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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 14 Hansard (10 December) . . Page.. 4585 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

orderly fashion as we see fit in this place; but I do not believe that the management of an immediate accommodation or other problem in the centre should be a matter that is transferred into the judicial system. It just is not the way that I think this sort of thing should be handled.

Mr Moore: It is about protecting against arbitrary punishment decisions.

MR HUMPHRIES: To take Mr Moore's interjection, I agree that the system should not impose an additional form of punishment on inmates because it is proposed to transfer them from one place to another. I quite agree that that should not be the case. Someone should not be transferred as a way of punishing them, for example, for bad behaviour per se. Nonetheless, on occasions, if there is a disruption, for example, in a centre and it is in the interests of the centre that particular individuals be separated from the centre or that there be a capacity to relieve pressure on the centre, it may be the decision of the administrator of the system that the person who in fact has been the source of the problem be transferred. That should not be seen as punishment of that person, but should be seen as a logical way of dealing with a particular problem. If a person is causing a problem in the centre, it makes little sense to transfer other people out of the centre to deal with that problem. It makes sense to deal with that particular person or persons.

Mr Speaker, I do not profess to have a great deal of expertise in the management of prisoner issues. That is not my job. It is, with respect, not the job of any other person in this place. It is, however, the job of those people we pay to run our correctional facilities. They are people I have a great deal of faith in. They have shown considerable good judgment and I believe they are very competent to deal with these sorts of issues. I commend their judgment, so to speak.

I want to comment on one final matter that Mr Moore raised. He said that people ought not to be held in custody for long periods without trial. I quite agree with that; but I think it is important to distinguish the situation that, for example, members of Amnesty have been involved with in other campaigns from what happens in this place. Everybody who is in the Remand Centre - without exception, I think it is true to say - has been charged with some offence. They know what they are charged with. They have had the opportunity to appear before a court. They know what it is they have to do to resolve the charges which have been laid against them.

Sometimes it is important to bear in mind that people choose to be in the Remand Centre. The reason they often choose to be there is that they have been arrested for an offence which they believe, probably on good grounds because of some experience with the system, is going to result in a conviction and a period of imprisonment for them. They know that the service of a period at the Remand Centre will count towards their ultimate period of service in the prison system, and they sometimes quite consciously make the decision to leave a trial of the issues for quite some time because they would rather be in the Remand Centre than serving their sentence in, say, a gaol in New South Wales. We have to bear in mind that that is the fact. I reject the suggestion that the system is responsible for keeping people there for that period of time. Sometimes the people themselves make a conscious decision to stay in the Remand Centre.

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