Debate resumed from 17 April.

The Hon. C. J. S. LYNN [3.47]: I lead for the Opposition on the Prisons Amendment Bill. According to the Minister for Corrective Services the bill is designed to facilitate the process of allowing interstate leave of absence for prison inmates, in defined circumstances; to provide for penalties for drug trafficking in correctional centres and for conveying contraband in correctional centres; to increase the amount of compensation that may be imposed by the visiting judge upon an inmate who damages property as a result of committing a prison offence; to make clear the distinction between inmates under protection and those under segregation; and to replace out-dated terminology in the Prisons Act. When introducing the bill in another place the Minister advised that the significant amendment makes clear provision for prisoners to be granted leave of absence to travel interstate. The circumstances warranting such leave were cited as family bereavement, medical, or other serious welfare emergencies.

The Minister also cited the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, which considered that it was of vital importance that Aboriginal inmates be permitted to attend funerals of family members. The Opposition acknowledges the intent of the Government to comply with the wishes of the 1994 and 1995 Corrective Service Ministers' conference in seeking to adopt a national approach to establishing an interstate leave of absence scheme. Given the high Aboriginal population in remote prisons like Broken Hill, it makes good sense to have a scheme that allows inmates interstate leave to attend family funerals in Queensland or South Australia. However, I note that the commissioner will have authority to grant a maximum security inmate leave of absence to travel to another State or Territory for medical treatment, or on compassionate grounds, under section 29 of the amended Prisons Act. Although an inmate with a maximum security classification will be escorted by one or more correctional officers, the Opposition believes there are serious grounds for concern.

Earlier this year Ralph Quinlan, regarded as one of the most notorious prisoners in the system at that stage, was granted leave of absence to attend the funeral of his cousin. Although Quinlan was accompanied by two Aboriginal and one non-Aboriginal guard, he managed to escape. Quinlan's record indicated that he should not have been granted leave of absence. Between February and October the previous year, he is alleged to have led a gang that committed at least 10 armed robberies of banks and hotels. During one of these robberies a female employee was forced at gunpoint to remove her clothing and was then allegedly raped by Quinlan and one of his associates before he fled with the takings. On another occasion a hotel employee was bashed because he was unable to open a safe.

On 26 July last year Quinlan was involved in a car chase involving three police cars, but he rammed his way through a roadblock and managed to escape on foot. A few weeks later he was arrested by detectives in Brisbane after allegedly committing a number of armed robberies. However, as he was being led into a police station he punched the detective escorting him and fled. In October last year he was tracked for several days in the La Perouse area, but was again able to avoid police after another car chase. He was finally captured in Coffs Harbour on 13 November.
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Despite his record of escapes, Quinlan was allowed to attend the funeral of a relative. Though he was escorted, he managed to overpower his escorts and escaped. The commissioner had neglected his duty regarding the safety of the general public by providing an opportunity for such an aggressive and brutal inmate to escape.

I venture that the criminal Quinlan would have received more sympathy from the Government than the woman he raped or the hotel employee he bashed. It is in these instances that the system is fundamentally flawed. I have no argument with low-security inmates being granted compassionate, education or work-experience leave that will facilitate their rehabilitation process. But I have deep reservations about murderers, rapists, child molesters, armed robbers, drug pushers and violent criminals being released for any reason at all until they have served the full term of their sentence. Such criminals must serve the punishment for the crime they commit. Only then should the process of rehabilitation begin. Our classification system provides for prisoners to be reclassified from A class down to C class. Any effective program that will facilitate an orderly transition back to mainstream society will have my full support.

The classification system should be closely monitored as an insurance system against the likelihood of long-term prisoners using it to facilitate an early escape from prison. I have reservations also regarding the definition of "family" when determining grounds for compassionate leave. I have no argument against parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters and children being included in the definition of family, but it is drawing a longbow to include cousins and other distant relatives in that definition. The Minister should draft strict guidelines for the commissioner to follow when considering such leave applications. I give notice to the Minister that I shall monitor this aspect of the legislation.

