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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 3 Hansard (8 March) . . Page.. 660 ..

MR HARGREAVES (continuing):

The mere fact that we are talking about this matter urges me to start thinking about the corrections mindset that we have at the moment. It worries me that people can start coming before the judicial system as young as 10 years old - or even eight under the current legislation. This side of the house has been particularly critical of the Government for moving responsibility for the Quamby Youth Detention Centre to the Justice and Community Safety portfolio. We acknowledge the Government's responsibility to do all things to cater for the Youth Detention Centre administratively, but we are critical of it being put into the corrections system. With that inevitably goes the corrections services mindset instead of a supportive family services mindset.

We do not believe that the interests of young people being sent to Quamby would be served as well in the corrections system as it would within the supportive family and children's services system. If we want to have an interventionist program with these kids who have gone off the rails, we do not need to show them the stick, give them a long, hard look at a bit of razor wire and say, "This is what is going to happen to you. If you are naughty again, we are going to smack you again". That is silly.

We need to be attacking the reasons why they have gone off the rails and creating a supportive environment to stop them from doing that. That is the beginning of the restorative justice process - intervention when people are young. We do not need to expose them to the hard edge of the corrections system. We do not want a continuum of accommodation from Quamby through to Belconnen Remand Centre and on to Goulburn or Junee or our new prison. What I would like to see is that when people go to Quamby they do not go on to Belconnen Remand Centre or somewhere else. I do not agree that Quamby should be part of the correctives system. That is a defeatist attitude, in my view. It acknowledges that once people go there they are part of the criminal society. We have to do something about it.

I urge members to support Mr Stanhope's legislation to bring us into line with other jurisdictions. The legislation also acknowledges that we are going to treat kids who are 10 years of age or below compassionately and as kids. They are kids. I have heard the argument that kids are growing up a lot quicker these days. Certainly, the bigger kids in Rio de Janeiro have grown up a bit. Certainly, the kids in some of the South-East Asian cities have grown up a bit and they are very worldly-wise and street-wise. But you still have to ask yourself whether or not kids have the capacity to form criminal intent. I suppose the victims of pickpockets in Rome might say they have. I suspect we are talking about the influence of adults. It is the adults we ought to be holding responsible, not the kids.

If this legislation keeps kids of the age of eight or nine out of the court system, then I am all for it. We have to understand that the Family Services Act provides us with plenty of legislative strength to intervene in a family where something has gone wrong. If we have a recidivist nine-year-old, the Family Services Act can take care of that. I ask new parents, people like the Attorney-General and Mr Osborne - and anyone who has ever had kids - to think about whether their nine-year-old or eight-year-old would be capable of drawing a pistol and shooting somebody. I suggest it is the parents' fault. I suggest it is the environment's fault. I suggest it is the media we allow them to be exposed to - TV programs, even occasionally the news, which is sensationalised. That is where the fault lies.

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