Franks Stephen: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Franks Stephen: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:612;Page:9303] 
3.  
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
 to the  
Minister of Corrections 
: How many people sentenced to community work in the year ended 30 June 2003 failed to turn up in time to complete the full hours scheduled for the relevant day and how many have been punished for that failure? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN (Minister of Corrections) 
: 
 In the year to 30 June 2003 27936 offenders were sentenced to community work. All had between 12 and 24 months to complete their hours. During the course of the year formal breach of sentence review action was taken against 6206 offenders. Most would have been breached for failing to report when required. This represents about 22 percent of offenders starting a sentence during the year and is similar to the rate for periodic detention and community service in previous years. As was the case for periodic detention a number of offenders would have received warnings from their probation officer and did not need any further follow-up action. 
Stephen Franks 
: My question was “How many people sentenced to community work in the year ended 30 June 2003 failed to turn up in time to complete the full hours scheduled for the relevant day and how many have been punished for that failure?”; not “How many have been prosecuted?”. I ask the Minister to answer the question that was asked. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: I tried to explain two things to that member. First of all since the Sentencing Act changed people can now complete their sentence between 12 and 24 months. So therefore sometimes people have a 24-month period to complete it. Secondly as in many cases that happen under periodic detention if people fail to report they are given a warning—they are rung and they turn up and that is not counted. The point of the matter is that I have tried to answer the question on the information I have and I have given the member accurate figures. 
Martin Gallagher 
: What happens to offenders who have committed a breach? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: The offender will go back to the court and the court can impose a fine of up to $1000 impose a prison sentence for up to 3 months or impose a further community-based sentence. This is no different from the punishment system under the previous Government where offenders who breached periodic detention were often sentenced to more periodic detention. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Why is the Government breaching its own good-faith mantra by agreeing to a negotiating guideline that sees the Department of Corrections wanting to send community-work staff home unpaid if no one turns up when those staff should more appropriately be telephoning or tracking down the significant numbers of non-attendees of community work? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Any employment relations are not the responsibility of the Minister. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: You set the guidelines. It’s your policy. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: That previous Minister will know that that is not the responsibility of the Minister. It is between the Department of Corrections and the appropriate union. 
Ron Mark 
: Is the Minister concerned that his failure to ensure that persons who have had up to $30000 worth of traffic fines issued by the police and written off by the Department for Courts in place of community work carry out their sentences is undermining the work of his colleagues who are valiantly attempting to reduce the road toll by issuing quota tickets hand over fist like an eight-armed octopus? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: As the Minister of Transport I am concerned about people who are not fulfilling their obligations. It is important that people who are sentenced to whatever form of detention—be it imprisonment or community service—fulfil that time. 
Stephen Franks 
: Given the revelation that in some cases up to 60 percent of offenders may not turn out for community work sentences—instead of trying to cut the hours supervisors are working why does the Minister not ensure that they are paid for as many hours as it takes to find the offenders do the paperwork and ensure that they are punished so that it is never again worth treating a community work sentence as optional? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Firstly that is an industrial dispute as the member knows. With any industrial dispute statistics are usually the first casualty. The reality is that the 60 percent figure mentioned by that member is simply not true. Even if the figure were 40 percent which has been mentioned somewhere else that would mean that around 16000 offenders were not turning up and that is simply not true. Those figures are being bandied around and will continue to be bandied around until the matter is settled between the department and the union. 
Stephen Franks 
: What percentage level of non-compliance would the Minister consider acceptable and what level of unpunished non-compliance if any would he accept given the inability to answer the earlier questions? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: If one looks at the annual report of the department—even though I acknowledge to the member that it is early days—one would see that compliance for the first full year is around 89 percent. The department has set its objective at 70 or 80 percent which is about what it was under the previous Government. The department thinks that it will probably settle back to that. The reality is that in the current annual report which was submitted to Parliament last week 89 percent of compliance is the result that has been achieved.