The second amendment concerns penalties for drug trafficking and conveying contraband into prisons. At present the Prisons Act provides a maximum penalty of six months imprisonment or 10 penalty units or both for persons found guilty of trafficking drugs into prison. In contrast, the Drugs Misuse and Trafficking Act and the Poisons Act provide maximum penalties of up to two years imprisonment for similar offences in the community. The amendment seeks to bring the offence of supplying drugs to a person in lawful custody into line with a penalty for drug trafficking in the wider community. This initiative is laudable but it does not go far enough.

People involved in drug trafficking to and from prisons and within prisons deserve a greater penalty than that which applies for trafficking drugs outside prisons. People are in prisons because they have already committed a serious offence against the community. While serving their punishment they must be made aware that further crimes against society will not be tolerated. Trafficking in drugs is one of the more heinous crimes in society and requires strong deterrent measures to overcome. The message must be sent to criminals who choose to ignore the law that drug trafficking will not be tolerated in the prison system and that any attempt in this regard will attract harsh penalties.

When the Minister introduced the bill in another place he said that as many as 70 per cent of inmates were influenced by drugs in one way or another when they committed the crimes for which they had been imprisoned. He said also that he did not believe it was possible to entirely eliminate drugs from the prison system. That is a defeatist attitude and is cause for serious concern. If the Minister cannot introduce measures that will prevent the flow of drugs into the New South Wales prison system, the Premier should replace him with somebody who can. The Premier is on public record advocating a tough approach against drugs, yet his Minister says he cannot stop drug trafficking in a controlled environment such as the prison system.

We should never give up the fight to eliminate drugs from the prison system. To achieve this goal the first step is to send a strong message that trafficking of drugs into and within the prison system will simply not be tolerated. Therefore, everyone should be put on notice that harsh penalties will be imposed on anyone who attempts to break the law by trafficking in drugs within the prison system. The Daily Telegraph this week revealed how easy it was for prisoners to traffic in drugs. Under the headline "Dial a drug deal" the article explained how prisoners tapped into a warder's pay phone to help run a drug dealing operation from under the floorboards of the corrective services training academy. The prisoners ran a phone line bypassing the pay phone handset to an office beneath the trainee warders' dormitory where they had installed a stolen handset that allowed them to make hundreds of free calls all over the world.

It seems that as many as 10 prisoners had access to the phone for up to seven hours a day over the past four months at least. The Hogan's Heroes-style operation was set up by minimum security prisoners in Silverwater gaol who were taken to the Eastwood Corrective Services Academy to work in the gardens and cafeteria of that facility. Since the phone was found one prisoner has apparently been caught with 11 bags of suspected rock heroin and a number of people in the community are being investigated. According to the newspaper article, some trusted prisoners classified C3 minimum security had driven to the academy three to five days a week to work in the grounds. This alarming report indicates two things. First, the classification system is seriously flawed. If prison authorities are not aware of prisoners who are likely to traffic in drugs, the classification system should be reviewed. It is difficult to accept that task force STED, which was created precisely to fight drug
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trafficking and drug-related incidents in prison, does not have the means to gather sufficient intelligence to identify those either dealing in drugs or those likely to deal in drugs.

The Hon. R. S. L. Jones: That is 80 per cent of the prison population.

The Hon. C. J. S. LYNN: It is probably 80 per cent of the fringe-dwellers that the Hon. R. S. L. Jones represents. Second, the penalties for trafficking drugs within the prison system are so lenient that, obviously, they do not act as any deterrent. The penalty for trafficking in drugs and other substances in prison should be greater than that which applies to the general community.

The Hon. Dr Meredith Burgmann: What about dealing in drugs outside prisons? Don't you know about that?

