Page 1020 - Week 04 - Thursday, 7 May 2020
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ourselves. We must get our flu shot, if we have not already. I hope everyone has. And we must continue to do what we can to stop the spread of the COVID-19 virus.
We will be supporting the amendments, and I thank Mr Rattenbury for bringing these amendments forward.
MRS JONES (Murrumbidgee) (5.02): I rise to speak on the changes in the bill that relate to corrections and to foreshadow that I will be moving amendments to the bill which have been circulated in my name.
Firstly, I go to the changes to the Corrections Management Act. As Mr Rattenbury pointed out, the bill changes the time that a person can be held in police custody, in the holding cells, from 36 to 48 hours, until the next sitting of the Magistrates Court. While I have some concerns about people sitting around in the watchhouse for a long period, it reduces the number of instances where a person is taken into custody at the AMC and I can understand the rationale behind the change.
I hope that the police staffing can handle it if there is an increase of people at the weekend. I understand that people will be fed by corrections whilst they are in there for the additional hours; that makes this change workable. It also allows for the process of the Sentence Administration Board to be, in a sense, bypassed, by empowering the director-general to grant leave to inmates for COVID-19 reasons. My understanding is that if these changes are enacted, it will only be in the case that there is in fact a COVID-19 need and that we will be made aware of that through the chamber. This is something that can take place only in the last 60 or 120 days of someone’s sentence, depending on the length of their sentence, and does not apply for offenders with violent or sexual or domestic violence offences.
Secondly, I go to the changes to the Crimes (Sentence Administration) Act. The bill provides that small administrative breaches of community-based sentences, such as intensive correction orders and good behaviour orders, do not have to be reported to the Sentence Administration Board. The community corrections office will be given discretion as to what it reports—minor breaches or not—which is designed to reduce the administrative burden on the courts and the Sentence Administration Board if these kinds of misdemeanours are not actually taken into account when decisions are being made. I trust that it will be used carefully. I will be interested to see how we report on the use of this at the end of the COVID-19 period.
Then there are the changes to the Crimes (Sentencing) Act. This change is essentially an administrative change and allows both pre-sentence reports and intensive correction assessments to be considered by the court at one time. That seems a sensible change to me and perhaps should have been there in the first place. I imagine that is just an artefact of history and how these laws have come to be.
All these changes are subject to a sunset clause, which is right and just, given the rushed nature of the passing of the bill. I have raised with the minister’s office that it may be reasonable to keep some of the changes in the longer term. I have suggested that these laws be reviewed at the end of the COVID-19 period and that such changes might be continued if they are working well.
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