Dr WOODRUFF (Franklin – Leader of the Greens) – I can indicate that the Greens will be supporting this bill, as we did with the similar legislation that we passed before the state election. I want to acknowledge Faith and family, and I am also very aware of the advocacy you did over the years. All Tasmanians were very aware of the advocacy you did and something that really shone out, in addition to the grief that you expressed, was the love for your son. People could read that in your commitment to continuing to turn up day after day and do everything you could to get a response from the then Attorney-General and to get some justice. Good on you for the work that you did and it is because of you that the majority of this legislation is here today and it will change the lives for other families.
The bill that we have here requires the coroner to consider whether there was a reasonable suspicion that family violence was a substantial contribution to a death and it means looking at the history of personal circumstances, not just at the moment of a person’s death but at the circumstances surrounding it. It also means considering whether the violence that has been occurring may have contributed to the death. It is incredibly important that the coroner has this expanded range of powers.
Before I go on, I commend and recognise that it was the former attorney-general, Elise Archer, who applied her mind to these things. Faith really moved her to act and it was their dogged work that shifted her. I want to acknowledge that the former attorney-general was a person who had a lot of conviction in these matters and did do a lot of incredibly good work when she was Attorney-General and very precise and thoughtful work. She pushed through in situations where she was personally touched when it was the right thing to do from a legal point of view, and make new ground. I recognise that it contributed for the better for the state.
I will continue on with the comments that have already been raised about what Simon Cooper has said about the substantial part of this bill, which is the amendment to the Coroners Act. The further reform that will mean that the coroner is required to investigate matters where family violence has occurred. The comments of Simon Cooper on 29 July are eye-opening and raise a lid on the resourcing issues in the Coroner’s Office.
As he says, there are more than 900 deaths reported to the coroner’s office in this state every year, and coroners routinely make decisions about whether hold an inquest. He is very concerned at the estimates he has done that indicate that with the passage of this bill in its form, the Tasmanian Coroners would be required to hold at least double the number of public inquests. The effect of that on an already strained coronial system will be to significantly delay all inquests, thereby increasing the grief and trauma of many families in our community. I would like a response from the minister about this. I am not sure if he can hear me because he is engaged in other matters, but I would like a response from him about whether he will be resourcing the Coroner’s Office
I have heard that perhaps he thinks the best action will be to monitor the impact on the Coroners Office, and if that is the case, that is an utterly deficient position from your point of view. It is not in the best interests of the state to not pay attention to what the coroner said. The coroner has been clear. Mr Cooper said:
I urge the appropriate authorities to continue taking steps to reverse this most unfortunate exercise in law reform.
The argument he makes for doing this is principally about the resourcing of the Coroners Office and their capacity or not to take on new work. He says very clearly that it will delay inquests.
I want us to remember the high-profile inquest the Coroners Office is working on right now. It has been two years and eight months since the Hillcrest tragedy and it is working on that inquest. That is a very important job, to forensically and thoughtfully assess all the evidence of that complex situation, to bring justice, closure, certainty and understanding to families. That is an enormous body of work. However, that is just one thing the Coroners Office is dealing with. Another thing they will be doing, on 26 August, is starting the inquest into the deaths of four TARGA drivers in 2021 and 2022. A coroner will be undertaking an investigation into that.
We also hear on a regular basis about the coronial reports of deaths that have occurred in the hospital system, of patients who have died, unexplained deaths, or an allegation to be investigated about failure of treatment. We also have the need to investigate matters that have not been reported to the Coroners Office, as was raised in the ambulance ramping inquiry. These are matters that ought to have gone to the Coroners Office but did not make it there. If all those extra cases go to Coroners Office, that is a huge backlog of cases from the Launceston General Hospital that should have been dealt with appropriately years ago but now need to be investigated to understand if there was some misadventure, some failure to treat that occurred with those patients.
We cannot keep putting work onto these government agencies, where we expect them to take on these critical roles in the public interest, like the Integrity Commission, like the Custodial Officer, like the Coroners Office – just keep putting new jobs onto their plate but no money. You have the Coroner making a very clear statement that this will, in his view, significantly delay inquests. How can this extra work have no impact. I do not want to single out particular ones. I have just named a few. How can it have no impact on them? Of course it will. When I hear that the Attorney-General is just thinking of monitoring the situation, I say that is a very poor response.
I think of the families who are waiting for results from the Coroners Office investigations. There are hundreds or maybe 1000, 2000 families – 900 cases come every year – who are waiting to get the results of coronial investigations. How do they feel when they hear that the Attorney-General of this state has just put a huge extra body of work onto an office which is already over capacity and is signalling as loudly as it possibly can that it is desperately overstretched? However, you think it is okay to stand back and wait and see what happens. I say what will happen is that families will not get a result in a timely fashion, and that will cause more grief and trauma than is reasonable for a human being to bear.
It is not okay to make the assessment that we can just cut the guts out of the Coroners Office budget. We need to be genuine. If we are talking about people giving people justice, it has to be timely justice.
I am also concerned that we are making a change that differs from what other states and territories have done. My staff have raised this with the Attorney‑General’s staff. This bill will make it a requirement that an investigation occurs in matters where family violence has materially contributed to the death, regardless of whether there is a suspicious circumstance alleged. No other state or territory, as I understand it, requires the Coroners Court to do this. They have other mechanisms in place, which are family violence advice teams that provide advice to the Coroners Office and provide support in reviewing domestic and family violence deaths. They are specifically resourced to do this work. This is something the Greens have flagged with the Attorney-General’s office.
I would like you to talk about why you have created a model in Tasmania where the coroner is required to have an inquest, rather than have some sort of family violence death review mechanism like other states. Some states have separate bodies that are separately funded. On the face of it, that seems like a better approach because there is a direct group, expert in family violence matters, tasked to make that assessment. It is also a body that can be funded directly to do the work, rather than all of that work being put onto the Coroners Office.
It is not clear how much of the extra work going to the Coroners Office is in making these assessments. If there was a body tasked with family violence expertise and making the assessment about whether an inquest should occur, then it is a ring‑fenced specific task group which can be resourced commensurate with the workload it gets. I am concerned that this is just pushing the work and decision-making onto the Coroners Office.
I should make it clear that the coroner already makes assessments in every death where it appears there is some family violence. Essentially, this is about making the decision for the coroner by making it a requirement, whereas other states have gone down a different path. I would like to hear more explanation from the Attorney-General as to why we have gone in a different direction to Queensland, Western Australia, the ACT, South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales, and what the evidence was to take such a startlingly different approach.
I flag that Cassy O’Connor may continue with this issue in the Legislative Council on behalf of the Greens. We wanted to open the conversation with you and hear your comments, Attorney-General.
The Greens strongly support this bill. We thank Faith and her family for the work that she and they have done for other families in the future. I look forward to your comments, Attorney.
