Legislative Council, Thursday 20 June 2024

Ms FORREST (Murchison) - In turning my mind to this bill that it is a very important piece of legislation, I must say at the outset, I absolutely and fundamentally support the principle that sits behind this. Any program that can be court-mandated that they can help remove people from incarceration as the approach taken to deal with or address crimes committed by a person that is linked to, or impacted by, their alcohol addiction is a positive thing.

As the member for Rumney said, drug and alcohol addiction is a health matter, it is not a justice matter.

However, we do need laws relating to people's behaviours that may occur as a result of those activities and those addictions. I do support that. It makes absolute sense to ensure that people with an alcohol addiction can receive the same sort of diversion programs where they meet certain criteria to get help with that. It was made clear in the briefing and in the second reading speech that it does require the consent or agreement of the person involved to participate.

It is like most things, you are not going to give something up if you do not first admit you have a problem with it. That is what it requires as one step, the person to acknowledge they do want to deal with this problem. So that is a positive thing. As pointed out by the member for Elwick in the briefing, there is some language in here that is very dehumanising. Yes, it is a copy of what is already in the current act, but this could have been an opportunity to change both, where the person who may meet the requirements to be placed onto a court-mandated alcohol diversion program - it will be drug and alcohol - is referred to as a 'subject'.

That is unfortunate. You could remove that word and make no difference to the intent of it. I thank the member for Elwick for raising that in the briefing, acknowledging that she cannot speak at this stage yet. I urge the government to look at that. Anything that dehumanises people is not good, particularly when we are taking a health focus on this. I urge the government to have a look at that. We know that there was a review clause inserted in the other place and that may be an opportunity to look at what other changes may need to be made to this legislation to better reflect the intent.

A couple of things I wanted to speak about with regard to this bill is how it actually works. Alcohol, as we know, is a legal substance. Anyone over the age of 18 can go into a pub, into a bar, into a bottle shop, into some of the restaurants - most restaurants serve alcohol - and even some cafes that have a licence can sell it. There are a multitude of places you can buy alcohol. If I went into a bottle shop and bought two bottles of wine that would not be looked at as anything odd. I might go to the next one just round the corner and buy two more and I might go another one around the corner, literally, that is how many there are in Wynyard. Then I could go around the corner and buy another one. I could then get another couple of bottles from somewhere else, and suddenly I have quite a stash of alcohol.

I do not suggest it is not easy to buy illicit drugs in my area either. It is too easy, but that is illegal, okay, whereas buying alcohol is not. The reason I reflect on this is because I cannot remember what year it was, but it is a number of years ago when Wynyard High School was putting on a musical and the children and the young people in that school were encouraged to write a song about their community. It was a fantastic production they put on, it was funny and clever. These students put together a song and the title of that song was about our town, and it was Op Shops and Bottle Shops.
That was the name of the song. It was very funny, it was very clever. We had the best op shops in the state, you ask my daughters.

Ms Rattray - You do. I will confirm that.

Ms FORREST - You ask my daughters. They are the op shop queens. They will tell you Wynyard has the best op shops in the state, probably in the country.

Ms Rattray - All three of them; are there three on that strip?

Ms FORREST - One is about to close so that Craig Garland can have his office there. That was already on the cards. I am sorry to mention a member from the other place, but in any event, and if I need to withdraw that, I will, Mr President, but he is going into a space up the road from me, which is where one of our current op shops is located. We are very proud of our op shops because they certainly meet a need, but there is an oversupply bottle shops.

I did not know this song had been written for that production, but it really brought home to me, this is how our young people see our community. Op shops are great for them. They can go to buy cheaper clothing and shoes and all sorts of stuff but also what was in their faces every day was bottle shops. That song brought that back to me and reminded me that we need to be very aware of how we see our community but also how our young people see it.

The other thing that I raised in the briefing, and I want to raise it here, is that the restrictions, or orders, can order that a person is excluded or not allowed to go to prescribed areas or certain areas that are under that order. This is in clause 15 and it says - this is what the order may contain -

the offender must not visit, or enter or remain at, locations or classes of locations specified in that order;

That means pubs, clubs, bottle shops and wherever alcohol is sold, I expect. I asked in the briefing - and I will have the Leader confirm this if she could - that an order could be put that the person was not to enter, remain in or visit any bottle shops in the local area - however big that may need to be. It is one way of saying, 'Well, you cannot go to the bottle shop and buy grog, but your mate can'.

The reason I am concerned about this - and it is not a reason to not support the bill - but what I am concerned about is that a lot of the alcohol abuse occurs in the home. When alcohol abuse occurs in the home, it often leads to other abuse, often of women and children. We know that much of our family violence is fuelled by alcohol and other drugs. To have this possibly say, you are not allowed to go to the pub, you are not allowed to go to a club - you probably cannot restrict them going to restaurants - but your mates can bring around a couple of cartons and you are away.

We know the statistics are clear on this. Family violence rates increase enormously on major AFL events, particularly the grand final, rugby league finals, all those major sporting events. It is a horror show for women in relationships where abuse is real.

