Page 1655 - Week 06 - Thursday, 23 July 2020
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were disproportionately used to target vulnerable groups not affiliated with organised crime, particularly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, people experiencing homelessness, and children and young people.
Members in this place claim to be very concerned about these vulnerable groups. The Canberra Liberals have said, for example, that they are concerned about the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in our justice system, as I and am sure every member of this place is. Anti-consorting laws are not the path to addressing these issues and are most likely to exacerbate it.
The over-representation of Aboriginal people in our criminal justice statistics creates a substantially increased risk that they will become subject to anti-consorting laws. The New South Wales Ombudsman found that around four out of every 10 Aboriginal men will fall within recognition of convicted offender, and any person who associates with these men could be issued with a warning for consorting. The Ombudsman further found that 37 per cent of all people subject to the anti-consorting law during review period were Aboriginal. Half of them were issued with warnings or charged under the legislation, and 60 per cent of children and young people were identified as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander. That is a massive over-representation.
These laws send Aboriginal people into the criminal justice system, and not even for involvement in gangs or organised crime. That is a real and serious problem with anti-consorting laws. Mr Hanson and the Liberals have no way to reconcile these issues. They are supposedly committed to Aboriginal justice, but the evidence around anti-consorting laws shows a serious problem when it comes to Aboriginal people and the criminal justice system.
The way to reconcile these issues—and this has been the consistent policy response—is to tackle gang and OMCG violence through a range of careful, targeted and considered responses that do not include sledgehammer anti-consorting laws. The ACT government has so far done a good job in taking such a considered approach, and it is working, as the statistics clearly show.
As I have noted before, it is not just Indigenous people that are disproportionally impacted by anti-consorting laws. I have discussed in this place before the first example from New South Wales where a person was charged under their anti-consorting laws. He was not a member of an unlawful motorcycle gang; he was a young man with an intellectual disability and was charged while out shopping with friends and sentenced to nine months jail. Fortunately, that conviction was later overturned.
These laws criminalise people associating with each other in person, phoning or emailing, and that is a very problematic and murky area. These laws certainly do not help people with criminal convictions reintegrate into society. These laws can prevent anyone, conviction or not, from associating with a person with a conviction. Our goal for the corrections system is to reduce recidivism, and an essential part of that is ensuring that people can participate in society, whether that be in a sporting team, a club, or other social endeavours, because those activities can be rehabilitative.
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