The Hon. C. J. S. LYNN: Not a lot. I have never come in contact with it, but maybe I live, work and move in a different environment, which is mainstream Australia and the western suburbs of Sydney. A clear message must be sent to the public that drug trafficking in prison will not be tolerated. For that reason I foreshadow that I shall move an amendment in Committee that will have the effect of increasing the maximum penalty for that offence to five years imprisonment. The third amendment in the bill relates to the level of compensation payable by inmates for the damage of property. The maximum compensation that can be awarded by commissioners is $50 whereas the upper limit that may be awarded by a visiting justice is $300.

The coalition supports the amendment that will remove any restriction on a visiting justice, given the existing checks and balances contained in the legislation in regard appeal rights. The coalition supports also the fourth amendment, which more clearly distinguishes between inmates on protection and those in segregation. The fifth amendment is about changing terminology, which will not have any effect on the system. Changing "prisons" to "correctional centres", "prisoners" to "inmates" and "prison offices" to "correctional centres" will obviously give the do-gooders and politically correct a warm, inner glow, but it will have absolutely no effect on the administration of justice in this State.

The Hon. PATRICIA STAUNTON [3.58]: I support the amendments to the Prisons Act. I listened with increasing concern to the hard-line sentiments expressed by the Hon. C. J. S. Lynn. Whilst I acknowledge and respect his right to hold such views, I disagree completely with his philosophy that correctional service centres should be instruments of social policy with regard to criminalisation and the criminal justice system. I remain unconvinced that an increasingly hard-line attitude to punishment will solve the problems associated with criminal activity in our society. The community must adopt a more enlightened approach to social control and to those activities that are deemed to be deserving of punishment. For that reason I suggest that the proposed amendments are reasonable and, far from being not harsh enough, constitute a reasonable balance between an excessive approach and a humane approach to custodial care and the deprivation of liberty.

I am pleased that the Minister will have a discretion to grant special leave on compassionate and medical grounds to maximum and minimum security inmates. Recommendation 171 of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody states that corrective services should give recognition to the special kinship and family obligations of Aboriginal prisoners which extend beyond the immediate family, and give favourable consideration to requests to attend funeral services and burials and other occasions of very special family significance. I am pleased that matters of such importance to members of the Aboriginal community have been included in these amendments and will soon be enacted.

It is only right and proper that prisons legislation should be brought into line with the Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act and the Poisons Act with regard to offences involving drugs and contraband in the prison system. Having said that, I do not accept that drug-related problems will be solved by the imposition of lengthy periods in custody. Nor do I accept that the problems are solely law and order issues. As we all know, the drug problem - to adopt the commonly used phrase - is multifaceted in its causes and in the symptoms that it manifests in the community. Such issues as unemployment, one's social situation and peer pressure, among other factors, have an enormous influence on those who use illegal drugs in our community. As a member of the Australian parliamentary group for drug law reform, I am of the view that the drug problem is not merely a law and order issue; it is also a social and health issue, and we should be looking for more constructive ways of addressing it in that light.

It has to be remembered, as I am sure the Hon. C. J. S. Lynn knows, that the high proportion of the inmates of correctional services centres have committed offences because of their drug problems - and they take those same problems with them into the prison system. To simply increase penalties without having due regard for the cause of the problem is to ignore the problem. Of particular relevance for the purposes of my comments on this bill is the amendment relating to penalties for damage caused by inmates to prison property. At present if an inmate damages or destroys property as a result of a prison offence, the governor of the correctional centre can impose a maximum penalty of $50, and a visiting justice can impose a maximum penalty of $300.

Some recent cases involving the destruction of departmental property have exceeded the $300 limit. It is proposed that the visiting justice should not be limited in relation to the amount that an inmate is liable to pay by way of compensation. The
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cosmetic changes to terminology will, despite the suggestion that it will achieve nothing, at least bring correctional services in New South Wales into line with other services and will play a part in a change in attitude and approach to the day-to-day administration of correctional service centres. For those reasons I support these amendments.

