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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 10 Hansard (Tuesday, 24 August 2004) . . Page.. 4084 ..

suggest that the next Assembly—after the review and after the work has been done to develop appropriate systems tied into longer term therapeutic programs, where appropriate—then can consider re-introducing this set-up, along with the details of the programs themselves.

MS DUNDAS (5.55): Just briefly: I will be supporting these amendments, as I agree with Ms Tucker that we need more time to see how the restorative justice unit will work and if we can apply these broader principles to cases of domestic violence and sexual offences. We need to collect more evidence that I hope will come out of the restorative justice unit. That is why we support the establishment of the unit. Hopefully we will see some more meaningful evidence collected and will be able to see how we can apply restorative justice ideals to issues of domestic violence and sexual offence cases. So I am happy to support these amendments and will wait for the further work to be done in relation to these issues.

MR STANHOPE (Chief Minister, Attorney-General, Minister for Environment and Minister for Community Affairs) (5.56): Mr Speaker, the government will not support the proposed amendments. Extreme care was taken on, and considerable attention given in the development of the policy to, the question of the appropriateness of applying restorative justice to serious interpersonal offences around domestic violence and a range of sexual offences. That ranged from the deliberations of the restorative justice subcommittee that developed the issues paper through to the subsequent consultation phase, which involved focus groups and public submissions.

The focus groups and the public submissions were significant and very serious and genuine attempts—and, at the end of the day, not just attempts but approaches—to arrive at a publicly agreed position, essentially, in relation to the full application of the Crimes (Restorative Justice) Bill that caused the policy in relation to domestic violence offences or sexual offences to be improved. I think I can fairly say that the policy was improved by the very direct involvement and the submissions that were made to the restorative justice subcommittee by the Domestic Violence Prevention Council.

The Domestic Violence Prevention Council made written submissions to the inquiry. I think it is fair to say—and I am not overstating it—that every single one of the major issues raised by the Domestic Violence Prevention Council in its written submission to this project were carefully addressed in the legislation, in the development of the legislation, and safeguards were incorporated in the bill to deal with all the issues that the Domestic Violence Prevention Council raised.

I do not know really how much more can be expected of a government than to go to the peak organisation involved in a particular issue that advises government or the community on an issue around violence, around domestic violence or around sexual offences and their impact—in this case, the Domestic Violence Prevention Council—and ask the Domestic Violence Prevention Council to make its submissions to you on a draft bill that the government was contemplating introducing and to say, “What is the full range of your issues or your concerns in relation to this proposal?” For them to set out in a detailed submission their full range of concerns and for us to accept them as genuine, to meet them, to respond to them, to resolve them and to include in our legislation that response—that is what we did.

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