The other concern I had here is that the reason people might be excluded from these orders because of the circumstances of their crime, is that it will not be available to offenders guilty of sexual offences or offences involving the infliction of actual bodily harm. We know many of the family violence abusers are not necessarily physically violent. They do not cause physical bodily harm, but they cause enormous other harm.

We have had a much greater awareness of coercive control, financial abuse, emotional abuse, all the other forms of abuse that afflict so many women in our community at varying levels that is just as harmful. In fact, some would say more harmful than getting a smack in the eye because you cannot see it. People do not know and it is harder for people to intervene.

I am not saying there is an easy solution here. When the drug diversion court was established, we had far less awareness of coercive control and its horrors but we need to think about how we message this. It does require the cooperation of a person to be put on one of these orders, otherwise it is more likely to be a custodial sentence for them. One would expect the people who use alcohol as a tool to fuel their abuse, even if it is not physical may be less likely to agree.

That is the concern I have. This bill has all the right intentions, but you cannot bar people from drinking in their own home. The same as we cannot bar people from abusing their children in their own home. It is the same problem - the commission of inquiry did a whole fantastic and tragic body of work on children abused in institutions, but there is a massive piece over here where children are being abused in their own homes. If we can stop people, perhaps, visiting a bottle shop, going to a pub - we could try, and there is a process around that - but we but we cannot stop them drinking in their own home.

And if that results in going out and committing a crime we deal with that as the law permits. I wanted to make those points because it is important.

I asked in the briefing that the Leader was able to provide some information on the treatment places. It was interesting to know as this modelling done in 2017, from memory and a little bit dated now, but there are 120 places where this these programs can be provided. I asked for a break down by region on those. There are 45 in the south; 40 in the north and 35 in the north-west. Interestingly, there are 30 of those places in the south -30 or 45 being utilised in the south - so fairly well utilised down here; 23 out of the 40 in the north, so there is quite a bit of capacity there.

And even more interesting, from my perspective, seeing what I see in my community and broader community in the north-west, 35 places in the north-west. There is plenty of capacity there. We just need to make sure we get people into these programs. Perhaps, what is required is a really strong public awareness program of the opportunities here for people.

We are so used to not having services on the north west coast, in fairness to us, that people often do not know they are there and may not actually seek them out. I am sure our magistrates know they are there, but maybe we need to be a little bit more open about this is an option. I hope the government will be on the front foot a bit with this and actually say when this legislation has passed, this enables this to be an option so people can actually think, well maybe there are services out there for me. Hopefully, it will become more of an option in our courts in the north-west when people are being sentenced from alcohol-related crimes or influenced by their alcohol addiction.

Mr Gaffney - Could it be because the service providers are not there?

Ms FORREST - It says there are 35 places.

Mr Gaffney - Yes, there are 35 places, but is the staff there to support those places?

Ms FORREST - Well, I would assume from the information we have they were resourced places. They can be confirmed but if they are not resourced, then, of course, they are not even there. How could you say they were there if they are not resourced?

Ms Webb - There is resourcing and then there are the services to be provided there; two separate things.

Ms FORREST - Yes. I assume this means that there are 35 opportunities for treatment.

Mrs Hiscutt - I am assured the resources for treatment are there.

Ms FORREST - Yes. I do not think a lot of people would know that it is available with such a low utilisation.

Ms O'Connor - Is that on the magistrates, more than anything else?

Ms FORREST - Yes, absolutely. The magistrates have been around for a while up there and they would know.

Ms O'Connor - I am interested in that subscription. I believe there are more subscribed than they say here.

Ms FORREST - If it is purely an alcohol-related problem, then we have not had this opportunity before. They would have had an illicit drug problem too. Hopefully, this will make it more accessible to people who may want to engage with that.

I also asked in the briefing - how does the court inform itself when it is deciding whether or not this person would be a suitable person to be put onto a court-mandated program, so they have the information they need with regard to other things in their life? For example, are they likely to pick up an abusive relationship that is not physical, perhaps, where their partner has not presented it to the accident emergency department with physical injuries that are serious? How would they know that? Would they know that?

I know the Leader may be able to provide a bit of information about how the court would inform itself of those matters when making the determination.

Maybe people are a little bit more complex in the north-west with more complex needs, because we know we have high levels of intergenerational poverty and disadvantage in our region up there. That sad reality may mean that more, or less, people would be eligible. I do not know. It will be good to see, through the review in three years, how it is working and what a difference it is making. We want to keep people out of our jails and keep them on a pathway to recovery. If their alcohol addiction is directly feeding into their behaviours, and you can deal with their alcohol addiction, you would hope their behaviours would change as a result. Otherwise it is not working, is it?

Those are the key points and a couple of questions I wanted to raise. I absolutely support the intent. I know that was recommended by the Sentencing Advisory Council and TLRI in previous reviews some time ago, so it is good to see it progressing now. I look forward to the outcome of the review and particularly the numbers that are utilising it, because I believe it has the opportunity to change lives for the better, in a way that has not been available.