Page 3126 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 15 September 1993
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First, Madam Speaker, let me make clear what this Bill does not do. It does not deal with an area of some significance within the question of treatment of prisoners sentenced in ACT courts, and that is the problem of the transfer of prisoners within New South Wales. Clearly, the vast majority of offenders who are dealt with in ACT courts and who are sentenced to a term of imprisonment are sent to the New South Wales gaol system and become prisoners in that system. Obviously, the place within New South Wales where ACT prisoners get housed is a matter for the New South Wales Government.
I might mention that this is a welfare issue of considerable urgency for prisoners sentenced by ACT courts. It is probably a matter of more significance than prisoners being transferred to and from other jurisdictions other than New South Wales or the ACT. I think the legislation in that sense highlights or underscores our lack of control over our own corrections policy in this Territory. It is a matter on which I think we all should feel some regret. Many provisions, for example in this Bill, are in fact anticipatory. To operate fully they depend on the creation of a proper ACT correctional institution, not just the Belconnen Remand Centre or a police cell, and that option will not be available for some time in the future.
We are dealing with the problem at the fringes, in many respects. This legislation, for example, will affect about 10 people each year in the Territory, and that is about one-tenth of the number of people who are currently going interstate annually, mainly to the New South Wales, to be housed in the New South Wales gaol system. Those other people will be untouched by this legislation. The general provisions of the Bill provide for the transfer of prisoners to or from the Territory - and in the sense of transferring from the Territory that includes, by definition, New South Wales - to stand trial or to be housed elsewhere for their welfare. Thus, for example, a prisoner who might be housed in a Queensland gaol can be transferred to the ACT to answer charges arising out of an offence alleged to have been committed in the ACT. This is obviously in the prisoner's interest. It will ensure that if a prisoner is convicted of that second offence in the ACT he or she will be able, in many circumstances at least, to serve both terms concurrently, and that will provide for a reduction of what otherwise might be the length of time that they spend behind bars.
Also, for example, a prisoner in a Tasmanian gaol might be able to be transferred to Goulburn, for example, to be near his or her family in the ACT; but that, of course, depends to some extent on the consent of the New South Wales Minister, based on his resources and the capacity of the system to provide for choice, as it were, which is obviously very limited. Not all ACT prisoners can be housed close to the ACT. That is an unfortunate fact of life. As much as we would like to do otherwise, it cannot be done. This Bill deals also with prisoners transiting through the ACT, escaping prisoners transiting through the ACT and the royal prerogative of mercy, and I see that there is an amendment coming forward on that subject.
Turning to a couple of provisions in the Bill particularly, Madam Speaker, subclause 27(4) deals with translated sentences. It demonstrates, I think, one point: That the ACT criminal justice system is not quite what you would call fully patriated to the ACT. The power to grant what amounts, I suppose, to a release on licence is a power exercised formally, in effect, by the Commonwealth Government rather than the ACT Government. Perhaps the amendment that has
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