Ivan Dean, Speeches Index

Thursday 21 May 2009

INTERSTATE TRANSFER (COMMUNITY-BASED SENTENCES) BILL 2009

Mr DEAN ( Windermere ) - Madam President, I will make a very short contribution here. These community-based orders were brought in as a means of avoiding incarceration for certain people. That is the reason for them. They are another option or alternative rather than locking these people up.

Ms Thorp - I knew that.

Mr DEAN - You did.

Mr Parkinson - That was the original reason but it has changed over the last couple of years. It does not have to be imprisonment or CSOs, now it can just be CSOs.

Mr DEAN - That is right. So there have been changes. The member for Nelson raised the position of police; they have had concerns about some of these issues for a long time, and I certainly did when I was there, such as the rigorous supervision that was applied to these people completing these orders. It was seen then as being fairly lackadaisical.

Many of the people subjected to these sentences were really getting away quite easy with the penalty being imposed. I think that it must be demonstrated very clearly to these people that it is a form of punishment. It is a punishment for what they have done. They have erred, they have made mistakes, they have committed crime, they have committed offences and been convicted of those offences, or they have admitted committing those offences. I think that they must be rigorously supervised and controlled or policed. I think that there are some issues and some concerns about that from time to time.

It is interesting that of these people on these orders, who do these orders from time to time, and I have spoken to a number of them, a lot of them in fact at the end of the day get a job out of it. They go, they do these orders, they are put into placements and they really put their best foot forward in doing what they need to do. They are there to impress and as a result of that they have been employed.

Mr Wilkinson - And where there are elderly people involved they often go back and continue to assist those elderly people chop wood, do the garden or whatever, don't they?

Mr DEAN - I can give some examples of where that has happened. A couple of young people well known to me, after they completed their orders volunteered to go back and help these people with the maintenance of their gardens and lawns and other things that they were doing. Some took up painting of certain things around the house and so on.

They are very good, there is no doubt about that. The benefits far outweigh the disadvantages. But do we have any idea once this is in place of how many we may receive from the mainland to complete those orders here in Tasmania? Are we talking about just a few, 20, 30, 100? How many are we talking about? It would be interesting to know that because we do have problems with getting the required numbers to supervise these people doing these orders. I would think that in putting this bill together come consideration would have been given to that. It is all very well to do this but if you have these people coming back here in large numbers, we must have the ability and the facilities to ensure that these people carry out and conclude their obligations in relation to their sentences.

Mr Wilkinson - Because, as you know, it is probation orders as well. It is not just community service orders.

Mr DEAN - It is probation orders as well. So I would not be surprised if it was not a large number. I would be interested to know if the Leader is able to provide some information in regard to that matter, Madam President.

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