Page 2654 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 21 September 2022
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commissioner as soon as possible. We will continue to make every effort to support the staff at Bimberi to provide a safe, secure and supportive environment for young people who are in custody, and to facilitate their rehabilitation and their reintegration back into the community in safe ways. That includes making sure that staff have access to personal protective equipment like face shields so that that kind of behaviour does not have that kind of impact on youth workers in Bimberi. Thank you for the question.
MR BRADDOCK: Thank you, Minister. Can I please have the status of the notifiable instrument that you referred to in your reply.
MS DAVIDSON: Thank you for the question. I am just reading from the notifiable instrument, which came into force on 15 September. At 6.14 (d), about restrictions on the use of force, it says:
6.14 Youth workers, transfer escorts and escort officer must …
(d) not use spit hoods or mechanical restraint chairs.
That is very clear.
MS CLAY: I have a supplementary question. Minister, what else are you doing to ensure that we are respecting the human rights of children and young people while they are in Bimberi?
MS DAVIDSON: We have a range of programs in place at Bimberi to support the rehabilitation and reintegration of young people back into the community in safe ways, including education and behaviour change programs. In terms of making sure that their human rights are respected, we are also doing work to deliver the ACT government’s commitment to modernise the Children and Young People Act, and there will be an opportunity for a range of amendments to be considered. I am committed to seeing that legislation strengthened by explicitly stating that spit hoods are not an approved item of restraint, which will further reinforce what was in the notifiable instrument.
Municipal services—infrastructure projects
MR PETTERSSON: My question is to the Minister for Transport and City Services. Minister, how is the ACT government delivering on ACT Labor’s commitments for better suburban infrastructure across Canberra?
MR STEEL: I thank Mr Pettersson for his question about the progress of our $65 million suburban infrastructure program, which is delivering for communities, delivering on our election commitments and also providing good, local jobs along the way across our city.
Our suburban infrastructure pipeline is the largest in self-government. We are delivering on our election commitments through the program, including budget funding for a new destination playground in Watson, improvements to Charnwood shops, new bridges at Umbagong District Park, and a co-design for a new library and community facility in Molonglo. This complements our pipeline of local shop
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