The Hon. AILEEN MacDONALD (19:51): It is an alarming and inequitable fact that 53 per cent of young people in custody in our six Youth Justice centres are Indigenous. It is a problem that has concerned me for some time, but recently it was highlighted again when I attended the second annual Youth Justice Corroboree at the Cobham Youth Justice Centre with the Minister for Youth Justice, the Hon. Jihad Dib. The corroboree provided Indigenous young people in custody an opportunity to connect with their culture and share Dreaming through dance. The joy and pride I observed on the faces of these young people participating in the corroboree spoke volumes about the success of the cultural program in place for incarcerated Indigenous youth.

This program is a wonderful collaboration between Youth Justice and the Art Gallery of New South Wales. The Cobham learning centre itself was built in 2018 by the Coalition as part of the Aboriginal Yarning Circle. The important point I make is that, knowing 53 per cent of young people in custody are Indigenous in all our Youth Justice centres around the State, programs like this provide a vital link to connecting them with their unique culture and offer these kids a sense of purpose. Of course, ideally I support any programs that aim to keep youth out of detention in the first place, but I applaud programs such as this that offer positives during their incarceration. I had the opportunity to speak with some of the young people after the event. They were humble and shy, but they beamed when I told them how much I enjoyed the event.

But this is where the serendipity of life really hit me in the Youth Justice space. Last week I was invited to attend a new play calledSaplings, which is a collaboration by the Australian Theatre for Young People and Youth Action, the New South Wales peak body representing young people and the services that support them. The cast members were all young Indigenous actors and the play was a series of vignettes portraying the grind of days spent in waiting rooms—waiting for bail, waiting for court, waiting for sentencing. To quote Oscar Wilde, this was life imitating art. Despite the self‑deprecating humour, I could not help but feel a tinge of sadness. Having been a community corrections officer before entering this place, I could not help but be moved by how real the play's scenarios were. These kids were acting out what I have had to deal with, situations that ultimately lead them to incarceration.

As lighthearted as the actors made it, there is nothing funny about home detention, apprehended violence orders, houses with paper-thin walls, no food or being homeless. I was struck by the reality of what I saw on stage. The opening scene portrayed two bored young Indigenous boys tossing up their options of whether to raid the local service station or watch television, only to then realise that the electricity had been cut off. In another scene they contemplated making money through YouTube or breaking the law so they could pay their mother's electricity bill. In yet another scene a frustrated kid spent hours waiting for his hearing in court, wondering why his legal representation had not turned up. As entertaining as the show was, there was nothing funny about the scene where an Indigenous kid contemplated breaking bail just so he could buy noodles; he had not eaten all day. I have worked in the corrections system. What I saw on that stage actually happens in real life. This small production highlighted how the justice system is sometimes all that stands between young people and what they want. It raises an important question: How do young Indigenous people grow when the system keeps cutting them down?