Ms O’CONNOR – Thank you, Chair. Minister, government received the Weiss independent review into Paul Reynolds in June this year. The state budget was handed down two‑and‑a-half months later yet none of the four recommendations that relate to Tasmania Police are funded in the state budget. Why didn’t you fight to make sure that these really important recommendations which demonstrate that Tasmania police has some serious work to do, were funded? Why didn’t you fight for the funding?
Mr ELLIS – Thanks, Ms O’Connor. First, I thank Ms Weiss for the exceptional work she did, and also recognise all the victim-survivors of these terrible crimes committed by Paul Reynolds. At the request of Commissioner Adams an independent review was undertaken in relation to Paul Reynold’s conduct across his 40-year career prior to his death on 13 September 2018, after a police professional standards investigation. The review provided, as you mentioned, five recommendations, all of which have been accepted by the Commissioner of Police and the government.
Ms O’CONNOR – But not funded by government.
Mr ELLIS – In the review’s findings, there are some findings which are whole‑of-government matters, some that relate to the Attorney-General. That’s things like the Integrity Commission and then there are some matters for Tasmania Police and –
Ms O’CONNOR – Four out of the five recommendations.
Mr ELLIS – Well, probably three out of the five would be the way that I would characterise it. We’ve fed the recommendations into the broader commission of inquiry work. We think that’s appropriate.
Paul Reynolds was a case study in the commission of inquiry and the recommendations that Ms Weiss provided are an important addition, we think, to the aid that was provided to Tasmania Police. In terms of the –
Ms O’CONNOR – Funding.
Mr ELLIS – In terms of the redress scheme, policy work is underway by the Department of Premier and Cabinet and the commission of inquiry team. In terms of what the design of that will look like, obviously that’s a really important area that we need to get right, because this is a very sensitive matter and redress schemes are complex. Ms Morgan-Wicks, the Department of Premier and Cabinet secretary, mentioned that, but mentioned that work is progressing. In regard to Tasmania Police recommendations, we’ve been able to progress some work on that already. I’ll pass to the commissioner to talk around the restorative practices and even the community engagement work. We have –
Ms O’CONNOR – I’m happy to get to the commissioner. Commissioner, I’m happy to hear from the commissioner soon. I might remind you it was the Greens’ relentless pushing that dragged your government into initiating the Weiss review, but –
Mr ELLIS – Ms O’Connor, I –
Ms O’CONNOR – Just specifically on the establishment, I’m thankful –
Mr ELLIS – I reject that. I don’t think it’s –
Ms O’CONNOR – That it was established.
Mr ELLIS – I don’t think it’s necessary to try to political point-score on this because –
Ms O’CONNOR – No, it’s not about political point-scoring.
Mr ELLIS – We have a strong –
Ms O’CONNOR – It’s about making sure the history’s correct.
CHAIR – Order. Order.
Mr ELLIS – Ms O’Connor, we have a strong commitment to ensuring that –
CHAIR – Minister, Hansard cannot record two people speaking at once. We have a question, then we have an answer, and we have no conversation in between. This is what it is: questions and answers. Thank you.
Ms O’CONNOR – Thank you, Chair. I’ll ask the question. Noting that this is a difficult and sensitive subject for anyone who’s watching the broadcast, on the establishment of the Weiss review itself, minister, can you explain to us why the terms of reference were written to exclude an examination of how and why the decision was made to hold a full honours police funeral for paedophile Paul Reynolds?
Mr ELLIS – Ms O’Connor, I’ll finalise the answer on the other two first so that we can ensure that people have an understanding of the answers to your questions. I do reject your characterisation. There is strong across-parliament support to ensure that there’s no stone that was left unturned.
Ms O’CONNOR – Absolutely.
Mr ELLIS – We believe immediately upon an examination of the commission of inquiry’s finding that there was more work that could be done in terms of Paul Reynolds and our understanding of how Tasmania Police – and the community that Paul Reynolds groomed was vulnerable to that kind of behaviour. Characterising it as a political matter is not helpful. I know the absolute commitment –
Ms O’CONNOR – I’m not. I’m trying to correct the record.
Mr ELLIS – I know the absolute commitment of Tasmania Police, this government and everyone in the community to ensure that that work was done. Now, as we mentioned, there is –
Ms O’CONNOR – The terms of reference.
Mr ELLIS – I’ll pass to the commissioner to talk around the resourcing that’s already been provided in responding to some of the recommendations. Recommendation 3, for example, we have a new –
Ms O’CONNOR – The question was about the terms of reference, minister, and why –
Mr ELLIS – I’m answering your previous question –
Ms O’CONNOR – A decision was made to exclude –
Mr ELLIS – Ms O’Connor, and then I’m happy to –
Ms O’CONNOR – You did answer that.
Mr ELLIS – Well, we didn’t even get to the bit where I pass to the commissioner to talk around the resourcing that you asked about. But if you like, we can move on. I’m just trying to be helpful.
Ms O’CONNOR – Okay, thank you. That’s good.
Mr ELLIS – Okay. I’ll pass to the commissioner –
Ms O’CONNOR – I’m happy to have –
Mr ELLIS – To give you an update about where we’re at in terms of the Tasmania Police recommendations.
Ms O’CONNOR – Thank you very much, minister and commissioner. Then perhaps we can get back to the terms of reference decisions.
Mr ELLIS – Yes, happy to.
Ms O’CONNOR – Thank you, Chair. Minister, the Weiss review made it really clear that cultural change is needed in Tasmania Police. That there was a culture of mates looking after mates. We’d like to understand what’s been done to address those cultural issues and I’d also like to understand what’s changed potentially in terms of how police recruit. I’m sure you’d agree, minister, prevention is always better than cure.
