Page 2497 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 1 July 2008
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and rectify minor and technical errors across the bill. In response to the scrutiny of bills committee report, the operation of clause 8, titled “Best interests of children and young people paramount consideration”, is clarified in relation to other provisions in the bill. Definitions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people are updated. The meaning of key terms will be clarified in relation to offences relating to the ongoing duty of entities to update suitability information, unreasonable discipline of a child in childcare services, the concept of light work in relation to the offence, and the employment of children and young people under school leaving age.
I also foreshadow government amendments to schedule 1 of the bill that will amend part 3.9 of the Magistrates Court Act 1930 to change the procedure the Magistrates Court is to take when dealing with young offenders who default on the payment of a court-imposed fine. It will build on amendments the government made earlier this year to ensure that young people are not in prison because they cannot afford to pay a court-ordered fine.
Under the new procedure, the court will only have the discretion to order the imprisonment of a fine defaulter in a youth detention centre if the court finds that the young person has the ability to pay the fine but deliberately chooses not to pay the fine. The court can only order the imprisonment of a young offender that refuses to pay a fine after the following steps have been taken: the young offender is served notice of the fine but does not pay within the required period; the young offender has had the capacity to pay the fine assessed by the court and the court finds that they have the capacity to pay; the young offender is given an opportunity to make alternative arrangements for the payment of the fine, for example, to pay the fine in instalments, and the young offender refuses to enter into such an arrangement; and the young offender’s drivers licence is suspended and they continue to refuse to pay the fine. If a young offender is imprisoned for refusing to pay a fine, the fine will be discharged in an amount of $300 per day of imprisonment up to a maximum of seven days imprisonment. Imprisonment can only occur at a youth facility if the person is still under the age of 18.
Further government amendments to schedule 1 of the bill will be technical amendments to ensure that young people are remanded or detained in a youth facility. Consistent with the bill’s provision on young offenders sentenced to imprisonment, a person who is aged under 21 years and is denied bail in relation to an offence they allegedly committed when they were under 18 will be detained in a youth detention centre. As is the case with a young offender, it will be open to the chief executive responsible for the youth detention centre to use their power under section 110 of the new Children and Young People Act to order that the remandee be transferred to an adult correctional centre if it is in the best interests of the remandee or other detainees at the youth detention centre.
The Attorney-General and I also introduced the Children and Young People (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2008 on 8 May. This bill creates a new transitional provisions chapter for the Children and Young People Bill and amends various acts and regulations consequential upon the bill. I will not be proposing amendments to this bill.
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