Page 3759 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 24 September 2019
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This government is strongly committed to ensuring the ongoing success of this initiative. Through the court, the DPP, Legal Aid, Health, Housing, Corrective Services and other agencies, we are funding support of $6.83 million over the initial 2½ years.
The drug and alcohol court team will be led by the drug and alcohol court judge. I am pleased to say that Her Honour Ms Lorraine Walker has been appointed as an acting judge of the Supreme Court to undertake that important role. In her many years as magistrate and chief magistrate, Justice Walker has proven that she is a strong leader. She has extensive experience in dealing with vulnerable drug and alcohol dependent offenders, and I have no doubt that the court will greatly benefit from her knowledge. Already, Her Honour has been developing the drug and alcohol court team and visiting drug and alcohol courts in other jurisdictions. This was one of the key reasons that I was pleased to announce her appointment approximately six months before the first sitting of the court, which, as I say, I anticipate being before the end of this calendar year.
The Nobel Prize winning novelist Anatole France was a critic of the rigid legal system that put punishment at the centre of its goals. He offered the following advice to those who want to change things:
To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.
The ACT drug and alcohol court is about believing that, if given the opportunity, the encouragement and the support, people can change.
The bill that we are debating today balances the need to acknowledge that addiction is difficult to overcome with the fact that the community deserves to live free from crime that is driven by drug and alcohol dependency. It recognises an offender’s agency. They have to choose to undertake this sentence, accept responsibility for their actions and acknowledge the need for change.
With this bill, the government is helping offenders who know that they are on the course to get back on track and to repair the damage that they have done to their lives and also to their communities as a result of their alcohol or drug dependency. By helping to make offenders whole again, we get to see the benefits of restorative justice in action in a restorative city.
I will be seeking leave to move government amendments and I will be speaking to those in general in the detail stage. I commend the bill to the Assembly.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Bill agreed to in principle.
Detail stage
Bill, by leave, taken as a whole.
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