Page 4225 - Week 13 - Thursday, 27 November 2014
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of options already available. This would give the judiciary the ability to select from an expanded range of sentencing options. The effectiveness of the new options would be allowed to be tested and then, once proven successful, a planned phase-out of periodic detention could occur if appropriate.
To apply an analogy that better illustrates what this bill seeks to do, I will use a health example. If, for instance, you are diagnosed with a disease such as cancer, your doctor has quite a suite of treatment options available to them, such as surgery, radio treatment, chemo, hormone therapy or alternative medicines. Often a doctor can choose to apply a range of treatments in seeking to treat the cause of sickness. But with the changes this bill brings about, and continuing to use the same example, your doctor would now be prevented from using a proven treatment method on the promise of a new, untested option being available at some point in the future, and would also be prevented from using an effective mix to treat the underlying cause. Simply put, this bill ties the hands of the judiciary when considering sentencing options and provides no new alternatives.
It is also likely that this decision will continue to place unmanageable pressure on the territory’s prison, as the only custodial sentencing option will be a full-time stint at the Alexander Maconochie Centre. The ongoing capacity issues at the prison are not new and seemingly have been accepted as being par for the course given the expenditure of an additional $100 million to address capacity and segregation issues that have plagued the AMC since its inception. I propose to move: That the Crimes (Sentencing) Amendment Bill 2014 be referred to the Standing Committee on Justice and Community Safety to be incorporated into their inquiry into Sentencing in the ACT.
Mr Rattenbury: Mr Assistant Speaker, I might seek your procedural advice. Do we continue to debate the bill or will we debate the motion?
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER ( Dr Bourke): Thank you, Mr Rattenbury, for your suggestion. We will have the debate about moving the bill to the committee after we have finished the in-principle stage. So we are still debating the in-principle stage.
MR WALL: I seek some clarification on that. I believe standing order 174 says that the motion can be moved at any time after the presentation of a bill to the Assembly, including immediately after a bill has been agreed to in principle.
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER: We have not agreed to it in principle.
MR WALL: Noting that once the in-principle stage has been completed we will move to refer it to the committee, I will await the resolution of that and I will speak again at that point in the debate.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo—Minister for Territory and Municipal Services, Minister for Corrective Services, Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs and Minister for Sport and Recreation) (4.23): I will be supporting the bill that is before us, as it relates to the ending of periodic detention as a sentencing option. I
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