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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 13 Hansard (4 December) . . Page.. 4405 ..

MS FOLLETT (continuing):

We also expose our prisoners in New South Wales to further disadvantage because of the rehabilitation opportunities that they simply miss out on by virtue of the fact of not being in their own community. Work release, for instance, is not of much use to people if they are in Long Bay Gaol and they happen to have their home and perhaps their career prospects in Canberra. It does not work. I believe, as I said, that we have to put that emphasis on reintegrating people, on reducing their risk of recidivism and encouraging their rehabilitation back as fully achieving members of our society.

Mr Speaker, it is also a very sad fact that in the New South Wales prison system, as I understand it, condoms and syringes are not released to prisoners. In my view, that is an extremely short-sighted and foolhardy policy. It means that every sentence has the potential to be a life sentence.

Mr Moore: Or a death sentence.

Mr Humphries: Or a death sentence.

MS FOLLETT: Or a death sentence, as members say, because of the risks that are taken there with the health of prisoners - the risks of diseases that we know are killers. We could change that if we had control of our own prisons.

Mr Speaker, for all of those reasons, I think this debate is timely. I think it is one that we need to have, as a mature community. I hope that in looking at the issues there will be a concentration on the human elements, not the bricks and mortar, because that is where change can be made - with the people involved. I look forward to further study of the report, and I look forward to taking part in that debate.

MR MOORE (3.44): Mr Speaker, I feel a sense of pride in rising to speak on this issue today. Having listened to Mr Humphries's speech, having had an opportunity to have a very quick glance through the executive summary of the report, and having heard Ms Follett's wonderful speech on the same issue, I feel that this Assembly can hold its head high on such issues. There are many times when we give each other a hard time, there are many times when we are very critical of how members perform; but when I look at speeches made in other parliaments on issues like this I simply believe they are not dealt with as thoughtfully as is often the case in this Assembly. The very thoughtful approach taken in this case by both the Government and the Opposition so far enhances that view.

The debate on the Remand Centres (Amendment) Bill (No. 2) will come before this Assembly next week, I think. We will have to deal with some of these issues then. I had a discussion with Ms Follett on this very matter. How do we deal with the situation? On the one hand, the Government is saying that we should be prepared to send some of our detainees to Goulburn prison when they are on remand. That is the argument on the one hand. On the other hand, what are we going to do, because we have the situation that people are in such overcrowded conditions that they are not being detained in a reasonable and sensible way? We have a major problem here.

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