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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 6 Hansard (24 May) . . Page.. 1709 ..

MR HARGREAVES: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I would like the record to show how appalled I am.

Ms Carnell: I am here.

MR HARGREAVES: I acknowledge that the Chief Minister has sat through this whole debate and has participated. Mr Stefaniak has a 60 per cent rating, because he was not here during Mr Stanhope's speech. I find it appalling that people should not take this matter as seriously as Mr Stanhope or the Chief Minister have so far.

I will continue. I will go back and do that paragraph again, Mr Speaker. In the Northern Territory the number of juveniles jailed since mandatory sentencing was introduced three years ago has increased by 145 per cent. In the budget we talk about increases of 2 per cent or 3 per cent. Here we are talking about 145 per cent. The Northern Australian Aboriginal Legal Service found there had been no reduction in crime but a big increase in imprisonment rates for minor offences and that the cost to the Northern Territory taxpayer had increased by $5 million.

The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody said that Western Australia had Australia's highest imprisonment and escape rates and that the rate of Aboriginal deaths in custody there was more than twice the national average. If we want a statistical reason for linking the ACT with Northern Territory laws, consider this: according to the Ignatius Centre for Social Policy and Research, Western Australia and the ACT have the highest ratio of Aboriginals aged 10 to 17 years in juvenile justice systems, and young Aboriginals in these areas are 27 times more likely to be in detention.

Ms Carnell: That is because we have six who have been regular.

MR HARGREAVES: If I may address that interjection under the breath, it matters not whether we have six people or one, or 15 or 45 or 137. We have only eight or maybe nine women who are ACT citizens incarcerated in New South Wales. That should not mean that we should give those women any less service when we design our new prison.

It should be obvious just from the two points I have just made that mandatory sentencing has contributed to an urgent, extreme and most compelling case for its abolition in those jurisdictions.

Can I, Mr Speaker, just talk briefly about a less emotional yet equally important point? The judiciary is separated from the legislature not by accident. The concept of separation of powers is no accident. Mandatory sentencing removes the discretion from the judiciary to deal differently with people presenting with differing mitigating circumstances. Mandatory sentencing is just that-mandatory. There is no choice for the judiciary. The penalty is determined by the legislature, with no room to move by the judiciary.

If a reason is needed for the Commonwealth to intervene, and if people killing themselves is insufficient, how about a piece of legislation which clearly contravenes the notion of separation of powers? When quizzed on the notion of separation of powers,

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