Ms ROSOL (Bass) – Honourable Speaker, I thank those people who have responded to this piece of legislation today. It has been heartening to hear the across-the-board support for the Custodial Inspector and their work and their role. Thank you for your contributions there. It is important also for us to remember that ultimately this legislation is about making things better, protecting the rights of people who are held within custodial facilities within Tasmania. It is not semantics, it is not legislation for the sake of it, it is not legislation just to fulfil a recommendation. This is legislation that is about protecting rights and making sure that people are safe within the facilities that operate in Tasmania.
In response to the member for Lyons, Ms Butler’s question about whether any previous amendments have been made to the Custodial Inspector Act based on recommendations from the Custodial Inspector. No. There have been two minor amendments made to the Custodial Inspector Act that were consequential amendments, but no amendments have been made in response to the Custodial Inspectors’ recommendations. That is why we have this legislation here today in order to do that.
In response to the minister’s comments: thank you. I always think that legislation is stronger when it has more people’s eyes on it and more thoughts, so thank you for sharing a couple of the concerns that you have about the drafting of the legislation. I am a little curious, or surprised, as the legislation was tabled a couple of weeks ago and we have not had any of these issues raised with us prior to the debate today. I would have preferred to have had this raised with me earlier so that we could look at it and work it out together and see what amendments needed to be made, but thank you for your raising your concerns. We would be willing to look at those and look at amendments that might need to be made that we can introduce in the other place when the legislation is debated there. I do not think I have anything else to say in response to things that have been said, but reiterate that we hope that this makes things better for Tasmanians, protects their rights and ensures we are doing all we can as a parliament and as a state to ensure that people are treated the right way in Tasmania.
Bill read the second time.
