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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 13 Hansard (27 November) . . Page.. 4842 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

strife there, they play truant, they get into strife mucking around and not going to school, they do not achieve at school, they get led into petty crime, they get led into drugs and other substances, and get into a never-ending downward spiral that leads inexorably to petty crime, pinching cars, burgling houses and then, of course, their first entree to our correctional facilities after a life wasted as a result of our failure to recognise that they needed support.

There is a whole range and raft of other things that this government has done to deal with some of the singly important issues in relation to crime. We have addressed issues around firearm ownership and are working with the states, particularly recently in relation to the need to ensure a buy back of handguns. We have engaged in a major sentencing review, not just a knee-jerk one. I announced yesterday the significant changes that we are making to sentencing in the ACT, a complete overhaul of the way sentencing is undertaken.

We are reviewing the protection orders legislation, providing for a whole series of proposals designed to ensure that the ACT provides for the safety and protection of people from violence, harassment and intimidation. We have just legislated to protect the counselling notes of sexual assault victims from disclosure. We are reviewing at the moment some very difficult issues in relation to fitness to plead, those difficult circumstances where a person commits a crime and, at the time of committing the crime, was fit to plead and knew what they were doing and subsequently falls into a state where they are not fit to plead or are in and out of that state, a very difficult area of the law which is being reviewed.

We have introduced the Australian Crime Commission Bill. We are committed to restorative justice and restorative justice principles, which I alluded to before in relation to the need for us to ensure that we do restore people, that we do look at alternative ways, rather than just dragging people before the courts and setting them on a treadmill that will lead inexorably to jail, recidivism, repeat offending and repeat jailing.

We are introducing circle sentencing for young indigenous people, who are so savagely overrepresented in our criminal justice mechanisms and in our correctional institutions. Circle sentencing, trialled at Nowra very successfully, is a process that includes indigenous people and indigenous elders, respected members of the community, as part of any tribunal assessing what should happen to young Aboriginal people.

That is not an exhaustive list of the sorts of things that we are doing, Mr Speaker. We on this side of the house take law and order extremely seriously. We know that it is important to each of us. It is something that we treat with the utmost seriousness and regard.

MR SPEAKER: Order! The minister's time has expired.

MR STEFANIAK (4.20): I will just deal with a few points that the Chief Minister raised and some that Mr Wood raised. The Chief Minister will have noted that the opposition believes in having a very comprehensive package in relation to law and order. Law and order is a complex issue; it is multifaceted. The Chief Minister might recall-bye-bye, Chief Minister; he is leaving the chamber-that we have no problem with things such as circle sentencing. I came out very sympathetic to that because it is

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