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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 5 Hansard (9 May) . . Page.. 1267 ..

MR HUMPHRIES: And so it should be, as Mr Moore points out. Mr Stanhope's media release should have been directed, I would suggest, more appropriately to that court or those courts for which he has such great admiration and respect, as referred to in earlier debate today. I do not know the reason the courts, not the government, are making less use of community service orders. It would be useful to have a debate with the courts about that. In fact, I have had some discussions with members of the courts about sentencing policy, mainly on a one-on-one basis.

Perhaps as we move closer to the creation of a full-time ACT correctional facility, including a new remand centre and perhaps a new PDC within that framework, we need to think about how, as a community, we have a debate about a matter which traditionally has been exclusively the preserve of judges and magistrates, except of course for legislation, which generally sets only a maximum penalty to which people might be sentenced for particular crimes.

We will not enter the debate about minimum sentences this time, but the extent of community debate, until recently at least, has been limited to what the maximum sentence the law provides for a particular offence. How within that very broad framework a decision is made about the period of imprisonment or what other penalty a person should be subject to is a matter which has been exclusively the preserve of judges and magistrates and perhaps should be the subject of broader community debate at this time.

Mr Speaker, I thank again the opposition for its support for the Periodic Detention Amendment Bill, and I hope that we can continue to develop a debate about sentencing in the ACT through the period between now and the opening of our new correctional facility some time in the next two years.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill agreed to in principle.

Leave granted to dispense with the detail stage.

Bill agreed to.

Debate (on motion by Ms Tucker ) adjourned.

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