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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 12 Hansard (11 November) . . Page.. 3899 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

... seek to promote the establishment of laws, procedures, authorities and institutions specifically applicable to children alleged as, accused of, or recognised as having infringed the penal law ...

The Eighteenth Report of the Australian Law Reform Commission, entitled "Child Welfare", in discussing the procedures for dealing with children involved with the criminal law, calls for:

... special procedures which take into account their lack of maturity and the fact that they do not and cannot always act in a fully responsible manner.

It goes on to state:

... because of their youth, they are usually dependent, malleable and vulnerable, and are more likely to have difficulty understanding the legal procedures.

Madam Deputy Speaker, rather than looking for special procedures for children coming into contact with the law, this legislation before us provides, essentially, exactly the same procedure as was passed by the Assembly last year for adult offenders. The only difference is that, in addition to notifying the Legal Affairs Committee, the Community Advocate and the Chief Magistrate will also be notified about any transfer within 14 days of its having taken place. This is a monitoring role. I do not believe that we have been given adequate information to persuade me at this point that this is going to be in the interests of the young people in our city who have come into contact with the law.

MR MOORE (11.54): Madam Deputy Speaker, in his presentation speech, the Minister argued that the transfer provisions in the legislation before us have a series of advantages. He argued that the proposed amendment "will allow detainees and persons responsible for them to apply for a transfer to be closer to their families, thus increasing their chances of rehabilitation". I believe that that can already be done through the courts. He said:

It will allow the very small number of detainees with particular medical, safety, health or welfare needs to have access to the wider range of programs available in the NSW juvenile justice system.

I believe that Ms Reilly and Ms Tucker put a very good case - that that could be resolved in terms of going through the courts, because, in fact, that is talking about the specific welfare of the individual. Then the Minister went on to say:

It will also allow the Director, Family Services to transfer a detainee on the Director's own motion, where the Director has reasonable grounds to believe that the behaviour of the transferee places at risk the safety of the staff or of other detainees in an institution.

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