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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 06 Hansard (Tuesday, 22 June 2004) . . Page.. 2265 ..

are saying that, if we are going to have fairness in our justice system, then we should not also punish the families and relatives of the people who the law has decided need to be locked up for a period of time.

I think that is an eminently sensible and fair way to address this problem. I believe we have identified a number of problem areas. I refer to the difficulties we found during our visits to various prisons around the country, such as the difficulty of transport for people visiting prisons. Many prisons these days are not located in large cities and, if they are in large cities, they are generally on the outskirts. This can create a massive problem for people who wish to visit their relatives and their loved ones. Therefore it is necessary that some form of public transport be provided.

It is it not just a matter of looking at our ACT prison. We must also remember that there are prisons in the surrounding area where it is possible that some of our ACT people are incarcerated. That is certainly the situation at the moment. Prisoners can be in, say, Junee, Cooma or even Goulburn. The question of some form of public transport being made available should be addressed now. We do not necessarily need a bus running every half hour, but we do need some form of transport to allow people to attend the prisons during visiting hours.

The question of children in prisons may seem fairly radical. We had the experience in Western Australia of talking with a young mother who had her child with her. I do not know if that was in a low security prison—perhaps the woman was in for a white-collar crime—and it was not important. The fact is that I cannot see anything wrong with having a child, of pre-school age probably, with their mother. That would be beneficial to all concerned—not only the child, but also for the peace of mind of the mother—and I am sure it would do a good deal towards the mother’s rehabilitation.

We have made a few other perhaps groundbreaking recommendations. One of them was that we do not strip search visitors to prisons. At 7.44 we refer to the experience in Western Australia of the strip searching of visitors. Over a nine-month period in 2002, as a result of 77 strip searches and 26 searches using drug dogs, conducted on visitors, no contraband was found.

When we make this recommendation we are not suggesting for a moment that it will be open slather for visitors. They will still have to go through the various security forms, metal detectors and suchlike. The argument we are putting forward is that, if the authorities retain the right to strip search a prisoner after they have had a visitor, then surely the responsibility is being applied where it should be applied. Of course, if contraband is found, then I guess a suitable punishment can be applied and the visitors may find themselves in difficulty. But we do not believe that strip searching visitors, in a general sense, is a necessary step.

We have in effect rethought some of the rules and regulations that apply to people visiting prisons, and indeed for some of the people who are incarcerated. May I say that we may be having a few more people incarcerated now that this government has finally got its act together on periodic detention statistics. I notice that some 18 offenders have had their periodic detention cancelled.

MR SPEAKER: Relevance, Mr Cornwell?

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