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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 8 Hansard (25 August) . . Page.. 2400 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

The ACT Government strongly supports all initiatives to prevent separation of young Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islanders from their families and to address young peoples' special needs. The bail supervision scheme conducted by the ACT Juvenile Justice system prevents unnecessary entry into custody of juvenile offenders. The ACT is the only jurisdiction which provides such a scheme. The community work order scheme is conducted under the guidance of one of the local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups.

The ACT's child welfare principles and practices recognise that a child should remain with his/her family or extended family wherever appropriate. The ACT Government recognises that this is of particular significance to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families.

The Aboriginal community is offended by what this Government has done at this point. The Government, in its response to the Aboriginal deaths in custody report, expressed good sentiments about how it should be dealing with these issues but, unfortunately, has not put them in place in this policy decision. It is really important that we get this right. It is a major decision. We believe that the Department of Education and Community Services must resume responsibility for Quamby until the committee has reported.

Queensland in particular encountered difficulties when it removed juvenile justice from the Department of Family, Youth and Community Services and placed it with the Queensland Corrective Services Commission in 1996. Queensland found that the anticipated efficiencies from applying the adult corrections model to juvenile justice were not viable. That was because the adult system relies less on staff and more on electronic systems to manage inmates. Juvenile offenders require higher staffing ratios because of the relational nature of the custodial role. In Queensland the creation of a separate bureaucracy for juvenile justice led to significant undermining of linkages and duplication of services across departmental boundaries. There were also problems with the case management of young people in the community and resource issues as juvenile justice was only a small part of the much larger corrections service.

We know from committee inquiries that have been carried out here that ongoing difficulty is being experienced by government in seeking to ensure an interdisciplinary approach to issues. I am hearing from the majority of the members of the community who are concerned about this policy move an acknowledgment that there have been dreadful issues for Quamby while it has been under Education, but they are concerned that separating it is not going to deal with the issues. There is already after the inquest and the coronial recommendation a need to seek urgently to improve how Quamby is working and to seek to find how to implement best practice in the area. As the Official Visitor said in correspondence to Mr Humphries and Mr Stefaniak, referred to yesterday, she is concerned as well that imposing more change is not going to be useful in terms of getting the outcomes that we all want to see.

I believe that we have a responsibility in the ACT to allow full and proper analysis and public discussion on these matters before any changes are made. Yesterday, Mr Humphries said in debate that, if the committee found that Quamby was better left with Education, it could be moved back again. That would not be until after the

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