Page 480 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 20 February 2019
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
PPC and helmets will ensure that ACT Fire & Rescue firefighters will be well protected from injury while carrying out their important and sometimes dangerous work.
MS CHEYNE: Minister, what other technology is the ACT government rolling out to keep our city safe?
MR GENTLEMAN: I thank Ms Cheyne for her interest in safety across Canberra. In December we launched the ACT’s first fire-bombing air base. The air base can be used to immediately fill large air tankers with mixed fire retardant or gel, depending on firefighting requirements. The NSW government has contracted four large air tankers, and the commissioning of this air base is another significant initiative in place to ensure that the ACT and NSW are bushfire ready. It also shows how we work across governments to respond in emergencies. These are just some of new initiatives within the emergency services areas that are helping to keep our city safe.
The $975,000 commitment in this year’s budget to upgrade the public safety CCTV network has commenced, with cameras being upgraded to the latest digital high definition model. I can also advise that a new CCTV camera has been installed along the pedestrian pathway in Haig Park. This camera is the latest model, with four lenses that provide 360-degree high definition coverage that will allow the camera to see in total darkness between the trees. I am informed that, since 2018, ACT Policing has used recorded footage on 298 occasions to record crime. The government is also utilising solar-powered CCTV cameras.
Children and young people—care and protection
MRS DUNNE: My question is to the Minister for Children, Youth and Families. Minister, in a recent answer to a question regarding why you had not declared a therapeutic protection place in the ACT you stated that confining a child in such a place does not align with best practice. You also assured the Assembly that support is provided in the most evidence-based way it possibly can be. Is repeatedly confining a sub-teen girl in the youth detention centre for extended periods of time a better example of best practice than providing a place of therapeutic protection?
MS STEPHEN-SMITH: I thank Mrs Dunne for the question. I want to assure members of the Assembly that when children and young people are in Bimberi they are not confined in segregation other than as an absolute last resort to respond to a behavioural issue. The therapeutic protection place that is envisaged in the act—I was looking at the provisions only yesterday—is a place of confinement. A child or young person would go to a therapeutic protection place under a therapeutic protection order. Under the act the director-general can seek a therapeutic protection order if they believe that they have tried every other less restrictive practice to support a child or young person who has difficult and complex behaviours.
Given the way the act is written, my reading of it is that it would be a response from the court to a request from the director-general for a therapeutic protection order. The view of the director-general and the view of the directorate is that a therapeutic protection order in the way it is currently written would not comply with our
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video