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“Our family’s experience of the interaction between the mental health and the justice systems for our family member was as traumatic as the incident that led to them being held in custody,” says our lead letter this week. WE write to echo concerns of racism in the Alexander Maconochie Centre prison expressed in Jon Stanhope’s column “The shameful politicians who don’t give a stuff” (CN March 4). As Canberrans, we struggle to get a voice to be heard, but how do we alarm those who put this in the “way-too-hard basket”? The case Mr Stanhope outlined was not an isolated incident of strip searching a female detainee in view of male detainees. ....
Letter writer COLIN LYONS, of Weetangera, thinks our Legislative Assembly doesn’t sit nearly enough, especially compared to other parliaments. AFTER a recent meeting in the Legislative Assembly with one of the new members, I picked up a copy of the Sitting Calendar for 2021. I knew they didn’t sit for many weeks, but I was surprised just how little they did. So I did some international and interstate comparison. In 2018, the House of Commons sat for 122 days, the Canadian Lower House sat for 127 days, the US House of Representatives sat for 124, Japan’s Diet for 150 days, Germany’s Bundestag 104, NZ’s Parliament 93, and Australia’s House of Representatives, 64. The Senate sat for 58 days. ....