Page 2059 - Week 07 - Thursday, 20 August 2020
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What I did not hear is the need to rush on this. I will cite again the amendment that Mr Ramsay has moved:
(c) in the 11 years from 2008-09 to 2018-19, only one young person under the age of 14 has been sentenced to a term of detention at Bimberi Youth Justice Centre;
And:
(a) the Blueprint for Youth Justice in the ACT 2012-2022 has resulted in a significant reduction in the number of young people coming into contact with the Territory’s youth justice system;
When we have statistics like that it is hard to argue that there is a need for unilateral immediate action to be taken in the ACT. Although there may be other issues playing out nationally, certainly in the Northern Territory as I understand it, in the ACT those statistics, in terms of one person in over a decade under the age of 14 being sentenced to incarceration, are compelling. It is not a situation in the ACT that is in any way out of control.
We need to look at the work being done in the national forum right now. Again, from Mr Ramsay’s amendment, the Council of Attorneys-General working group on the minimum age of criminal responsibility has considered representations about medical evidence on cognitive capacity and options to shift the age with different presumptions for more serious criminal offences. Lastly, it notes that on 27 July 2020 the Council of Attorneys-General—the CAG—noted that the working group on the minimum age of criminal responsibility had identified the need for further work to occur regarding the need for adequate processes and services for children who exhibit offending behaviour in advance of making a recommendation to the council raising the age and agreed to provide a progress report within 12 months.
Why are we debating this today? Why are we endeavouring to get out in front of the national process? It is because there is an urgent need? Based on Mr Ramsay’s own words in his amendment, that is clearly not the case. There is work to be done by the ACT government. I commend that. An enormous amount of work is being done federally. You then come down to the reason that it is much more about the politics and the theatre of the left playing politics with each other—Mr Rattenbury trying to do a bit of grandstanding on the second-last sitting day—he has been in this place for now 12 years—in the lead-up to an election. That is the deadline.
Rather than waiting for the report from the CAG, the deadline Mr Rattenbury is working to is an election deadline and he is seeking to separate himself on issues from what he would describe as his progressive colleagues from the Labor Party. We have seen promises from Mr Rattenbury to deal with this, and he is doing this at what you could consider the last safe moment to do so.
In our view, the looming election and the desire to look a bit different from the Labor Party on an issue is not a good enough reason to change a fundamental part of our
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