Page 1337 - Week 05 - Thursday, 31 May 2007
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As I rifle through my notes, I will see whether or not there is anything else that I would like to draw to the attention of the Assembly. The use of firearms was raised by the scrutiny of bills committee and it does seem to be unclear as to the scope of when they can be used. The committee drew attention to the fact that it is a broad issue of where the safety of the people is in question and it does not seem to draw a line as to how remote the safety of the public may be in that circumstance. The committee certainly raised that matter and I do not think there is anything in the government amendments—I could be corrected there, Mr Corbell—that deals with that issue. We will not be amending it at this point, simply because we have not even had any discussion with the minister. We got the government amendments only today, I believe, and we had no notice that this was being brought on. I acknowledge the drafting challenge of trying to get that right. But we will have to monitor the use of firearms with a view to possible future amendment in terms of whether that is too broad a definition.
In conclusion, the ACT opposition will be supporting this bill. We will be supporting it because we believe it provides a sufficient framework for the management of corrections in the ACT. It is not sufficient for a good corrections system. There will be significant issues to deal with when the new prison is built, as it now will be. There will be significant issues around how the delegated authority and the delegated legislation that come from this bill are put in place, and that is where the nuts and bolts will be and that is where we will get a better picture of how corrections will be managed to take account of those three principles that I outlined at the start of my speech: that the public are protected, that the officers and employees of corrections facilities in the ACT are protected, that prisoners’ rights to be free of any inhuman or cruel treatment are respected, that their need to be rehabilitated is respected and that we are able to put in place systems that give the maximum possible chance of offenders who go into our corrections system being rehabilitated.
We have concerns about how that will operate in the prison and whether that will be able to be done in an efficient, humane and cost-effective way, but we think this bill provides a sufficient framework and sufficient flexibility for corrections to operate in a reasonable way in the ACT and that is why we will be supporting it.
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (5:14): The ACT Greens will be supporting the Corrections Management Bill 2006 in principle. However, we do have a number of concerns about the process by which the prison project and this legislation is coming into existence. It is also appalling that, yet again, the government has not been able to provide us with a copy of their amendments until today. Without knowing what the final form of a bill would be, it was quite difficult to reach a considered view as to whether I should support it or move further amendments of my own. As you know, I have tabled some amendments
I would like to join with the International Commission of Jurists in congratulating the officers who have worked on this bill. The time and effort they have put into researching human rights principles for corrections is evident. Here I have the problem that I am going to be focusing on what I see as the weak points in the bill. Unfortunately, I do not have time to praise it, but let that be said.
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