Ms O’CONNOR question to MINISTER for EDUCATION, CHILDREN and YOUTH, Ms PALMER
Minister, look, frankly, it’s not good enough. Can you confirm that the reason that administrative leave, the responsibility falls to the Attorney-General or minister for Corrections, is because children are ending up in adult watch houses. The children who are your portfolio and policy responsibility, are ending up in the Corrections minister’s areas of portfolio and responsibility. It’s not because they’re not children; it’s because they’re ending up in adult prison cells. I note what you said about engaging on a regular basis with the Corrections minister about this matter. The question related to what strategies, plans, processes, are being developed to stop at-risk children, and young people, from being incarcerated with adult offenders, some of whom will be highly stressed, some of whom will be violent, and while you say your priority is to keep children away from watch houses, on at least 306 occasions in the year 2025-26, that ambition failed. So, what are you doing as minister to protect vulnerable children and young people, who are your portfolio responsibility.
ANSWER
I will just seek some advice.
I thank the member for the question. I am going to keep reiterating that you are asking me questions on an issue that falls outside of my portfolio, and I am here to answer questions with regard to my portfolio, which is children and youth –
Ms O’Connor – I just explained to you how it does it completely.
Ms PALMER – And what I can do is I can share with you information from the Department of Justice, from the relevant minister, regarding some of the key initiatives that have been implemented by the Department of Justice within Tasmania’s reception prisons, that do support young people to date. Things like the implementation of the use of body-worn cameras for staff who are engaging with young people. The procurement of the Childhood Foundation, to develop and deliver training for correctional officers and managers on trauma-informed engagement with children and young people in custodial settings.
The relevant minister and I absolutely do converse about this to ensure that I had a really good understanding of this situation so that I can support the relevant minister in the work that he has to do. I’ve been to visit, in particular, the Launceston Remand Centre. I have met with some of the custodial workers there, engaged with them so that I can understand the process of a young person coming into there. But my focus is on doing what I can to look at where we are able to actually keep children out of any sort of detention facility, and what can we be doing in that diversion space, how can we be supporting them to keep them engaged in school? How can we be supporting them to get them engaged in programs, in community environments? How can we keep them connected to their families? That is where my work needs to be, which is the work of this portfolio. But I am always engaging with the relevant minister to ensure that I can support him in the work that he needs to do under his portfolio.
