Dr WOODRUFF (Franklin - Leader of the Greens) - Mr Speaker, the Greens welcome this supplementary appropriation bill to fund extra implementation of the commission of inquiry's recommendations in relation to a number of areas. It also squeezes in some other extra supplementary appropriation budget resourcing for Nyrstar and for the state development and trade, and a little bit for the Shepherd Centre.
I am going to spend the majority of my time talking about the commission of inquiry. I start by saying that the Greens were responsible for making sure that this was the first order of business back in parliament today. I thank the Premier and the Leader of the Opposition for having the conversation. I believe everyone was fundamentally on the same page to continue with the multi-partisan support for putting the safety of children at the centre of everything we do in this place and working together collaboratively as members of parliament on that joint agreed mission to do everything we can to make Tasmania a safer place for children. It was with that in mind that we are strongly of the view that victims/survivors more than anything wanted us to return to parliament and get on with this really important work.
We will spend years on making sure that the recommendations from the commission of inquiry are being properly implemented. We are only in the first couple of weeks, and it is hard to remember that. I feel an urgency - which is what the commissioners themselves felt - an urgency to get on with acting on these matters. I want to give voice to what the commissioners said when they talked about the challenges that they have faced:
We had to make some difficult decisions about how we wrote our report and framed our findings. This involved balancing the public interest in holding individuals and systems to account with the public interest in prioritising effort and funding to tangible changes to protect children. Given our grave concerns about Ashley Youth Detention Centre, we felt we could not afford to delay our findings and recommendations.
We noted, and will continue to note, the difficulty that the commissioners had with balancing the public interests of wrapping up the inquiry so that this Government could get on with responding to the urgent need to protect children in the Ashley Youth Detention Centre. It meant that they did not pursue some other matters with the detail they would have liked. They did not continue to pursue adverse findings against individuals. That would have been for them, at that point in time, consuming and expensive. It would have diverted them away from the other important activity of establishing the recommendations that the Government is now on the pathway to resourcing and implementing.
With that in mind, I am concerned that there is not enough detail in what we have before us about what the Government is acting on. I thank the Treasury staff who gave me and my staff a briefing yesterday. They did a good job but it was obvious that they had nothing at all they could tell me about what the money that is in this appropriation bill would be directed towards. In almost every instance when I asked a question, they could not provide the answer.
I asked the Treasurer why DPAC staff were not at that briefing. The whole point of having the budget bill given to members yesterday, as the Greens asked, was to provide the detail so that we could properly assess it and talk about it today. Instead, what I learnt was that the matters that are being funded in this bill were agreed to by the commission of inquiry's sub committee of the Secretary's Board. The Secretary's Board sits within the Department of Premier and Cabinet, and it was the advice of the Secretary's Board to the Premier, who has signed off on that, that has then gone to Treasury to be drawn into this bill before us today.
Let's be clear: from what I could garner from the conversation yesterday, Treasury has done no costing on this. As I read it, they have just been given bald numbers. They just get given $5 million here, $4.5 million there. I am not in any way wanting to diminish their work, but clearly they are working in the dark on this. I believe that the agency heads, the secretaries of agencies, were also working in the dark. I do not see any detail in the Premier's ministerial statement that he made on 26 September, or in what the Treasurer provided for us in his comments earlier, or in the bill before us, to let us know as members what this money is being spent on.
We have headings and we have some big numbers. For some of them it is possibly fair that there is not a lot of detail. The western Arch multidisciplinary centre speaks for itself $5 million towards establishing a centre, I guess. We do not know how many staff will be there, but I understand it is just capital for the build, not operating costs - so that is simply to build a centre. That is fine and good, and obviously flows from the commission of inquiry recommendations. However, everywhere else, particularly on the things that matter the most, we have no detail before us. What we have are two budgetary figures that the Government has now committed to. One is $30 million that was in the 2023-24 Budget that we approved at the end of the financial year. That was a $30 million round figure that sits within Premier and Cabinet and it said simply 'commission of inquiry response'. The details were that the Budget includes a $30 million down payment to fund any urgent actions in 2023-24 and the funding will be administered by the Department of Premier and Cabinet working closely with the relevant agencies.
Treasurer, my question to you is, what did that get spent on? How did that get spent? Can we find out how much of it went on legal fees for state servants and for anything else to do with the Government's work on the commission of inquiry? Somewhere the Government has mentioned $7.8 million spent but I cannot find that here in the bill before us today. Out of the $24.8 million in the supplementary appropriation bill we have here today that is being spent on the commission of inquiry, I do not see $7.8 million that was to have been spent and directed towards the advice and referral line, which is the first port of call for anyone who wants to make a notification about an incident of child sexual abuse - just for people listening. The $7.8 million was going to the advice and referral line, to mental health services, to child mental health services and community sector organisations.
In this bill that we have before us, there is $450 000 under the Minister for Mental Health and Wellbeing to go towards the implementation of a child safety and wellbeing framework. I do not know if the $450 000 was part of that $7.8 million.
Mr Jaensch - It was separate.
