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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2007-11-14 Daily Xml
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STATUTES AMENDMENT (YOUNG OFFENDERS) BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 13 November 2007. Page 1568.)

The Hon. G.M. GUNN (Stuart) (17:28): I will speak briefly to this bill. I strongly support the provisions contained in the bill. For a long time I have been very concerned about young people who have no regard for people’s privacy or property and who have been acting in an irresponsible manner, terrorising my constituents at Port Augusta and elsewhere. There has been a revolving door. They have gone to court, yet they have been let out on bail, having no regard for the fact that it is a privilege to be given bail, and they have continued on their merry way to terrorise and annoy the community.

In my view, if they are given bail and they breach bail once, the time has come when they should be locked up until they are dealt with by the courts. My good friend the member for Mitchell went to some lengths to talk about young people who are before the courts, but he did not seem to have a great deal of regard for the innocent victims who have had their houses broken into or who have had people crashing into their motor cars. So, I think we need to place the emphasis on protecting ordinary South Australian citizens who are lawfully going about their business.

I once read a book about criminals called Scallywags and Villains. I certainly think these people have earned the right to be called scallywags and they are certainly vandals. I am sure that my—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

The Hon. G.M. GUNN: I do not care what section of the community is involved in antisocial behaviour, which generally affects decent, hard working citizens. It is the responsibility of this parliament to take decisions to protect them. My good friend the Mayor of Port Augusta has made a lot of statements in relation to—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: May she recover.

The Hon. G.M. GUNN: Yes, and I am sure the whole house would wish her well and that she make a speedy recovery from the recent surgery she had at the Port Augusta Hospital.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

The Hon. G.M. GUNN: Well, notwithstanding the quite irrelevant contribution by the Attorney-General. He has spent a great deal of his time trying to manipulate the affairs in the electorate of Stuart, and he has failed dismally every time. I put to him that, were he to try again, he would fail again. The Attorney may need to give his star performers, who were providing the money for that campaign, some legal advice.

Mr Pederick: Perhaps they could set up the Office of the North again.

The Hon. G.M. GUNN: Well, I think they have already done that under a different heading. But we will talk more about that in the future; that is still to come. We are fully aware of what is going on there and what they are doing. They have one public servant there, and they have another lined up, and that is good.

Nevertheless, these matters that are before the house need to be taken seriously. I believe the time has come for us to ensure that, when people go before the courts and they are given the privilege of bail and they breach that bail, there should be no further leniency shown to them. I have brought before this house on couple of occasions legislation called the children's protection act, which set out to do some of the things in this legislation.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Fortunately, enough of your colleagues didn't support it.

The Hon. G.M. GUNN: Like yourself?

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: No; your Liberal colleagues.

The Hon. G.M. GUNN: Like the Attorney-General; he didn't support it, either, and nor did former attorney-general Chris Sumner.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: And you voted against it in 1990.

The Hon. G.M. GUNN: No, I didn't.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: I've got the records.

The Hon. G.M. GUNN: As usual, the Attorney-General has a rather limited memory—and only when it suits him. It is like his involvement in a number of other matters: his success rate is not particularly good in relation to dealing with me.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

The Hon. G.M. GUNN: Well, Chris Schacht failed to get rid of me, and so did you. So, I'm a couple up on you. Chris Schacht farewelled me on one occasion, and I have had the last laugh on him.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. G.M. GUNN: He has well and truly gone into history.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: You have seen a lot of people off, actually, Gunnie.

The Hon. G.M. GUNN: That's dead right, and I am looking forward to your continued skirmishes with Ralph Clarke. I think that, before it is over, you will have more problems with him.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Well, now that he has moved in and is sharing an office with the poisonous pixie, Anne Moran—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member will return to the subject at hand.

The Hon. G.M. GUNN: I always have difficulty getting to my feet, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have been somewhat distracted. I intended to make only a brief contribution, as I regard this as an important measure. As someone who is sick and tired of having their constituents mistreated by these—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Villains.

The Hon. G.M. GUNN: They are worse than villains, and they should be firmly dealt with—these people who have had their motor cars stolen and vandalised and their homes broken into and various other misdemeanours inflicted upon them. Then, when these people go to court, the victims are amazed that they are given bail and are free to roam the streets to repeat the whole process again. Now the time has come to deal firmly with them. A lot of these young people have a total disregard for the law, and the quicker legislation is passed to make sure they are properly restrained so that they cannot inflict further pain on innocent people the better it will be. I support the bill.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Fisher.

The Hon. R.B. SUCH (Fisher) (17:36): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Hear, hear! As heard on the Leon Byner show.

The Hon. R.B. SUCH: Sponsored by Leon Byner. No; I'm only joking. That was a commercial break. I support this measure. I see it as possibly helping the situation. We know that it is targeted at the so-called Gang of 49, which is an unfortunate term but it is the term used by the media and others.

