Dr WOODRUFF (Franklin - Leader of the Greens) - Thank you, Premier, for this ministerial statement. This is an extremely important matter. Many Tasmanians will be watching the response of the Government very closely. It comes from the commission of inquiry's strong statements that they had to make some difficult decisions when they wrote their report and frame their findings, one of which was the timing with which they wrapped up their review. They pointed specifically to the challenges they faced with the information they were able to publish. Section 194K of the Evidence Act prohibited the publication of some information after sexual offence charges had been made.
They were also concerned with the difficulty, and in some cases impossibility, to make adverse comments or findings that they would otherwise have made due to the state and lawyers arguing that, 'Any adverse comment about an individual's behaviour could constitute misconduct, for example, because it was a breach of the very broad State Service Code of Conduct'.
From what I read in this ministerial statement, although it provides an important start to the process of investigating the conditions in which the commission of inquiry was not able to properly investigate and make adverse findings against state servants, I do not read real understanding or self-reflection here on your part about the failings that have occurred with the Government being able to hold state servants to account.
You said you want to be very clear any allegations of child sexual abuse made against a state servant in the report led to their immediate removal from the workplace and notification to relevant external agencies. What you are missing here and what many victims/survivors are particularly concerned about, are the state servants who were involved in the cover up of child sexual abuse complaints, who had the knowledge that child sexual abuse was occurring but failed to act. They failed in their duty to uphold the law and they failed in their duty as state servants.
You appear to be taking a very narrow and tight frame when you are talking about perpetrators. I did not hear you referring to what the commissioners said on page 26 of volume 1, their difficulties were caused sometimes because:
We received evidence or information that implicated people after our public hearings or very close to finalising our report, which meant we did not have the time or ability to follow the required statutory processes.
They identified those were inadequate or constrained their work. They also said:
Pursuing an adverse finding would have been time-consuming, expensive, lengthened the life of our inquiry and diverted us away from other important activities such as designing recommendations for the future that could be implemented as quickly as possible.
Those of us who followed the testimonies and the evidence that was taken during the inquiry identified many times where very senior state servants were under intense scrutiny from commissioners. The only interpretation that one could have from their testimony was they had failed to act when there was evidence of child sexual abuse put before them. Some of them had failed many times to act.
We do not know whether what the commissioners have written in their report about not being able to make adverse findings against senior servants was in relation to those particular people. We do know that the role of the Government's lawyers, the role of the Office of Solicitor General and the advice given by the Office of Solicitor General was part of the problem that the commissioner's identified in them not being able to pursue and make adverse findings.
That is what we need to get to the bottom of. We welcome the referral to the Tasmanian Law Reform Institute. It is a pity that this work was not done before the commission of inquiry started its process, something the Greens raised with the then attorney-general, Elise Archer. We raised the fact that the TLRI in 2003 had flagged concerns with Tasmania's Commissions of Inquiry Act. Seventeen years later we raised that and that work was not done then. Here we are today, after the commission of inquiry has been undertaken - two years of great pain and suffering from victims/survivors and tens of thousands of dollars of Tasmanians' money - going back to do the work that should have been done three years ago.
It is a stain on this Government that they did not take proper actions at that time. We do not know what the TLRI will find. We welcome the opportunity to be involved in terms of reference drafting and also in relation to the legal advice.