The Hon. ELISABETH KIRKBY [4.09]: On behalf of the Australian Democrats I support the Prisons Amendment Bill. I also give notice that I will support the amendments foreshadowed in a note from the Attorney General explaining why it is necessary for the Government to introduce a number of amendments. However, I will not support the amendments proposed by the Hon. C. J. S. Lynn. As honourable members of the House with the exception of the Hon. C. J. S. Lynn would be aware, during a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association trip last year I made it my business to visit gaols in England and Scotland in which there were drug rehabilitation programs. Cookham Wood, which is a women's gaol in Kent, was one such gaol. I went to a gaol in Edinburgh, the male inmates of which undergo a full detoxification program in a hospital, after which time they are moved into a rehabilitation program. There is no point in sending any prisoner with a drug problem to gaol without making available some support for him or her in gaol. The present Minister and former Ministers have realised that as long as there are inmates who are addicts they will get drugs to feed their habits no matter what the authorities or their fellow prisoners do; they will get drugs in exactly the same way that they got them on the outside.

The Hon. C. J. S. Lynn: Then why have them in there?

The Hon. ELISABETH KIRKBY: Exactly! We should put them in a proper detoxification drug rehabilitation centre and not have them as part of the normal prison population. That is what we should be striving for. In my opinion it is not sensible for anyone to say that there is something wrong with the classification system or with the authorities. I am quite certain there are people living in the same neighbourhood as the Hon. C. J. S. Lynn who are using drugs or are trafficking in small quantities of drugs. The Hon. C. J. S. Lynn may not know they are doing so. They do not have stars on their foreheads to identify them! We must not suggest that the classification system is wrong because these people cannot be identified. It is just impossible.

This bill has several main aims. First, it will facilitate interstate leave of absence for inmates in certain prescribed and defined circumstances; second, it will introduce new penalties for drug trafficking in correctional centres and also for conveying contraband into correctional centres; third, it will increase the amount of compensation which may be imposed by a visiting justice upon an inmate who damages property as a result of committing a prison offence; and, fourth, it will make clear the difference between inmates under protection and those under segregation. The bill will also replace outdated terminology in the Prisons Act. The Australian Democrats are delighted to support the amendments which will enable leave of absence to be granted to inmates to travel interstate and also to facilitate similar leave within this State by inmates from interstate. I understand that this amendment has come about as a result of recommendation 171 of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, which urges:

Corrective Services give recognition to the special kinship and family obligations of Aboriginal prisoners which extend beyond the immediate family and give favourable consideration to requests for permission to attend funeral services and burials and other occasions of very special family significance.

Whilst I appreciate the Government's move to assist in the fulfilment of a recommendation of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, I remind the House of the scope of the royal commission's findings and the ever-present need, which is not decreasing, to address the issue of why so many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people find themselves in custody in the first place. It is necessary at this point to inform all honourable members of the overview of the response by governments to the royal commission. The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody stated, in chapter 1, paragraph 1.1, of its report:

The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody was jointly established by the Commonwealth, the States and the Northern Territory on 16 October 1987. The Royal Commission investigated the deaths between 1 January 1980 and 31 May 1989 of 99 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the custody of police, prison or juvenile detention centres. It had regard to the circumstances of the deaths, action taken by the authorities following the deaths, and underlying causes, including social, cultural and legal factors.

Although the reports of some of the individual Commissioners recommended consideration of action against individuals, the Royal Commission did not find that any of the deaths were caused by deliberate violence or brutality of the police or prison officers.

However, the Commissioners found that the standard of care shown towards people in custody was generally poor and that a lack of proper care contributed towards some of the deaths.

The Commissioners also found that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in custody do not die at a greater rate than non-Aboriginal people die in custody. What was fundamentally different -

it is still fundamentally different -

was the rate at which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people came into custody - 29 times higher than the general community.

The Royal Commission found that the most significant factor contributing to the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in custody is their disadvantaged position in Australian society, culturally and economically.