Mr ELLIS – Thank you, Ms O’Connor. I commend the Commissioner and her leadership team for the outstanding work that they’re doing in this space and ensuring that our police act with the highest degree of integrity and professionalism. They are key values for the organisation. I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again: they are – we have an exceptional leadership team and the survey results nationally demonstrate quite clearly that while Tasmania Police still has improvement to do among the leading police jurisdiction in the country and probably in the world as well. You’ll also notice that in our police professional standards a high and increasing number of complaints made against police officers are made by their peers in Tasmania. That’s really encouraging.
Ms O’CONNOR – That’s what happened in 2008, wasn’t it?
Mr ELLIS – Significant change has happened since then in terms of other oversight. But that rate is growing. That’s encouraging, because it’s Tasmania Police saying, ‘We own this culture and the need to continue to improve.’ We have always opportunities for continuous improvement. One in three, I think – and I’ll be corrected if I haven’t got that number right – of complaints in that space are actually originated by our team, because our team are holding their peers accountable when things are not going right or when they’re concerned that things are not going right.
You also see significant investment in terms of training. We mentioned before around child safety where that culture is being led right through the organisation. When we talk about all officers being trained, we’re including the people here at this table. That’s taking exceptional ownership of the fact that culture belongs to everyone in an organisation and we need to – that we always need to continue to improve and change needs to be led from the top but also led at every part of the organisation, too. I’ll pass over the team to –
Ms O’CONNOR – I would like to understand how it works practically and structurally to give effect to cultural change that’s necessary to prevent another Paul Reynolds and to protect children and young people, and then also what is it that’s changed in recruitment processes for Tasmania Police so that we’re psychometrically testing people and filtering out those who might prey on kids using their position of trust and authority.
Mr ELLIS – I’ll pass to the Commissioner.
Ms ADAMS – Thank you, minister, and through you. It’s a great question because culture is very challenging for organisations. We’ve made significant inroads in setting the standards of behaviour and expectations amongst our police officers. One of the first things that we did was to re-look at our values. Our values were in place for over 25 years, and, to be honest and frank, they were selected by the leadership group of the organisation at the time. If you don’t get –
Ms O’CONNOR – A bunch of blokes in suits.
Ms ADAMS – If you don’t get the buy‑in from staff from the bottom then you’re not going to get a commitment to changing behaviour and culture. We undertook a journey where we had a bottom-up approach to our values. We had 700 members of our staff participate in workshops and define, redefine, what was important to them and what was important to us in terms of how we’re going to behave.
Accountability, integrity, respect and support: they were the values that our staff identified, and they – then we’ve identified the behaviours that we expect of each other at every rank to be in alignment with those values. Then those values are obviously a key part of who we recruit. If you’re not aligned with our values then, you know, you’re not going to be suited to our organisation.
Ms O’CONNOR – How do you filter that out? Through you, minister, how do you filter that when you have some young person who wants to be a Tasmania Police officer come forward and seek employment with Tas Police? How do you identify whether they share the organisation’s values and how do you identify whether they’re a risk?
Ms ADAMS – It’s quite a rigorous recruitment process for an individual that they have to undertake. Many gates. It does include extensive psychometric testing. It then also includes bringing them down to the academy and putting them into scenarios and testing their judgment and decision-making around certain scenarios to get an understanding of, under pressure, what’s going to be the driver for their behaviour. You get some really valuable insights into some of those unconscious bias that you might see if you don’t get that opportunity to put them in a pressure situation.
The recruitment gateways, there are many, and we hope to get to a point where the number of recruits and the people that actually graduate, we’ve got the right people. As we’ve heard earlier, we’ve had 14 recruits who haven’t got through our program. We have that rigour. Sometimes we still don’t have the right recruit. I can’t sit here and say we’re not going to have somebody that’s going to behave against our values. But what we do do is the professional standards determinations are aligned to our values.
Mr ELLIS – Please note that not all fail because they are not safe to employ. Commissioner, just to quickly note that not all those recruits didn’t make it through because they weren’t necessarily safe.
Ms O’CONNOR – No, no.
Ms ADAMS – No, no.
Ms O’CONNOR – Personal circumstance.
CHAIR – Sure.
Mr ELLIS – I know you didn’t mean that.
Ms ADAMS – Yes.
Mr ELLIS – And just for them as well, yes.
Ms ADAMS – Yes. No, thank you.
CHAIR – I was thinking the same thing, minister.
Mr ELLIS – No, that’s all good. All good.
CHAIR – Personal circumstances change every day.
Ms ADAMS – Yes. Importantly, it’s not just about complaint conduct, it’s also about recognition. When you see somebody who actually behaves in alignment with our values, we need to showcase that. I get letters and I have people in the street that’ll talk to me and say the way that police officer came to our house and delivered that death message, sat down, had a coffee with us, actually explained the process, there’s a level of respect and support for that community, and we need to showcase that. We’ve got a whole recognition framework that also reinforces when officers behave in alignment with the values. The other thing for culture, you need a diverse workforce.
Ms O’CONNOR – Hear, hear.
Ms ADAMS – Yes. We are leaders in the country. Forty-one per cent of our organisation are women. It’s not just about gender. It’s also about the core community and the communities we represent. We are very active in ensuring that we broaden the way in which we recruit our new recruits to be representative of Tasmania, and we will continue to do that, because with diversity you get challenged. You challenge the status quo. That’s the commitment which we have. We know it’s a long journey. We know we’ll have hiccups along the way. But we’ve got a framework now to call out the behaviour, and that’s an important thing that everyone has bought into.
Ms O’CONNOR – Hear, hear.
