Page 2532 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 1 July 2008
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the capacity to pay a fine when they know the alternative might be some time in custody. I have seen that time and again in my time in practice, which admittedly finished in about 1995 in terms of my last court case.
We will have a look and see how this one goes. It is obviously a different situation with young people because very few of them have the capacity to pay a fine. Adults are quite different, so I am a little bit concerned to hear what you are saying in relation to adults; but that is for another day.
Amendments agreed to.
Schedule 1, proposed new amendment 1.84 agreed to.
Dictionary.
MS GALLAGHER (Molonglo—Minister for Health, Minister for Children and Young People, Minister for Disability and Community Services, Minister for Women) (6.42): I seek leave to move amendments Nos 58 and 59 circulated in my name together.
Leave granted.
MS GALLAGHER: I move amendments Nos 58 and 59 circulated in my name [see schedule 2 at page 2552].
These amendments go to the definition of “Aboriginal” and of “a Torres Strait Islander person” in response to the scrutiny of bills committee’s concerns. Again we have amended the definition of “Aboriginal” and of “Torres Strait Islander” to mean a person who is accepted as an Aboriginal person or a Torres Strait Islander person by an Aboriginal community or a Torres Strait Islander community.
Amendments agreed to.
Dictionary, as amended, agreed to.
Title.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (6.43): As I have said before in the in-principle debate, I really do not like the title because I think that we should have a piece of legislation which is more discrete and bundled up in more bite-size bits. I think Dr Foskey used the term this morning that a brick like this is hardly child friendly.
But in concluding the debate I think we need to pay testament to the work that has been done over about five years on this piece of legislation—not the gestation of an elephant but at least the gestation of two Gallagher children. There are important issues that we need to keep in our mind. This is not the end of the process. This is the beginning of a new process and we have to remind ourselves and the community that this is an ongoing process. It is one that requires constant vigilance and constant tweaking, and I would see it as a test of whoever is the minister for child protection to
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