This bill is the result of recommendations by Monsignor Cappo in his report 'Break the Cycle'. His report was largely based on the select committee on youth justice, which I chaired in 2005. It was an excellent committee, which produced a lot of useful recommendations. Sadly, they have not been adopted, in the main, but I hope the government will revisit the recommendations of that select committee. That committee outlined, in 10 major themes, the following:

the need to provide appropriate custodial and residential facilities for young offenders;

making parents and children accountable for their offending behaviours through the introduction of parental responsibility orders;

providing targeted and therapeutic support to assist children and young people to make change;

creating safe communities by ensuring early intervention through targeted care and protection strategies;

placing significant focus on reducing the overrepresentation of indigenous young people by increasing their access to diversion and increasing and supporting family and community participation in finding sustainable solutions to youth offending;

better and timelier intervention with young people who offend;

ensuring young people's connection to community by preventing truancy and enabling engagement in constructive education and training options;

ensuring the system works better by emphasising collaboration, good information exchange and joint ways of working across all parts of the youth justice system;

aiding court processes by ensuring the understanding of everyone engaged in the system;

and for providing appropriate and sufficient post-release support.

The government has acted partially only on a limited number of those recommendations, and I would urge them to revisit that report, in conjunction with the Cappo report.

The Cappo report essentially—and it is reflected in this bill—seeks to strengthen the requirement that the issue of public safety is taken into account when sentencing serious repeat offenders. It highlights the fact that there is concern about public safety and there is a need to deal with those youth who do not respond to the cautionary and diversionary measures which exist in the youth justice system, and also a provision to deal with adults who commit crimes in the presence of young people, and the bill provides for tougher penalties in those situations.

My concern has always been to keep young people out of the juvenile justice system. We know—and members of the select committee on youth justice will well recall—that it is something like 94 per cent of young people (thereabouts) do not ever have any serious problem in relation to breaking the laws of the land, but there is a hard-core recidivist group; not just Aboriginal but overrepresented by way of the Aboriginal youth who make up that recidivist group.

Members might recall, and this has come out in relation to some of the so-called Gang of 49, some examples I will quote. Of the offenders referred to in that category some have got up to 93 convictions. One 18 year old had 93 convictions, his first offence committed at 12; and there is a 17 year old having 91 convictions and was aged 11 when he committed his first offence.

The select committee on youth justice was told by people in the Aboriginal community that there is a lot of offending going on by young people under the age of 10. They cannot be charged with a criminal offence because they are not considered to be capable of having criminal intent. The committee was well aware that the system needs to intervene early, rigorously and vigorously. I notice in yesterday's paper a report that the government had brought people from the UK to give advice and their advice, surprise, surprise, was early intervention, which was essentially the strong message of the select committee on youth justice.

I do not know how many times people have to keep saying that the approach has to be one of early intervention. By early intervention, it means addressing issues reflected in inappropriate behaviour from the very earliest years, even before a child has gone to school, Likewise, for those under the age of 10, whilst they are not and we did not suggest that they be punished in the normal way, the committee felt that there should be vigorous intervention to try to steer those ones under the age of 10 away from serious antisocial behaviour. That should be accompanied by a very rigorous approach to ensuring that those children, and those older, attend school, because it was put to us by magistrates and judges that many of those appearing subsequently in the Youth Court were unable to read or write, could not do basic mathematics and, therefore, were largely unemployable.

In terms of what this bill is directed at—and it is not specifically or exclusively directed at young Aboriginal offenders—what we need to acknowledge is what I would call the lost generation, those young Aboriginal people who do not know their own culture, are basically heading nowhere, have little direction, the family system that they are part of, if they are part of one, is often dysfunctional and you are left largely with a group of grandmothers and mothers desperately trying to hold things together and are frequently having to weep at the death of members of that lost generation.

Some of the things that I think we need to look at—and it is particularly in relation to these recidivist offenders—is whether or not the age at which someone is treated as an adult is lowered generally to 17. This bill, in a way, does that partially, but I think it is pretty hard to argue that someone at the age of 17 does not know that they are committing an offence when they bash up someone, steal a car or rob from a premises. I just do not believe it. We allow people to drive a car at that age and people can join the military as an apprentice, so it is a pretty hard argument to sustain that someone at the age of 17 does not know right from wrong. I think the system has pussyfooted around for far too long and treated 17 year olds as if they are little children when, in fact, they are obviously not.

I would suggest—and these are not recommendations out of the select committee, these are my own views—that maybe we need to look at creating a separate Children's Court to deal with the young teenagers and the Youth Court to deal with those in the upper group of 15, 16 and 17. The Youth Court would be taking a much more rigorous approach than the Children's Court: the Children's Court dealing with the very young teenagers or pre teens. I think repeat offenders, Aboriginal and otherwise, should be involved in work camps—I have argued strongly against boot camps because I do not think they achieve a lot—rigorous, constructive, daytime environmental and other work, coupled with evening behaviour modification sessions designed to help change attitudes and inculcate positive values.