Dr WOODRUFF - Okay, so was that $7.8 million out of the $30 million?
Mr Jaensch - Yes.
Dr WOODRUFF - Thank you, minister. That money was announced in the Budget in May, so that $30 million was set aside in May. When the Premier gave his ministerial statement at the end of June, he said that money was going to go towards the important work of the advice and referral line.
Mr Jaensch - Some of it.
Dr WOODRUFF - That is right. Thank you, Mr Jaensch, for chiming in from the sidelines. This includes additional funding for the advice and referral line and a bunch of other things. When that report was tabled, I spoke to a person who works in close connection to the advice and referral line and I was informed that there were more than 700 notifications outstanding that the advice and referral line had logged. I mentioned that in parliament two weeks ago. I have not been disabused of that by the minister. We had 700 notifications of concern about children and young people in Tasmania sitting there three weeks ago. How many staff have gone to the north-west to work with children in schools as social workers to undertake the investigations that ought to be happening as a result of a notification to the advice and referral line? How many of them are being funded in addition in the north, the north-east and the south? Where are the extra staff that are flowing to do the work of responding to the advice and referral line?
What I see before me in this budget paper is some important work going to what the commission of inquiry has identified correctly as urgent framework changes that must happen in order to start to bring about the cultural change we need. We need the Child Safety and Wellbeing Panel and the service that they recommended within the health system. We need to have a child safety and wellbeing framework. We definitely also need to have a child sexual abuse implementation monitor, which is being funded for $750 000 within DPAC, and we need a whole-of-government child sexual abuse reform strategy and action plan. That is also critical. We have no problem with these things being funded. However, the question is where are the people to do the front-facing work that is needed every single day, particularly at Ashley and in out of home care?
The commission of inquiry said - and Dr Broad has made this point already - that the top recommendation in relation to out of home care is that we need increased funding in every area of out of home care to meet the needs of children in care and to fully implement this reform agenda. I am worried that the Government has latched on to the recommendation of the commission of inquiry in relation to out of home care, which is that out of home care be outsourced to non government organisations. I am concerned that they feel that gives them a licence to not do the work that is needed between now and whenever that reform may happen - it may take years - instead of actually putting the money in now to protect children in out of home care, to support foster carers to help them do the hard work that they do and the important work of looking after vulnerable children. If the money is not there, how can that work happen?
This is a top order recommendation from the commission of inquiry. I do not see anything in the Budget in relation to out of home care, nothing other than frameworks and models and panels and all the important things about cultural change and legal checks and balances, all of which have to occur. Unless there are the people there today, on the ground, working with families in the north-west, the south, the north and north-east, helping them when they need help, helping the foster carers and responding to calls of child sexual abuse notifications, then we cannot move forward, and every single day there are children being put at risk. It is the job of the Government to fund the people to do the work. I do not see the money here.
I would like the minister to speak about Ashley and the $5 million that is going both to the Ashley Youth Detention Centre and planning for a new youth detention centre. The way that was described to me sounds like there is just this wild stab in the dark guess at the money that is needed to put into Ashley Youth Detention Centre upgrades now, and these are upgrades to accommodation units, de escalation room upgrades, to the visitor facilities. They are essential maintenance that is needed to keep children safe. That work would have been needed to be done for a long time. I was given to understand that this is old, outstanding work, essential upgrades. It is not something newly pointed out to the Government that it needs to fund. Why are there no details about that in here? How much is being spent on doing that? Has that work even been tendered?
The Government has known, the minister has known, that this work needed to be done for a very long time. Instead, we have a $5 million coverall that as well as doing the essential maintenance is also meant to stretch to planning for the new youth detention centre. What does that even mean? Why is the minister incapable, despite what the commission of inquiry has said, of giving us a time line for moving those children out of Ashley? Why is there no money in this Budget for a doubling of the staff at Ashley Youth Detention Centre? The people who are working there are working under the hardest of circumstances. There needs to be more people working so that they can have support, so they are not working such long hours and so there can be more people providing therapeutic support for children.
We still have not heard the response from the minister to the community sector, which has proposed alternative therapeutic options for young children. They do not need to be in Ashley. We do not need to wait for this Government to get around to building another therapeutic facility. Under the Minister for Education, Children and Youth, I do not have confidence it is going to happen on his watch. It is why we need to take up the alternative being proposed by justice organisations and social service organisations like TasCOSS and Colony 47, which have said there is an alternative model that is available. They want the Government to work with them in good faith so that young people can be moved out of Ashley before another facility is built and have the therapeutic support that they need and be safe and protected.
People with the expertise in the area of children and young people and justice are confident it can be done. All they want is a minister who is open to sitting down and having the conversation. We need to see some money in here. At the moment, as the commission of inquiry says on page 63 of the first volume:
Children and young people have been and continue to be subjected to extensive isolation practices at Ashley Youth Detention Centre, whether because of staff shortages or as a response to difficult behaviours. Such practices interfere with children's access to education, exercise and health care and have serious detrimental effects on their health and wellbeing.
