Dr WOODRUFF (Franklin - Leader of the Greens) - Mr Speaker, I move -
That the House take note of the following matter: commission of inquiry response.
In order for there to be an effective response to the enormous findings of the commission of inquiry and the 191 recommendations within them, there has to be confidence that the cultural change the Premier has talked about desiring to oversee has real substance and meaning to his words and what he is hoping to deliver.
It seems from his response to our question this morning about whether or not an investigation has been undertaken into past secretary Mr Michael Pervan, it is inexplicable in the context of wanting to set a new culture, because if there is no examination of the most serious failings that were outlined in the commission of inquiry by Mr Pervan's own evidence that he presented, his own words led to the commission of inquiry's comments and the testimony of other people led to their comments. They did not make this up, they did not pull it out of their back pocket - 3000 pages, so many hours of hearings, most of which do not appear in the report.
What is in there was carefully considered. There are some very clear patterns in the institutional responses to child sexual abuse that were investigated by the commission of inquiry and those patterns include minimising scrutiny or accountability related to the conduct of individuals, especially the individuals in power and with responsibility for protecting children and acting on allegations, by moving people sideways into new roles or by failing to do anything at all.
The commission of inquiry's comments state that Mr Pervan provided the commission with contradictory evidence. They document the string of failures by him to address serious concerns at Ashley, including unlawful practices. They raised questions about the truth of information that he provided as secretary to his ministers. There were questions about whether he ensured appropriate action was taken against individuals who were responsible for serious human rights violations at Ashley Youth Detention Centre. They also question his handlings of allegations that the Ashley manager had directed staff to forge isolation records to cover up illegal practices and his actions in relation to specific allegations of child sexual abuse.
We know that just before the commission started its public hearings the Government announced the abolition of the Department of Communities that Mr Pervan headed. They also announced that he would take on a new role in an entirely unrelated department, Natural Resources Tasmania, rather than continuing his long-term involvement in the human services area. Let us not forget that Mr Pervan was once secretary of Health and responsible at other times for the Ashley Youth Detention Centre over the period of time that the commission of inquiry undertook its investigations about departmental failings.
Given the commission's comments about Mr Pervan in the inquiry's report, victims/survivors here today and many other people in the community are understandably worried and asking if the move sideways of Mr Pervan was done as a substitute for taking any real actions against him for his conduct over the course of a decade. I ask the Premier again, because he is here today, what actions did the Government take in relation to Mr Pervan and the concerning conduct that was evidenced by the commission of inquiry?
In order to move forward and for victims/survivors and members of the Tasmanian community to have confidence that the cultural change, which can only be led by leaders - we can make all the frameworks and policy documents in the world, but it is leaders personally who will be responsible for setting culture in agencies and if there are no consequences for such serious alleged failings and allegations, what does this say to the heads of agency today and in the future? What it says is that maybe you can get to a point, like perhaps happened to Mr Pervan, where you are too big to fail, where the government of the day cannot afford to hold you to account for your actions. We understand what happened to Mr Pervan. He was put on a six-month contract and allowed to leave without any investigation. We understand he was given a golden handshake.
We would like the Premier say if that is true or not, but that is my understanding. I have heard from a person that they have that information in writing. I would really appreciate the Premier, at this point, being clear about it. All of Mr Pervan's failings were on public display. They were exposed by his evidence and by the evidence of victim/survivors, advocates and whistleblowers who gave their testimony about his alleged failings to act.
We are led to understand, from the Premier this morning, that there was never an investigation, which should have started right then, the day after. We all saw it, we all watched him give his evidence. We all watched other people give evidence about failures to act. It is a failure to act that is as important for victim/survivors as anything else.
