Page 3121 - Week 07 - Thursday, 1 July 2010
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These are serious matters that have been raised, and, as I say, he is not alone. The Law Society and the ACT Bar Association have separately and jointly criticised the proposal. It was not a recommendation of the ACT Supreme Court working group in its April 2010 report for presentation to the court’s governance committee on issues affecting the ACT Supreme Court’s ability to complete in a timely way cases currently coming before it. It will put pressure on the Magistrates Court by taking judicial resources away from it and increase its workload by increasing the case thresholds.
This looks to us to be a bad idea that has been rushed through without proper consultation. There have been processes in place. As I have pointed out, the Supreme Court working group reported in April 2010, yet we did not see anything about a virtual district court there. You would have to surmise that it has been dreamed up somewhere in the Attorney-General’s office without actually thinking it through. It is policy on the run, and that is a very dangerous thing in jurisprudence.
Policy on the run is dangerous anywhere, but if we get our already overburdened court system wrong, if we pursue false policy paths, it has a real impact on people; it has a real impact on justice; it has a real impact on people’s access to justice. We know that already there is significant concern about the workload. We do not see how this virtual district court will actually improve the situation.
Mr Hanson has touched on the issue of corrections. There is no doubt that, since the pre-emptive opening of the Alexander Maconochie Centre, we have seen a litany of disasters. I think it is time the minister actually told us what he is doing to fix it across the board. He has got the opportunity today to speak for as long as he likes. We would not want to be subjected to too long a speech, but perhaps the minister could actually get up and tell us what he is going to do to deal with the problems.
We know that there are massive cost blow-outs, we know there are ongoing concerns with the security system, we know that eight months after the prison accepted prisoners there were still ongoing concerns, and we specifically know that defect 2.6—which relates to the hierarchy of the security system—remains unresolved. The relevant committee reported prison cells not having a central feature of the security installed system—that is, radio frequency identification—and Mr Corbell blamed the security contractor.
Let us look at it in terms of what is happening now and what has happened recently. We have seen the rooftop protest. What does that speak to in terms of the management of the prison? There were allegations made that it was known that it was going to happen and that it was the only way that the message could actually get to the minister. If that is the case, that is a serious breakdown. If the only way for there to be even a discussion about improvements is to have rooftop protest, which is tacitly or otherwise approved, that is unacceptable.
We have seen prisoners walking free when they are not meant to walk free. Fundamental to our corrections system is the principle that those who are sentenced to prison stay until their sentence is completed and those who are not sentenced to prison are not in there. We do not want anyone locked up who should not be locked up; we
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