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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 14 Hansard (10 December) . . Page.. 4579 ..
MS FOLLETT (continuing):
Mr Speaker, we will support these amendments. I wish, though, that the Government had in fact prepared its legislation in toto at the time that it tabled it in the Assembly some three months ago. It really does impose a burden on private members to have large-scale amendments proposed very late in the piece, especially, as in my case, after they have advised their colleagues of the content of the Government's legislation and suggested a course of action to them. I hope that this will not become a pattern with the Government. It is not a good way to ensure that the Assembly is properly informed and properly consulted on the Government's legislation. Nevertheless, on this occasion we will support the amendments.
Amendments agreed to.
Bill, as a whole, as amended, agreed to.
Bill, as amended, agreed to.
[COGNATE BILL:
Debate resumed from 21 November 1996, on motion by Mr Humphries:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
MR SPEAKER: Is it the wish of the Assembly to debate this order of the day concurrently with the Magistrates Court (Amendment) Bill (No. 2) 1996? There being no objection, that course will be followed. I remind members that in debating order of the day No. 2 they may also address their remarks to order of the day No. 3.
MS FOLLETT (10.59): These two Bills are designed to allow for detainees from the Belconnen Remand Centre to be moved interstate whilst they are still on remand. In the course of examining the two Bills, I actually conducted an extensive tour of the Belconnen Remand Centre and of Goulburn Gaol in order to assess the impact of the Bills and whether or not I should recommend to my colleagues that we support them. First of all, I want to thank the Minister and his officers for arranging both of those visits for me. I would also like to thank the officers from the Belconnen Remand Centre and from Goulburn Gaol for their extreme courtesy towards me and their enormous patience while I inspected their premises at some length. It was a pretty thorough job that I did, and I am very pleased indeed to have had that opportunity to inform myself very closely on the conditions which confront a very small proportion of the ACT's population but one which is often overlooked. I was impressed by the quality of the staff at both establishments. I was also somewhat taken aback to notice that, far from my expectation that conditions in the Belconnen Remand Centre would be better than those in Goulburn Gaol, they were in fact very similar.
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