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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 8 Hansard (9 August) . . Page.. 2813 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

and support be improved for young people who are sexual offenders. Quite often young people-and this often applies to adults as well-become sexual offenders because of abuse that they have experience themselves.

I did have an amendment, which I have reconsidered, to apply the increased penalty only to people who offend often. I think the response to this problem has to be therapeutic. I do not think the dollar value of the penalty will particularly make a lot of difference. A lot of these people may not have money anyway, and this provision will not achieve anything in particular.

The courts obviously should have discretion. I would want to see courts being able to sentence these sorts of people in a way that provides them with help and therapy. Therefore, in my view, the pressure is on government, which is responding by developing programs for sexual offenders. Those programs need to be evaluated to determine whether they are adequate. They need to be properly resourced and they definitely need to be monitored so that we can try to help these sorts of people. This could be a very expensive and resource intensive exercise.

The point is that quite often these sorts of people have very deep problems. There are deep issues, and it is not going to be a quick fix at all. I do not think penalties are the answer. I think increasing penalties is a very simplistic approach to the problem. I am more likely to just oppose the clause to increase penalties. What we need to see and what I would like to hear from Mr Stefaniak and from Mr Moore as the minister from community services is a commitment to recognise the therapeutic needs of these people.

Proposed new clause 37A agreed to.

Clause 38 agreed to.

Clause 39.

MR STANHOPE ( Leader of the Opposition) (1.39 am): Mr Speaker, I will not proceed with my amendment 13.

MS TUCKER (1.39 am): I move amendment No 6 circulated in my name [see schedule 6 at page 2881].

This amendment simply requires police firstly to ask people to turn down a sound system; secondly to warn the people making too much noise that the police can take away their sound system; and thirdly, if all else fails, they can take away the sound system.

It seems clear to me that one request and one warning will usually do the trick in most instances. It is about being reasonable at both ends. A polite request and then a proper warning before leaping in a grabbing a stereo is a reasonable approach by police and is likely to attract a reasonable response from most rowdy party goers.

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