Page 4381 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 8 December 1993
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Mr Cornwell: Wilfully and habitually.
MR CONNOLLY: Yes, we have that. So the trigger is there and they go and burn the school down. The consequence is that their parents are held responsible under Mr Cornwell's legislation. You were laughing a couple of minutes ago. I have just led you down the track, with Mr Cornwell's agreement at every point, that where you have the repeatedly offending youth, the sort of - - -
Mr Cornwell: You are very good at setting up stalking horses, are you not?
MR CONNOLLY: You need to be, to knock down the silly arguments that you people come up with. Members of the Social Policy Committee in the last Assembly saw those persistently offending youths, those youths with real behavioural problems, that type of youth who often goes burning schools down and committing other acts of wanton violence. In many cases their parents, Mr Cornwell agreed, would fall into this category of persistent wilful neglect of a child - a major social problem which we need to address. But you do not address it through making parents, in effect, criminally responsible and financially responsible for the actions of their children. Many of those young people would probably delight in the thought that they are going out and conducting an anti-social act and expressing their anger, frustration and contempt at the community by destroying a community asset, but into the bargain Mr Cornwell is giving them the opportunity to get back at their parents by having them held financially responsible for their actions.
Mr Cornwell: What a fallacious argument!
MR CONNOLLY: Mr Cornwell, tragically, that is the consequence of your Bill. The Government disagrees with this Bill in principle, for the reasons set out. If members of the Assembly are minded to agree with the principle you might cast your eye over some of the detail and at least pick up some of the issues in interstate models. Those models are referred to by textbook writers as being pretty much ineffective. At least have appeal rights and at least address the situation of the guardian. You have the detail wrong, and you should have a look at that if you are going to go further. If Independent members are inclined to support the principle of the Bill and go ahead with a principle that the Government says is fatally flawed, it might be appropriate to do something at the detail stage.
MR MOORE (12.27): Madam Speaker, when we are dealing with the issue of parents having to pay for their children's destruction of property, I think it is worth while looking at a case in Warwick, Queensland, of all places, where a magistrate, when confronted with a minor who had destroyed six trees, ordered that the teenager buy - with his own money - six new saplings and tend them until they had grown to the height the trees were when he destroyed them. The saplings took two-and-a-half years to grow to the same height, at which time all records of those actions were wiped. The lesson is that the minor involved had to take responsibility for his own actions.
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