The 339 recommendations made by the Royal Commission are aimed at eliminating the disadvantages experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

[Pursuant to standing orders business interrupted at 4.15 p.m. The House continued to sit.]

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The recommendation continues:

A common thread throughout the recommendations is recognition of the fact that eliminating these disadvantages requires an end to domination of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders and the return to them of control over their own lives.

The Australian Democrats support the proposed amendment to section 37 of the Prisons Act and the proposal to link the penalty for anyone found guilty of bringing or attempting to bring a drug into a correctional centre with the penalties for similar offences in the Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act and the Poisons Act. At present, the Prisons Act provides a maximum penalty of six months imprisonment, or 10 penalty units, or both for persons trafficking alcohol or drugs in a correctional centre. In contrast, the Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act and the Poisons Act provide maximum penalties of up to two years imprisonment for analogous offences in the community.

The Australian Democrats agree that the offence of supplying drugs to a person in lawful custody in the context of a correctional environment involves at least the same level of criminality as the offence of drug trafficking in the wider community. We are also supportive of the amendment to paragraphs (c), (d) and (f) of section 38(1) of the Prisons Act to increase the maximum penalty for bringing contraband into a correctional centre to two years imprisonment, or 20 penalty units, or both. The current penalty for conveying contraband into a correctional centre is six months imprisonment, or 10 penalty units, or both. As contraband can include items such as lethal weapons the Australian Democrats believe that it is appropriate that the current maximum penalty for this offence should also be increased.

There is a great deal to be said about the fact that if contraband is being brought into the gaols by visitors it is more easy for prisoners or inmates to get access to it. If heavier penalties are imposed on visitors bringing in contraband, there is likely to be a lesser availability of drugs in gaols and, therefore, prisoners will be less able to get hold of them. I know that the current Minister for Corrective Services has done a great deal to reorganise the system and to provide greater access to drug rehabilitation centres in our system than ever before. I applaud the Minister for that move and support him wholeheartedly.

Until drug addicts can be treated in gaols, no matter what penalties may be imposed the problem will never be overcome. When I visited Cookham Wood prison in Kent, I was introduced to some of the inmates. They were aware that many drug couriers set themselves up to be arrested so that they could smuggle drugs into the gaol for the drug addicted inmates. I learned that most drugs in Great Britain at present did not come from Asia - although that is where drugs in this country come from - or even South America; the majority of drugs were being brought in from Africa. Many women inmates were from various African States. The ones I met were mostly very beautiful, young women and many of them had been acting as couriers for some time before their arrest and eventual imprisonment. We must go to the root cause of this problem. The majority of drugs are highly addictive. In order to kick the habit addicts require a great deal of help and this help is not normally given in a correctional institution. Unless the treatment of drug addicts in prisons is improved the problem will be ongoing. They will leave the gaol with their addiction as strong as it was when they went in.

I note the amendments of the Legislative Assembly to remove the possibility for some convictions to incur penalties applicable to indictable matters instead of summary matters by deleting the words, "on indictment", in proposed section 37(1A)(a) and replacing them with the word, "summarily". This proposed section had provided that a magistrate may impose on a person convicted of bringing or attempting to bring less than a small quantity of prohibited drug or prohibited plant into a correctional centre a penalty which is linked to penalties under the Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act, and therefore the Australian Democrats will support this amendment.

The third amendment contained in the bill concerns the level of compensation payable by inmates for the damage of property. At present when an inmate damages property as a result of that inmate committing a prison offence, the inmate is liable to pay up to $50 compensation under an order by the governor of a correctional centre or up to $300 under an order by a visiting justice. However, I am informed that the Department of Corrective Services experienced several incidents recently when this limit was exceeded. The Australian Democrats therefore support the amendment that when charges have been determined after a hearing by a visiting justice with the existing checks and balances set out in the legislation, an order may be made for an unlimited level of compensation which could be paid by an inmate in these circumstances.

