Page 126 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 10 February 2016
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creative solutions, sharing problems, using restorative processes and continuing the ACT’s vision for a safer, more connected community. I commend my motion to the Assembly.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Deputy Chief Minister, Attorney-General, Minister for Capital Metro, Minister for Health, Minister for Police and Emergency Services and Minister for the Environment and Climate Change) (11.30): I thank Ms Porter for moving this motion today and for her longstanding interest in the issue and provision of restorative justice in our community.
When citizens of Canberra gathered at the restorative communities conference that I hosted here at the Legislative Assembly last July there were messages from people around the world whose cities were also on a restorative journey in order to make them the best places for their children and young people to grow up in. Communities in Hull and Leeds in the UK, Vermont in the US and Wanganui in New Zealand have all worked towards making their cities places where people and organisations are committed to practices that promote, build and enable respectful, inclusive relationships, where individuals are aware of and understand the principles of restorative justice in their personal and organisational practice. Leaders of these cities congratulated Canberra for strengthening its focus on restorative community and acknowledged us as an inspiration to other sites engaged with the international restorative learning community.
The restorative justice philosophy came to Canberra initially with ACT Policing running restorative justice conferences for young offenders using the so-called Wagga model in the 1990s. The re-integrative shaming experiments, or RISE, project began in the ACT in 1995. It examined and compared the effectiveness of restorative justice conferencing across offence types. The positive results from this research led to further restorative justice programs being established and studied globally.
The recent Campbell collaboration review, which was released at the end of 2013, considered the efficacy of face-to-face restorative justice conferences at hundreds of sites across the world. It was the culmination of almost 20 years of restorative justice processes and associated evaluations. The Campbell collaboration review concluded that even better outcomes for restorative justice conferences are achieved for violent crimes committed by adult offenders. It showed that restorative justice conferences play a significant role in reducing the trauma symptoms of victims and the re-offending behaviours of offenders. And, importantly, and possibly most surprising, the results also revealed a reduction in the desire of victims, especially victims of violent crimes, to seek personal vengeance on their offenders.
This is of benefit to our whole community. Restorative justice conferences involve an exchange of openness, understanding and empathy. They frequently restore dignity, security, relationships, social support and peace of mind as well as addressing material loss and reparation.
The ACT has long recognised the importance of quality restorative justice approaches in our justice system. Fifteen years ago, on 31 January 2005, the Crimes (Restorative Justice) Act 2004 commenced operation and the ACT’s specialist Restorative Justice
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