Page 2063 - Week 07 - Thursday, 20 August 2020
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address both the needs of children and young people themselves and the community that is affected by disruptive offending behaviour.
I note Mr Ramsay’s advice to the Assembly that he has commissioned a gap analysis to consider any additional measures and supports that may be required. The community sector has also been doing some important work in this space, and it has recognised that this is needed to underpin what could be seen as a simple legislative change. I commend the Attorney-General’s amendment and look forward to following the progress of this work in the Tenth Assembly.
MR RATTENBURY (Kurrajong) (11.36): I thank members for their contributions to what is a really important discussion. This is a significant legal area and one where reform is overdue.
As I said in my opening remarks, this has the potential to have a significant impact on a cohort of young people whose lives can be very differently shaped, depending on how the system responds to them. There is a choice there regarding the pathway on which we put young people who find themselves involved in activities that we consider to be socially undesirable. Minister Stephen-Smith used the term—that idea of justice reinvestment. It is about saying, “We want to spend some money now to get your life on a better trajectory, rather than simply bumping you through a series of institutions over the next couple of decades.” That will produce better outcomes for our whole community.
For the young people involved, it is about putting their lives on a better track. Frankly, that is the case for the rest of the community. We have talked about that same premise on a number of occasions, in that our community will be safer overall and better off if we can help these young people to put their lives on that different trajectory.
Mr Hanson talked about the idea that our children and community deserve better. He said it in the context of criticising the approach that I am endeavouring to take. I agree with his quote but not with the way in which he expressed it. Our children and community do deserve better. “Better” means finding a way to make sure that children as young as 10 do not end up in a correctional institution of some form. That is what we are seeking to achieve with this motion.
I was interested in the commentary around not wanting something that is a crime in New South Wales to not be an offence in the ACT, and vice versa. As I said in my opening remarks, we already have that situation. There are some things that you can do in the ACT that you cannot do in New South Wales, and vice versa. There are different laws, so I do not think that is a material issue in this debate.
As has been discussed, national consistency would be optimal, but we should not simply wait, potentially for years, because we have seen issues go into these national fora and, frankly, disappear. I hope that that is not the case here. I know that our attorney has made the case in those fora to move forward, and I am sure that there are others that I do not know about who are making that case.
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