Page 3129 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 15 September 1993
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I think Mr Humphries referred to about 10 situations where prisoners could be transferred into or out of the ACT. I would hope that these matters would be handled in a fairly sensitive way and that, where possible, reasons for the decisions that the Minister may make will be available. There are provisions whereby the Minister's decision on whether to accept a transfer on welfare grounds will be subject to the provisions of the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act. Thus a prisoner will be able to seek reasons for the Minister's decision to refuse to agree to a transfer, but I would hope that this would not happen in terribly many cases.
There are two other issues that I wish to draw attention to, the first being subclause 15(4). I asked the officers who briefed me a question about whether a prisoner can represent himself or not on the occasion of a review of a decision of the Magistrates Court. Subclause 15(4) says:
A prisoner may only be represented at a review by a legal practitioner.
I read that as being a fairly exclusive clause, but the advice to me indicates that that is not the case and that a prisoner can represent himself or herself in that situation or can arrange representation by a lawyer.
The other clause which I wish to comment on is clause 32, which refers to the penalty provisions for escape from custody. As this legislation that we are considering today is in line with legislation for other jurisdictions, it is noteworthy that the penalty in our ACT legislation is seven years and the penalty in Commonwealth legislation is five years. I asked the reason for that difference. The information that I have received indicates that the Bill was drafted on the basis of the equivalent New South Wales legislation and that, as ACT prisoners are held in New South Wales gaols, it is appropriate that they be subject to the same penalties as other prisoners in New South Wales who escape. That seems to me to be sensible; but it would have been helpful, in considering the Bill and the explanatory memorandum, if that information had been more clearly provided to members. That is all I wish to say on this Bill. It is an important Bill for the ACT, and I support it.
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (4.19), in reply: Madam Speaker, I thank members for their contributions. Obviously, Mr Humphries and Ms Szuty took a close interest in the matter. They availed themselves of the opportunity to be briefed by officers and raised some quite significant questions. At the outset I would acknowledge that what Mr Humphries said is right; this is very much an early stage in addressing the issues in relation to reform of sentencing and prisoners in the ACT. It really does apply only to those comparatively few cases where we have welfare transfers into and out of the Territory and a prisoner needs to return here briefly.
It is an appropriate occasion for me to publicly thank the New South Wales Attorney-General, Mr Hannaford. Some weeks ago an ACT prisoner's spouse passed away suddenly and it was necessary for the prisoner to be transferred from a New South Wales gaol to come to Canberra for the funeral arrangements. We were applying Commonwealth law and it was a very complex process that required lots of paper to fly between my office, Commonwealth officials and the
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