I visited Parklea prison, a brand new complex with modern cells with provision for personal toilets and facilities, after the riots occurred when fires were lit causing terrible damage. I believe it is quite reasonable that the people who caused the damage should pay the costs of the restoration and repair of the premises. The Australian Democrats support the changes to the structure of section 22 of the Prisons Act which will distinguish more clearly between protected and segregated inmates. This is a distinction that cannot be underestimated and it certainly has a great impact on the treatment a prisoner or inmate receives while in gaol. At present section 22 does not clearly distinguish between inmate protection and inmate segregation. This is undesirable given that the purpose of the two forms of custody is very different.

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Finally, the Australian Democrats accept the long overdue administrative amendments to the terminology contained in the Act. These amendments provide that all references to prisons in the Prisons Act be replaced with references to correctional centres, all references to prisoners be replaced with references to inmates, and all references to prison officers be replaced with references to correctional officers. I believe that is an important amendment. At the gaols I visited last year, and some of them were not new, it became clear that the regime under which the inmates were being treated bore little resemblance to the physical surroundings of the correctional centre in which they were incarcerated. It depended very much on the regime laid down by the authorities and the way it was being carried out by the correctional officers.

Even Maidstone Gaol, which is probably similar now to the way it was when Charles Dickens wrote about it, had some excellent work programs and an excellent program for sex offenders - probably the best sex offender program I know of. The rapport between correctional officers, parole officers and inmates made me realise that whatever heinous crimes individuals may have committed and however long their sentences might be, if they were receiving the right type of treatment within the gaol for the time they had been sentenced they were probably going to get a better outcome with less recidivism and therefore less crime in society. Surely that is what we should all be aiming for. With those remarks I am pleased to support the bill.

The Hon. R. S. L. JONES [4.27]: I support the legislation. When I heard the speech of the Hon. C. J. S. Lynn I was reminded irresistibly of the flickering black and white prewar movies of the little man with the bowler hat and cane. The Hon. Charlie Lynn should think seriously about adding the name Chap to his surname. His ideas come from the dark ages of that failed prohibition era. I think he spent too long in the swamps of New Guinea and has been bitten by one too many mosquitos. He has no idea that 80 per cent of prisoners are in gaol for drug-related crimes. In fact 25 per cent of the prisoners in gaol do inject drugs. They re-use needles many times and pass on hepatitis C and, no doubt, HIV in some cases.

The draconian Michael Yabsley tried to stop drugs in gaols. He took away the crucifixes, photographs and thongs, virtually every personal item of prisoners, to prevent drugs entering gaols. But he failed and he is no longer a member of this Parliament. Even the draconian Michael "Vlad the Impaler" Yabsley failed to stop drugs being used in prisons. There is no way that it can ever be done. It would be an ideal world if dangerous drugs could be eliminated and children persuaded not to use them. Regrettably they do use drugs. I am not saying that it is a good idea that people use drugs in gaol. It is not a good idea to use drugs at all. Some people go to gaol to dry out. They are actually grateful to go back to gaol so they can dry out and kick their habit. It is one of the facts of life that many people, the unfortunates, do end up in gaol as a result of their addictions.

We need to address the problems of their addiction and the failure of prohibition to prevent them entering the system in the first place. At the recent estimates committee hearing the problems of juvenile justice were discussed. The best way to prevent young people from entering the adult prison system is to not give them a custodial sentence in the first place. By far the best way is to counsel them in various ways and prevent them from entering these schools of crime. Once they enter the gaol system, they keep returning and finish up failing as citizens. They must be rehabilitated. There is no point in imposing punishment, ensuring that prisoners serve their sentences, and trying to rehabilitate them when they are released. That will only make them worse and more resistant to society.

