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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 9 Hansard (21 August) . . Page.. 2714 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

If the amendments are not made, Corrective Services would have to turn away people who present for weekend detention once the Periodic Detention Centre is full. We are seeking to address with this amendment the circumstance in which we have more people appearing for periodic detention than we have places for. The reality is that people sentenced to periodic detention and presenting at the Periodic Detention Centre on a Friday night for their weekends detention are being told to go away, that there is no space for them. The issue is that those people then have to make up that period of detention. This circumstance does not relieve them of their obligation. It does not reduce the sentence; it simply extends it.

Because there is no space, the duration of the sentence of somebody sentenced to six months periodic detention is extended. This is, of course, extremely inconvenient for those who have been sentenced and for the people who are affected. For a whole range of reasons-not just the fact that it is inconvenient-this is undesirable. It is, of course, preferable and intended that people who have been sentenced to periodic detention be allowed to discharge their sentences promptly. I think periodic detention would certainly be brought into some disrepute if we arrived at a circumstance where people sentenced to periodic detention lost the capacity to undertake the sentence that they have been given.

I anticipate that Mr Stefaniak may go to issues around the United Nations body of principles for the protection of persons under forms of detention or imprisonment. This was something that I was acutely aware of at the time that I agreed to this amendment. Principle 8 of the United Nations body of principles for the protection of all persons under any form of detention or imprisonment provides that persons in detention shall be subject to treatment appropriate to their unconvicted status and accordingly shall, wherever possible, be kept be separate from imprisoned persons. As you will have noted, the principle is not expressed in absolute terms. Rather, the convention establishes a principle that unconvicted persons and convicted persons should be kept separate wherever possible. We fully intend to abide by this principle.

The procedures ensure that the two groups are kept separate. Detainees are only taken to the remand centre overnight. During the day they are at the PDC. Detainees are taken to the remand centre only after remandees are locked down and leave the remand centre the next morning before the remandees are allowed out of their rooms. Detainees are held in a separate yard to the remandees. Due to the nature of periodic detention, a detainee would be housed at the remand centre two nights per week at most. Consequently, and in accordance with the UN principle, detainees and remandees are kept separate wherever possible. The proposed amendments will reinforce the principle by ensuring that detainees can only be held at a remand centre if the PDC is full.

That is the basis of the arrangement that has been made-an arrangement to be utilised only in urgent circumstances where people may present at the Periodic Detention Centre and there being no capacity at the detention centre to take them; and the prospect of their being detained overnight at the Belconnen Remand Centre.

As I say, the amendments to both the Remand Centres Act and the Periodic Detention Act will ensure that when an area is declared as both a remand centre and a detention centre the provisions of the relevant act will apply to people detained in a centre. When explaining the purpose of the amendment I pointed out that the Remand Centres Act will apply to remandees in the centre and the Periodic Detention Act will apply to periodic

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