Page 2915 - Week 09 - Thursday, 13 August 2015
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If the minister will not intervene, the Chief Minister should intervene and make this work better for everyone in the ACT. When you call, when you want assistance, you want people to come who are focused on the job and who are happy and dedicated to the job. You do not want them being unhappy because of what is going on behind the scenes back in the organisation. There is a lot of unhappiness in many of these organisations because of the nature of the reforms and the lack of genuine vision or strategic agenda.
If your strategy is three more bureaucratic positions, goodness gracious me. If you have problems with your people and culture, you are not going to fix them by establishing another bureaucratic position which will divide the duties of that officer and the loyalty of that officer. Is the officer first and foremost the executive responsible to the commissioner for people and culture or is that officer the Deputy Chief Officer of Fire & Rescue? Which one does he serve? You cannot serve two masters. Indeed, if you were going to have a better bureaucracy, this is not the structure to have.
There are many problems here. They are serious problems. The UFU says, “Let’s not go back to the sort of situation that occurred in 2003.” As we found out in 2003, the structure was inadequate. (Time expired.)
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo—Minister for Territory and Municipal Services, Minister for Justice, Minister for Sport and Recreation and Minister assisting the Chief Minister on Transport Reform) (5.51): I rise to speak particularly on corrections. I will come to some road safety related matters after the dinner break but I will specifically cover the corrections part of the portfolio at this time.
I am pleased to support this appropriation bill as it seeks to achieve an effective balance in the administration of justice in our city. The bill contains funding which will allow the government to respond to the very real pressures being experienced in our justice system. In my own portfolio where I have responsibility for Corrective Services we have been feeling that pressure intensely, as is evidenced by the funding we provided in last year’s budget to expand accommodation at the AMC. This appropriation bill will provide funding to enhance the service delivery of corrections in other ways so that our capacity to manage our clients is improved.
The 2015-16 budget also seeks to invest in services which will ensure that people have greater access to legal representation, that court outcomes can be delivered more promptly, that there is a chance for people to divert from a criminal path and, very importantly, that victims of crime are better supported. It is this balance that is most attractive about the budget as far as I am concerned.
Let me focus initially on the features of the 2015-16 budget related to Corrective Services. The budget will invest an additional $8.16 million over four years in new initiatives for ACT Corrective Services. The goal of the funding proposed is to strengthen the capability of our corrections agency. Of this $8.16 million, $3.228 million will be provided over three years to enhance the capacity of the community corrections arm of Corrective Services, that is, our probation and parole service, our community work service, our offender management service and our sentence administration service.
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