Ms ROSOL – I’ve got a few questions about the Custodial Inspector’s adult healthcare inspection report. The Custodial Inspector recommended that a needle exchange program be provided. The government’s refused this recommendation to provide a needle exchange that would reduce current high levels of blood‑borne virus transmission. The department claimed this might interfere with rehabilitation programs.
I’m wondering if there’s any evidence to back this up. There’s a wealth of evidence that shows that needle exchanges don’t increase drug use. We know that in the report, it described current addiction treatment in prisons as woefully inadequate. On one hand we have inadequate addiction treatment, but on the other hand, we’re also refusing to provide a needle exchange that would help to keep people safe. Are you able to explain that contradiction and why that decision has been made?
Ms OGILVIE – Thank you. I’ll seek some advice, if you’d like to make comment.
Mr WISE – Needle exchanges in prisons effects questions nationally and internationally. The difficulties are compounded by a case in New South Wales, I think towards the end of around 1987 I think, where a correctional officer was stabbed by a prisoner who had a blood‑filled syringe and he subsequently died from AIDS as a result of it. Industrially, prison officers and correctional officers across the country are very loath to engage in any practice that might encourage the presence of needles in the correctional environment, lest they be subjected to a similar attack. In the Australian Capital Territory, which I think is the only Australian jurisdiction that indicated that it would introduce needle exchanges, that was unable to be proceeded with after some years of discussions, and it continues to be resisted in, I think, every jurisdiction. What we can do is improve our capacity to give bleach to prisons so that needles can be cleaned and that more safe-injecting practices can be adhered to.
Ms ROSOL – Needles are there; they’re not clean. You’ll provide bleach for them to clean them, but you won’t provide them with clean needles because of the risk to staff even though they already have needles? Surely, providing clean needles and a needle exchange doesn’t increase the risk for staff because the needles are already there, but it does decrease the risk to people who are using them of bloodborne transmission.
Mr WISE – You’re right and every correctional officer knows that there are needles in the environment and we take significant steps to reduce the risks of needlestick injuries as a result of that, but the correctional officers generally will say that they would prefer that small number that they try to discover and eliminate than to provide prisoners with new needles which could be then used with contaminated blood.
Ms ROSOL – That could happen anyway. What you’re saying is the safety of the custodial staff is important and you don’t want to provide needles, but the safety of prisoners having dirty needles is less important.
Ms OGILVIE – I’m not sure that that’s exactly what he said.
Mr WISE – Thank you, minister. We do recognise the risks obviously to prisoners and discourage any sorts of intravenous drug use. One of the things that we have done recently is to introduce body scanners, as you might be aware of, and one of the benefits of that is that if people have secreted syringes and so on, then we’ve got a much better chance of detecting them and preventing them from circulating through the prison environment. We’re doing everything that we can to keep the needles out of the prison and I think the body scanners will be a really strong weapon in achieving that.
Ms ROSOL – Meanwhile, they have bleach.
Minister, just another question about the Custodial Inspector’s Adult Health Care Inspection Report. It was scathing of the command and control culture of the senior leadership team and the culture was criticised for the current staffing crisis. The report noted that it’s a rigid, inflexible structure leading staff to be often afraid and required to follow orders regardless of their merit. The report also noted that the senior leadership team have a misplaced pride in this culture and are completely unaware of the negative impact this had on staff. I note the department rejected this categorisation, but do you accept recommendation 12 of the report, minister, to engage a management consultant? Will this occur?
Ms OGILVIE – I note that the characterisation has been rejected. I would ask Rod to speak to this.
Mr WISE – There are a number of parts of that report that were hotly contested by the Tasmania Prison Service. In this case, I think I’m able to talk from personal experience because I think that I was present at the meeting where Dr Petch formed the view that command and control is the prevailing management style of the service. It is my view, and certainly the view of the TPS, that the comments about command and control were taken absolutely out of context, that there is a place in prisons for command and control in prison emergencies, throughout our COVID experience, and there’s no doubt that our staff take pride in the way that emergencies are managed inside the prison system.
The meeting that I attended certainly placed the command and control elements in that context and did not suggest that there was a more overarching pride in command and control and that was the prevalent way of managing staff. It may be that Dr Petch, independently of the meeting that I attended, gained that view, but it’s not a view that either the Tasmania Prison Service or I would subscribe to.
