Dr WOODRUFF (Franklin – Leader of the Greens) – Deputy Speaker, I rise to share our views on this very important bill. The Greens welcome this, which was broadly strongly supported by stakeholders and there are some questions from the consultation process which I will raise. It was a bill that was supported in full and without qualification by Carers Tasmania, the Tasmanian Bar, the Association of Massage Therapists, the Country Women’s Association in Tasmania, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners and the Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare.
It’s worth noting, however, that there were a number of stakeholders who raised concerns about the consultation process itself and the brief 14-day consultation process. Volunteering Tasmania is obviously a very key stakeholder in this space and they commented that they didn’t have enough time to meaningfully engage with all of their members across a very diverse sector. Given the importance of their views on these matters, that is concerning. Consultation processes, particularly on matters such as this, need to be genuine, and I acknowledge that there are deadline pressures in various situations for the government and there are competing priorities that can lead to less than optimal consultation timeframes and tabling, but I also note that this is a concerning trend under this government.
In my time in parliament what I have seen over this year is that we’ve had a couple of bills now that consultation has been sought on after they’ve been tabled. That is not a good consultation process and it signals to people who would make a contribution that they’re not really going to be listened to. It sounds as though the door is closed and it’s just ticking a box. It doesn’t signal an openness to making meaningful changes.
I am not making a point about the intentions or the motivations of the government in this instance, but I strongly encourage the government to manage the various stages of legislation better in the future to make sure that each stage has time for proper consultation and to bear in mind, particularly for legislation that requires the input of community groups, how difficult it is for community groups to meet, organise and distribute really important legislative changes to get their head around them in consultation timeframes. Two weeks is manifestly insufficient.
I want to talk about the inclusion of amendments to sections 18 and 49 of the principal act and the proposed new section 47A. These inclusions come from the feedback of the Commissioner for Children and Young People, and the amendments to section 19 have also been altered to reflect feedback from the Commissioner for Children and Young People.
Those amendments in turn, as we read them, mean that some of the recommendations that have been made by Laurel House have been indirectly addressed. I want to thank the work of Kathryn Fordyce, the CEO of Laurel House, for her continuing advocacy for victim/survivors to ensure that those abuses will never occur again. One of the recommendations they made that has not been affected by these amendments was the recommendation that the government amend the bill to:
Allow someone to apply for registration, where their registration under a corresponding law has been cancelled, if the person can establish the cancellation was due to malicious intent of a third party.
Minister, can you outline why this recommendation was not adopted?
The Council on the Ageing Tasmania recommended there should be clarification in respect of what constitutes an ‘equivalent category’ in section 51 of the principal act. Can you please give us an understanding of why this has not been defined and how this provision would be interpreted? This is in the instance where a person is already registered in Tasmania and there is an interstate decision to deny or cancel that person’s registration. What this section 51 amendment would require is that the registrar in Tasmania must cancel that person’s registration in the equivalent category. Maybe it seems like ‘equivalent category’ is obvious, but I guess between states there would be differences in legislation and therefore potentially grey areas about what a category is, so could you speak to that, please?
Recommendations were also made regarding educating community and volunteer organisations by a number of different people who made submissions about the new requirements that this act would usher in. Can you please talk to how the government intends to communicate these matters, particularly with a view to community organisations who are the least resourced and have very large numbers of people that they’re needing to communicate these changes with? What are your plans and what’s the timeline for communicating that?
In saying that, the Greens are really pleased to support this move to make sure that perpetrators can’t move between jurisdictions. There is notorious and abundant information that perpetrators have done this and we want to do everything we can as a state to protect vulnerable young people and this is a really good piece of legislation to make those changes. Thank you.