Recently, I spoke with the Attorney-General and the Minister for Families and Communities. I have written to them both, as well as the Minister for Youth Affairs, to see whether it is possible to reinstate a program which was very successful years ago and which, in effect, was a mobile work camp. A specially equipped vehicle took young Aboriginal people at risk out of places such as Port Augusta and elsewhere to work on environmental projects. The program was run by Aboriginal people. At night they would sit around a campfire and listen to Aboriginal elders talk about wisdom. I believe that approach needs to be resurrected. The alternative is to buy something like a sheep station (which is a much more costly option), but the mobile environmental work camp is something that ought to be and should be considered for non-Aboriginal young people at risk, as well as those who have offended in the minor categories.

I mentioned earlier children under the age of 10. I think the system at present is too wishy-washy when it comes to dealing with them. We do not subject them to the rigour of the criminal justice system, but there needs to be more active intervention. I do not make any apology for suggesting that the system acts rigorously and vigorously in relation to those aged under 10 to ensure that they do not go down the path of their older brothers or, sometimes, sisters.

The bill may help. People say to me, 'Why don't we publish the names of those who offend as juveniles?' I think the system has always been based on the premise of a second chance—not to jeopardise the future of a young person. Something that could be considered in relation to certain offenders is that they lose that anonymity which gives them protection. The other thing which the select committee on youth justice was concerned about was the fact that the wider community does not know the penalties which are imposed on young offenders, so the feeling in the community is that nothing happens to young people who break the law. The committee suggested that from time to time in a suitable format some examples of the types of offences and punishment could be published or reported, maybe on the internet or in some other way, to inform the public, so that the public is aware of what happens to juvenile offenders; and that, therefore, they would have more confidence in the system.

Another thing that needs to be considered—and this bill touches on it—is the question of deterrence. The youth justice system traditionally has avoided any concept of deterrence applying to a young person or making an example of a young person. In serious cases maybe it is warranted to have an offender and the particular circumstances used as a deterrent because young people will get the message that they will be dealt with severely if they go down that pathway. At present, because of the lack of focus on deterrence, that message does not spread throughout the community. In a sense, this bill (by taking account of public safety) is moving towards that approach.

I return to my original point. It is my wish to keep young people out of the justice system. Often we look at the offenders, but we also need to look at those who do not get into trouble with the law and ask the question, 'Why don't young people get into trouble with the law?' I do not think the reasons are all that complex. The reason most young people do not get into trouble with the law is because they are achieving. They have a sense of achievement, they are in a family situation where they feel wanted, they have a sense of dignity and respect, and they understand their place in society. They are some of the characteristics that do not apply to many of these Aboriginal young people. They are adrift in society, they are unguided missiles, and they will continue to cause problems until we tackle the root cause of the issue; that is, to give them a sense of self-esteem and possible achievement.

Many of them have nothing to lose by breaking the law. The select committee spoke to some of them and many of them see going to Yatala as a natural progression and an achievement; that is their career path. We need to give them something that gives them the opportunity to achieve in life and see something beyond the fact that their progression is from Cavan to Yatala.

Sometimes that means being rigorous with them, putting them into mobile work camps and subjecting them to behaviour modification where they are challenged in terms of their behaviour and their achievements, and I believe—in relation to the report of the visiting UK experts—into sport, which is one of the issues I raised through the committee. Why can't some of these young offenders who have committed minor offences be required to participate in a sporting club or activity as a way of giving them some sense of achievement and belonging?

This measure that we are dealing with tonight is a small step. I hope that it does something. However, I am not convinced that it will tackle the core issues, because they have been deeply ingrained over a long period of time, with young people alienated from the rest of society. I see nothing in this measure that will address the fundamental issues: the fact that many of them are illiterate, they have no sense of belonging, they know nothing about their cultural origins and, essentially, they do not believe in themselves or in anything other than probably challenging a system that they have traditionally seen as being hostile to them.

I was pleased to hear recently that the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement has apparently changed its attitude in regard to young Aboriginal people being involved in the family conference model. The irony of not participating is that it was an indigenous model extracted from New Zealand; a Maori model. However, until recently, as I understand it, the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement would not allow young Aboriginal offenders to participate in that program.

Instead, it provided a lawyer and got the young people to attend court and plead not guilty, which I think is counterproductive, because the court would often be dealing with an issue months and months after the alleged offence. For young people, that is not the best way to deal with alleged offending—they would probably have forgotten much about the alleged offence, anyhow. However, I was pleased to be informed that the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement seems to have changed its stance and now sees merit in young Aboriginal people attending the family conference model.

I hope that this measure does something positive. It is certainly not a solution to all the ills, but it grieves me to see young people, whether Aboriginal or non-Aboriginal, wasting their lives and being incarcerated in prison in a situation that is lose-lose for everyone. I think that, as a society and as a state, South Australia should lead in some of these areas, because punitive measures, in the end, will not work. People used to be executed and transported, but it did not stop criminal behaviour—the execution might have stopped the person involved, but people will still break the law for a whole lot of complex reasons and, unless we address those reasons, people will keep on breaking the law, and the same thing will happen with these young Aboriginal people and also with young non-Aboriginal people.

Bill read a second time and taken through its remaining stages.


At 17:56 the house adjourned until Thursday 15 November at 10:30.

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