Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 9 Hansard (5 September) . . Page.. 2853 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

This has particular application when it comes to young people. Some people find themselves trapped in a fairly wide range of antisocial or destructive behaviours in their youth, and it is important that they can grow beyond their mistakes and irresponsibilities, so the laws of society must encourage rather than inhibit them from doing this.

One commendable feature of this bill is that, while the requisite crime-free period is 10 years, the period is five years for people not dealt with as adults. Convictions for offences resulting in six months imprisonment or more cannot become spent. While this cut-off point of the ACT bill is a significantly less penalty than in similar Commonwealth legislation, it is however more or less at the same level as comparable legislation in other states.

One of the points at issue in this bill is the exclusion clause which identifies when spent convictions must be disclosed to ensure the protection of the community. I have a number of amendments to that clause in order to expand the protection extended to children to include older people and people with disabilities. I understand I have government support for these amendments, and I will address them in the detail stage of the debate.

MR HUMPHRIES (Treasurer, Attorney-General and Minister for Justice and Community Safety) (10.40), in reply: Mr Speaker, I am grateful to members for their support for this bill. It is basically legislation designed to give a second chance to people who are convicted of a minor offence but who manage to keep their noses clean for a period of time after that conviction and who at some point are entitled to go back into the community without the burden of that offence.

It basically goes to the notion of the way in which our criminal justice system works. We have a system which encourages people by way of punishment, in theory at least, to move from a criminal-based lifestyle into a law-abiding lifestyle. The assumption-whether it is true or not is another matter-is that by punishing people we create a sufficient disincentive to them and to others to continue on a path of criminal activity.

It goes hand in hand with that notion that once punishment has been administered and a penalty of whatever sort has been paid or served by the person who has been punished it is then appropriate for that person to restore themselves into a law-abiding frame of mind and to be able to move around the community on the basis that they have done their time for the crime and they are entitled to be considered as reformed people.

We do not facilitate that in the present state of affairs by having a continuing stigma attached to these people when it might be expected that they have indicated pretty clearly that they do intend to follow a reformed path. An adult who for 10 years has managed be free of any further convictions is quite appropriately a person who should be able to front an employer, a person providing accommodation or whoever and say, "I am a cleanskin. I do not have any matters in my past which ought to deter you from offering me this job or this accommodation," or whatever it may be.

Similar schemes operate elsewhere in Australia and, in fact, have done so for a considerable period of time. We are, in a sense, the latest jurisdiction catching up with this concept. That is partly because, before self-government, ACT residents were

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .