those Acts day by day. A little bit of consultation, which is a phrase that both Mr Connolly and Mr Collaery are very keen to bandy about, should be engaged in here.
Mr Collaery criticised the Hawke Government's ridiculous claim that no child would be living in poverty by 1990. If he wants to blame the Labor Party, perhaps he could blame it for an attitude - - -
Mr Collaery: Are you defending the Labor Party?
MR STEFANIAK: No, I am not. I am going to hook into them, Bernard. Perhaps the Labor Party can be blamed for an attitude that developed 15 to 20 years ago - that was to get rid of a lot of old values, such as these provisions which were in the old Act. It was to get rid of things which had worked, which were tested and true, and put in a lot of trendy rubbish which clearly is not working. Perhaps Mr Collaery could criticise the Labor Party for that philosophical problem that they have of jumping away from reality, going against basic tenets of people's human nature, and living in cloud-cuckoo-land, and something more recent, which is the Hawke Government's abysmal failure to economically manage this country correctly.
So, I will finish this by saying to the Labor Government and Mr Collaery: Talk to your professionals; talk to the people who work in the system; and listen to them. Even if you will not listen to me, you might listen to them. I am sorry that this proposed new clause is going down as well. However, you might listen to some other people as time goes by.
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