We recommend changes to the Youth Justice Act to clarify the definition of isolation and to criminalise its use as punishment.
Today under the Liberal Government in Tasmania, every single day, criminal acts of isolation are occurring -
Mr Jaensch - No, they are not.
Dr WOODRUFF - Well, they should be. The commission of inquiry made it very clear -
Mr Jaensch - What do you mean 'they should be'?
Dr WOODRUFF - There should be a change to the act to criminalise the use of isolation.
Mr Jaensch - Every single day, criminal acts are happening and they should be?
Dr WOODRUFF - It has been pointed out by the UN, it has been pointed out by the Commissioner for Children and Young People that what is happening in Ashley is a human rights abuse on a daily basis. Children are being harmed by the constant and continual use of restrictive practices, including lock-down. You can give it any other euphemism you want, Mr Jaensch, but it is lockdown -
Mr Jaensch - And you can say anything you like about it happens every day
Dr WOODRUFF - It absolutely does.
Mr Jaensch - and this is criminal. You do not have the information.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER - Order.
Dr WOODRUFF - The Commissioner for Children and Young People was on ABC radio pointing you out. You can gaslight all you want from the background but people in Tasmania, people from overseas, international experts, have flown here and made it very clear that every day at Ashley Youth Detention Centre, young people are being locked up, left alone for sometimes up to 22 hours a day in their cells. In Tasmania that should be a crime because it is damaging and harmful to children.
The commission of inquiry pointed out that there are staff shortages at Ashley. We do not see any money in here for more staff at Ashley. We do not see any money in here for more staff for out-of-home care. We do not see any money in here for more staff and social workers to respond to notifications made to the advice and referral line of child sex abuse.
We live in hope that when the Government makes its response to the commission of inquiry's report on 1 December and when we have the week of parliamentary scrutiny after then we will have answers to these questions.
I hope you will have had time to put the money in the Budget for the many extra recurrent staff needed to be employed in out-of-home care, in children, in education, particularly Aboriginal children but all vulnerable children in the education system, and in Ashley Youth Detention Centre. Staff need to be increased across all our agencies. At the moment we have a system of agencies working across Tasmania that is broken.
The commission of inquiry was very clear that the way all of our agencies are functioning is broken. They are not capable of keeping children safe. That was the finding of the commission of inquiry in a nutshell. That means they all have to be reformed. If we make systems that are safe for children then we make systems that work in better ways for everybody. Systems that do not work to keep children safe are systems that do not work to properly educate children who have trauma, who have different abilities and different styles of learning. They are the same systems that do not help people in mental health crises, that do not help people who do not fit in to the box of a certain educated, informed way to secure healthcare.
They do not fit children who are vulnerable, who have broken families and who are being cared for in out-of-home care. That is why we need an ambitious program from this Government to increase staff in these areas. Unless we see that sort of ambition then we are never going to change. We cannot tinker around the edges and change culture without doing it differently. The challenge for the Liberals is whether they can deprioritise funding from other parts of the Budget and put it into these essential services. The Government chooses to fund other parts of the budget, but chooses to not fund nurses, teachers, supporting foster carers and increasing that pool of people working in therapeutic ways with young people who are in detention.
If you cannot make that change then we will not make the culture. You cannot change the culture just by writing new processes. It has to come with a change to the way we do business in Tasmania. Under the Liberals, doing business in Tasmania has been too much about hollowing out our essential services of health, housing, education, child protection, youth justice and just justice full stop. That money has come out of those services and have gone into other things that the Liberals would like to fund, and the latest on that list is the stadium. Here we go. We have an opportunity of $715 million minimum that the Liberals are talking about spending on the stadium. We could spend that in a heartbeat on some of the issues that the commission of inquiry has raised, and wouldn't Tasmania be a better place? All the money and all the plans for a project of state significance and all the legal work and operating budget money that will be spent to get a stadium up should be spent on helping support foster carers in out-of-home care. That is where it should go and the Premier knows it - he actually does. That is the right thing to do. That is what we need to do. That is the sort of ambitious shift we need to make if we are going to change systems. Otherwise they are just going to congeal and this will be a dusty report on the shelves within six months' time and it is our job to make sure - all of us - that that does not happen.
We will be scrutinising the Government's response in December. I am putting you on notice, Premier. I guess you know that there is not enough money in here to do justice to all the commission of inquiry has said is the urgent work that needs to be done. My anticipation is that you will be coming back to parliament and letting us know that there will be another supplementary appropriation bill before the budget next year. There will have to be, because there is an enormous amount of work that the inquiry demands the Government does by July next year. We certainly cannot wait until the budget to get that work done. It is just not possible. We will be expecting to see where the extra money is going to be put. I anticipate we will be hearing from you about another supplementary appropriation bill at the end of this year, if not early next year, because it simply needs to be there if you are serious about implementing the commission of inquiry's work fully.
The final thing I want to say is that I support Dr Broad's comments that if we do not have a proper tracking mechanism for the commission of inquiry's recommendations - and that includes the money that is spent on implementing them - that will do bad service for children and young people. We will need that.
