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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 13 Hansard (26 November) . . Page.. 4744 ..
MR SMYTH (Leader of the Opposition) (9.02): Mr Speaker, it is always a pleasure to follow Mr Hargreaves in any debate because he is so discredited by the policies that he put forward at the last election. The evidence is of his sitting position and the lack of any action on the policies that he put forward.
Mr Wood said that we have a sudden interest in law and order issues and that it has only happened in the last three weeks. I refer him to the notice paper. Mr Stefaniak's sentencing bill has been there since April, and order of the day No 20, the Corrections Reform Amendment Bill, has been there since 25 June. This is because we have a broad policy on the whole issue.
First, you need prevention. It is better that we stop people becoming criminals than that we let them become criminals. Second, we back up the police. Our six years in government showed that we have put more money, time and effort into police than the Labor Party ever has. Is it not the Labor Party that once attempted to cut a police budget, which was valiantly resisted by this Assembly? Let's get the facts straight here.
Third up, there should be appropriate sentencing. If you can't prevent it, and they are caught, then there should be appropriate sentencing. Fourth, after appropriate sentencing there should be a serious attempt at rehabilitation. Where is the government's rehabilitation bill? I flicked through the notice paper looking for it. I looked for the hard work, the evidence that Mr Stanhope is paying attention to his portfolio, and what do I find? Nothing. Where is it? "It's coming. We're gunna do that."Gunna Stanhope here we come.
The fifth arm of this would be to have an appropriate place to house those that are sentenced-and not in New South Wales. We are responsible for them; we are the community that might lock them up; we are the community that should care for them. And where is the action? When I put my Corrections Reform Amendment Bill to the Assembly in June, Mr Stanhope was out there trying to gazump me, doing his best to get the attention back because we had done the job.
We have launched more policy from these benches than that lot did in six years. We have done more in a year than they did in six years. We have put more hard legislation down than any of the work that was done by the former opposition. So there was Mr Stanhope, anxious to grab the camera, thinking, "What can I say? I know what I'll say: we're going to build a prison."His staff did not know. When the press checked with his staff, they said, "What?"
Then he cannot tell us where and when. That was going to be three weeks later, after he had been to cabinet. What he said was that he was going to announce some options that he might take to cabinet that might see a prison. Here we are six months later, and what have we got from the minister for corrections? Zip, nil, nix, nada, nothing.
Mr Stanhope: We have got money in the budget.
MR SMYTH: Well, have you got money in the budget?
Mr Stanhope: We have got money in the budget.
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