Radhakrishnan PriyancaPRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you Mr Speaker. I too will just begin by acknowledging the work that the member Darroch Ball has put in to this bill to get it to where it's at today. As he has mentioned in his speech this is a bill that aims to put in some more structured interventions to redirect those who have offended youth who have offended from reoffending and it tries to do it in a few different ways—one in terms of providing support to those who are deemed to have offended but also to hold them a little bit more to account for what they've done. I'm just going to go through the bill a little bit but I'll just say at the outset that Labour does support the bill to select committee but there are a few I guess niggly bits for want of a better term that I would like to see investigated or examined at the select committee stage as well. However the reason that we are supporting it is that you know if there is something that we can do better from a youth justice point of view we obviously want to be able to do that and this bill may help us decide whether the current system is delivering consequences or whether there's a better way to do that. Now in terms of the way in which the bill aims to put in those consequences it's really about an enforcement officer who determines—there are a few different bands ranging from low offending right through to high offending. So an enforcement officer determines which band is applicable and then determines the youth justice demerit points that will be I guess awarded or given to that person in question depending on where in the band they fall. However there does seem to be some discrepancy in there in the sense that although it's a tiered level of consequences it does fall to the judgment of the person who determines which band and how many points specifically. But that's not insurmountable; it's just something that I wanted to point out. The bit that I do support I guess is what then happens next. So a young person who has offended goes into a particular band is given a certain number of points and based on the points that they're given they're referred to different programmes to help support them to change their behaviour. That's the part that I find interesting. So there are a few different scenarios. Someone who has accumulated between 1 and 80 youth justice demerit points gets the option to participate in the Limited Service Volunteer (LSV) programme. That is a programme that through the Social Services and Community Committee we've actually gone out and visited as well. So that looks like it could be a good option for some young people. For others who have accumulated on the other end of the spectrum between 81 and 99 youth justice demerit points they get the option between two different avenues I guess. One is the LSV programmes and the other the youth employment training and education programmes—again from the point of view of not just being additionally punitive to these young people but actually looking at ways in which the system might be able to support them to change their behaviour and change the course or the trajectory of their lives in fact. That could be pretty powerful.Now some of the bits that I mentioned earlier in terms of the process are what I would like to see examined also at select committee. So a notice needs to be provided as soon as possible as soon as reasonably practicable by the enforcement officer to the young person in question and the young person's parent or guardian. So basically what the enforcement officer needs to tell them is what the demerit system hopes to achieve what offence they've committed to receive the demerit points how many points they've received what actions will be taken as a consequence what happens if they accumulate more points what their rights of appeal are and how they can clear their record. No issue with that. However the way in which that information is communicated to the young person I find potentially a little bit problematic because if they don't receive the notice—so as long as the notice was provided to the young person the demerit points accrued are valid. Finally there is no requirement for the officer to actually visit. There's an option for them to do that and speak to the young person in question but it's not mandatory and I find that a little bit problematic as well because I would like to know that the person has actually received the notice and has been talked to about what some of the options are. I'd like to see that examined also at select committee to see if that's the best way that we communicate or if there's a better way to do so.With that though I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.