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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 14 Hansard (10 December) . . Page.. 4581 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

As Mr Humphries highlighted in his speech, there are a number of factors contributing to overcrowding at the Belconnen Remand Centre. Firstly, there is the unfortunate simple fact that the ACT is outgrowing the Remand Centre. As the Attorney-General's annual report states, total detainee days nearly doubled in 12 months, from 6,000 in 1994-95 to 11,000 in 1995-96. There is also the issue that was raised in our briefing and discussed in the Estimates Committee, that remandees are in a sense biding their time in the Remand Centre for a range of reasons, including the fact that time is often considered to be a defence's best friend, but also to avoid going to New South Wales. From what I have heard of some elements of the New South Wales prison system, who could blame them? We are not talking here about people who have been convicted; we are talking about remandees.

The Greens have a number of serious concerns with this Bill. Aside from the obvious issue of the appropriateness of sending unconvicted prisoners interstate in the first place, we are concerned about appeal rights over a decision and about the process for the administrator making a decision. It is of great concern to me. People, particularly people with a mental illness, in the Belconnen Remand Centre must be treated appropriately. Such things must be taken into consideration before any movement is considered. Many people in the community have already expressed their concern about the lack of a forensic facility. As members are well aware, it has been raised in many submissions to the Social Policy Committee inquiry into mental health services.

The New South Wales prison regulations were referred to by the Minister in his speech. I received a copy of those regulations. I was concerned that they did not address some of the issues I raise in our amendments. Our amendments will go some way towards addressing these concerns. I hope that regulations can be further developed in the future. There are a range of factors which I believe the administrator should consider before making a decision to transfer someone to a New South Wales prison. I have circulated an amendment with a list of criteria that we believe the administrator should consider.

MR MOORE (11.07): Mr Speaker, this has been a very interesting piece of legislation for me to consider. My immediate reaction to it was simply to vote against it. The reason my reaction started that way was that the Bill fixes a symptom; it does not deal with the problem. Unfortunately, we see this sort of approach from this Government too often. They find a problem and they look to solve the specific problem as they see it and often that solution is about the symptom, not about the fundamental problem itself. There is a real problem when the number of remandees over the last couple of years has increased by 100 per cent. We have to ask ourselves what is going on and why that is the case. Why have we had a sudden increase? I say "sudden" because over a very short period of a couple of years we have had a significant increase in the number of remandees. Has there been a huge increase in the number of crimes in the ACT? The statistics are telling us that there has not. Has there been a huge increase in police solving crimes? Perhaps that is the case. If that is the case, congratulations to the police. Perhaps it is some specific style of crime that they are solving. That is the job that we charge them with doing. Is there a problem in the Magistrates Court or the Supreme Court that means that people are being held longer and longer in remand? If that is the case, then surely as a democratic society we have to look at that very carefully.

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