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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 8 Hansard (9 August) . . Page.. 2658 ..

MR HARGREAVES (continuing):

is. We do not look after the kids of those families anywhere near well enough. I would like to see the government look at that process. (Extension of time granted.)

I am pleased to see the Rehabilitation of Offenders (Interim) Bill and the committee's approach to the prison. I acknowledge Mr Moore's commitment to the holistic approach to corrections. We are talking about the continuum of the restorative justice model, but we have to remember that when people come out of jail that is not the end of it. We have parole, transitional release and things like that, then the prisoner is released into the community.

But that is not the end of it either. The restorative justice model is not just about rehabilitation; it is about restoration of the community as well as the offender. We have to create an environment in which the community wants to have them back, are happy to have them back and encourage them to come back, and in which people go back with the skills to reintegrate and everybody is happy at the end of the day.

I issue a challenge to those opposite in case they inherit the treasury bench yet again next year. They must look at the problems of the re-establishment of families when an incarcerated person is released. We do not provide any support services to women who receive a male family member into the family after a period of 10 years and have to establish emotional relationships all over again. I am not talking about the person coming out of jail; I am talking about the women.

We do not have any support services for the young boy who is, for example, 10 when his father goes into jail. When the father comes out six years later, the young boy, who is then 16, has become the significant male in the family. The father comes back and has to re-establish norms and paradigms. The offspring of a service family would know the dislocation that a service family can suffer. It is rather horrendous. I can imagine that it would be worse for the family of people coming back from jail.

The challenge to whichever government is in power next year is to say, "Are we doing enough for these people?" If we want to attack recidivism, we must make sure that we do not put people back into a dysfunctional environment. We have to look at the environment into which they go. That is one of the best ways to go about it. So the challenge is on the table.

I think the committee moved a very long way from where we started. We have provided the government with a blueprint for an excellent restorative justice model. Again, I thank all members of the committee for the distance they travelled and for the amount of work they put in. In particular, I express my thanks to Mr Kaine, who travelled probably the most with me. I was able to test my theories and philosophies with him and see whether they made as much sense as I thought they did. I thank Mr Hird for accepting the same challenge. Again, a very big thanks to Fiona Clapin. She did a great job. And I want to thank Mr Osborne for turning up.

MR KAINE ( 11.56): I will be quite brief. I think the government should take this and previous reports of the committee very seriously, because the committee put an enormous amount of its time and energies into keeping an eye on what was happening with the prison project. It is not something the committee took lightly. We travelled extensively. We did that to make sure that we understood what best practice was in

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