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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-10-18 Daily Xml
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RepaySA

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson) (15:09): My question is to the Minister for Correctional Services. Can the minister provide an update on the Department for Correctional Services RepaySA Scheme?

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The minister has the call.

The Hon. J.K. SZAKACS (Cheltenham—Minister for Police, Emergency Services and Correctional Services) (15:09): I am very pleased to take this question from the member for Mawson and note his particular interest in this program. We made a strong commitment before the election to increase the cleaning schedule for major arterial roads and maintenance of town entrances in the southern areas of Adelaide, with the Department for Correctional Services resources to be fully utilised for this obligation along the Southern Expressway, Main South Road and Victor Harbor Road.

I am pleased to inform the house that this government has moved quickly to fulfil our commitments, as we have with other commitments, to the South Australian public as fence-to-fence litter collection commenced in June of this year. Major roads and major deliverables so far are Main South Road, along the stretch of Robinson Road, Seaford Heights, to Sellicks Beach; Victor Harbor Road, starting from Robinson Road, Seaford Heights, to Old Willunga Hill Road, Willunga; and the Southern Expressway, starting from Darlington to Hackham.

It has already been noted in the house today that on the two-way Southern Expressway both sides of the road, I am pleased to report, are being cleaned. Further to this, I can confirm that an initial sweep of the entire roadway was recently completed, with a program implemented to revisit this and to target rubbish and dumping hotspots.

In delivering this commitment, the Department for Correctional Services is heavily engaged with the Department for Infrastructure and Transport so they can utilise RepaySA community service programs to undertake the promised roadside rubbish collection in a safe and productive fashion. This initiative speaks to the complete and utter positivity of RepaySA. It languished under the former government, but the benefits do speak for themselves, and the community and offender rehabilitation both pay dividends.

As part of RepaySA, offenders are sentenced by the courts to undertake community service either as a standalone penalty or as a condition of a bond. They can be required to undertake community service as a condition of home detention or, even further, as a condition of their parole. The RepaySA community service program, run by DCS, allows offenders subject to community service orders to repay their debt to society through the supervised community works projects. This program enables them to learn new skills while at the same time making a positive contribution to their community.

For many adult offenders, a community service order is the very first time and also the very first experience they have had of making a positive contribution to their community. The DCS community services program has done this in many different scenarios, including graffiti removal, cleaning transport facilities, assisting local councils and work along local cemeteries.

Community service is a positive and highly valued part of DCS's service delivery model, and DCS is committed to operating a community service program that provides rehabilitative benefits as well as measurable assistance for local communities. In the time that I have been minister, I have had the privilege to meet with many dedicated members of DCS administering this program in many custodial and community correctional settings. Their commitment to rehabilitation and empowering prisoners not to reoffend is extraordinary. We are a government getting on with the business of government but, most importantly, we are a government getting on with the business of delivering our election commitments.

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