Page 3296 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 23 August 2017
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I will finish on policing by saying that the anti-consorting laws are needed in Canberra. I do not think it takes a rocket scientist to know that we have had an outbreak of violence associated with outlaw motorcycle gangs, and people are rightly worried. They are scared in their homes and there is much more that we should and can do. I know Minister Gentleman says it is a human rights issue. He clearly has not caught up with the talking points Mr Ramsay is using now, saying that they are ineffective laws. Nonetheless, ACT Policing and New South Wales policing both say that we have become a haven and there is no reason why we would not synchronise our laws with New South Wales.
When it comes to corrections, I will simply say again what I have said a great many times in this place, and will continue to say: that the women detainee accommodation has been mishandled by this government. I know the minister believes he could not possibly have known, but I wonder if he needs to put a little bit more time and effort into getting himself across the details of this portfolio. I know it is not simple; I accept that. But I find it amazing that we do not even have a plan for what will happen when and if we get to 50, 55 or 60 detainees in the next quarter of this year. It is actually feasible that it will happen, with the rate at which the numbers have been rising now.
I want to make it very clear that there is much more work to do on accommodation for women in the Alexander Maconochie Centre. I do not think it is acceptable that they are being housed all over the place. I know that the minister has made an effort to make sure those women are safe. However, that is not really good accommodation if it is not set up for the women and for the lives they need to live in there in order to come back out into the community and be functioning individuals. I think there is a great deal more that we need to do.
If we do not have a plan yet, what will we do when there are 60, 55 or 50 women in the prison in the near future? That is either a severe lack of transparency or disorganisation and an inability to plan for today’s needs, let alone tomorrow’s, or possibly a combination of all of those things.
MS CODY (Murrumbidgee) (6.28): In the consideration of this section of the budget, I would like to take two minutes of the Assembly’s time to highlight the recent successes of ACT Policing. As members may have seen in the papers, a number of successful arrests have been made and charges laid in relation to criminal organisations in the territory. Whilst I in no way wish to take away anything from the hard work of the police who keep our community safe, I also wish to congratulate the minister, Mr Gentleman, and the Treasurer, Mr Barr, on making sure that front-line police have the resources they need to do the job.
As you may be aware, Madam Speaker, policing and crime is one of those areas where we often have debates in this place and in the pages of the Canberra Times. In all the testosterone-fuelled chest beating that we sometimes hear from the opposition, they miss the point that front-line police officers investigate crimes and arrest people, not slogans.
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