Page 4355 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 25 October 2017
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ACT should not be difficult. We are a small jurisdiction with one juvenile facility and one adult facility. There are two directorates that oversee the operation of them. They should, in theory, face minimal trouble in tracking movements and graduation from the juvenile system to the adult system. Possibly a simpler alternative would be tasking the court system to do this. Therefore, you are dealing with only one point of contact.
Again, I would like to applaud Mrs Kikkert for raising this matter. It is something that the ACT government should be doing. It should be measuring and tracking the effectiveness of the corrections system both at the juvenile level and also at an adult level. Rehabilitation of our youth is too important. I again congratulate Mrs Kikkert on bringing this motion to the Assembly.
MRS KIKKERT (Ginninderra) (4.37): I wish to take a few moments to address Minister Stephen-Smith’s proposed amendments to this motion. First, the minister wishes this Assembly to acknowledge the challenges in establishing a comprehensive recidivism indicator for youth justice that reflects outcomes for the youth justice system. Yes, there will be challenges, but I refuse to believe that tracking the progression of juvenile offenders into adult corrections within the territory is somehow too hard for this government.
I point out to those opposite that it does not make them appear very capable or competent to imply that the government of a jurisdiction small enough and compact enough that it has a single youth detention centre and a single adult prison which, according to Google maps, are only 24 kilometres apart by car, cannot get its Child and Youth Protection Services and its Corrective Services to somehow align their data collection tools.
The ACT Labor/Greens government loves to talk about leading out in so many areas of policy but this one is too challenging for them. I certainly hope not. If any jurisdiction in Australia is capable of collecting and sharing this data in appropriate ways it should be the ACT. As Leo Nickels from Canberra’s Aboriginal Legal Service has said on this issue, “You have got to have stats for that—they are both parts of the ACT government. There should be some sharing of information.”
Second I acknowledge that there are legal concerns about the sharing of identifiable information. As I mentioned in my previous speech there are very good reasons for this and I support those reasons. It is important to note, however, that this motion as originally drafted included no expectation that anyone’s privacy should violated.
We already collect and report all kinds of data that is strict on identifying information, including data on recidivism within the youth justice system. If the government cannot collect and report this information without violating any laws, I expect them to get off their lazy behinds and develop a legal mechanism for collecting and reporting data across both the youth justice system and adult corrections.
Mr Rattenbury: Just explain to me how you track someone individually if you strip the data—
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