Prisoners are human beings. Many of them come from badly damaged families. As children they may have been sexually abused by their fathers, their mothers may have been drunks, they may have been beaten, or their fathers or mothers may have had several lovers. Many prisoners are illiterate; they come from disadvantaged families so far as education is concerned. We should realise that in the main they began taking drugs because of these problems. They did not take drugs as some kind of social habit. Many who progress to heroin are serious victims. In too many cases, because of the need to provide for their addiction they become criminals. I am sure many honourable members know people who have been robbed by heroin addicts. I have, and my neighbours and many others have. It is one of the terrible things about society today that prohibition has caused these problems.

The whole question of prohibition should be addressed from the beginning by educating our children and formulating means of punishing by other than custodial sentences. The result will be a much more humane society with fewer people using drugs. It must be realised that prohibition does not work. It cannot work; it never has. I am sure the Attorney General is beginning to realise that, Jeff Kennett has certainly realised that, and I believe the Premier has as well. Unfortunately, drugs can never be kept out of gaols because everyone is involved with them; the warders themselves are involved. If it were possible, I am sure Michael "Vlad the Impaler" Yabsley would have done it. He was unable to keep drugs out of gaol. If he failed, then no-one can do it.

The Hon. I. COHEN [4.32]: I support the Prisons Amendment Bill. As a signatory of the Australian Parliamentary Group for Drug Law Reform I have been saying in parliamentary committees for a period of time that the issue of drugs is more than a law and order issue. It has become patently clear from the Penington report and
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from various debates that our gaol society is microcosmic - rats in the box, if I can call it that. The Hon. Elisabeth Kirkby spoke eloquently to the point and made it clear that rather than just looking to the law to control these people, we have to consider rehabilitation programs. We have not gone anywhere, and we are not going anywhere. Prohibition has failed abominably. The problems faced by society are intensified in the prison system. As the Attorney General said, 80 per cent of people in custody are there on drug-related offences. That results in a concentrated demand for drugs within the prison system.

It is obvious I take an opposite position to that of the Hon. C. J. S. Lynn. Would he detoxify people by throwing them in a pit? Society must move on from that type of attitude. As the Hon. R. S. L. Jones said, prohibition has been an absolute failure. The law is exacerbating the situation by sending so many people to prison on drug-related offences. We are caught in a vicious cycle where inmates are addicts, they want to get drugs and the situation then becomes completely uncontrolled. I support the Government in its move to ameliorate the problem. I support the Government for its concept of prisons where the authorities are able to show some compassion and allow interstate leave-of-absence for prisoners to attend burials, funerals and the like, and where a differentiation is made between inmates under protection and those in segregation.

It is clear that the majority of people who use addictive drugs need help. That is a medical problem. Prisoners should not leave gaol with a similar addiction to that which got them into trouble in the first place. The bill seeks to amend the principal Act in relation to certain drug offences. Compensation for property damage and changes in terminology are extremely important. The issue of alcohol is dealt with in new section 37(1), which provides for a penalty of six months imprisonment or $1,000 or both. The issue of illicit drugs is dealt with separately, and the bill provides that drug offences should be dealt with in accordance with the Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act. It is clear that the Opposition's amendment which seeks to insert a specific five-year penalty, a fine of $5,000 or both, will not to do any good and will be an abject failure. It has been proved time and time again that upping the ante by passing draconian laws does not help. That has not helped in the past. As the Hon. R. S. L. Jones said, it was an abject failure during the Yabsley administration.

I questioned the Attorney General in the estimates committee hearing about the vicious cycle of drug-addicted people going to prison and obtaining more drugs. The only way to break this vicious cycle is to turn the legal/criminal problem of drugs into a medical problem. That is what it is. The aim of any civilised society should be to keep people out of gaol. The only way to do that is through proper medical attention, proper education and counselling. It is not by the medieval practice of imposing a penalty of five years imprisonment for possession of drugs or for trafficking of drugs when it is obvious the problems are far greater. I hoped that members of this House had a greater understanding of the problem than to enact legislation based on sensational articles in the Daily Telegraph.

[Debate interrupted.]