Dr WOODRUFF (Franklin - Leader of the Greens) - Mr Speaker, we are glad Labor has called this as a Matter of Public Importance to follow up on the issues I raised in Question Time this morning. We are very concerned that the commission of inquiry made it very clear in its report that it was hamstrung in a number of areas from being able to pursue disciplinary matters and to make findings of misconduct or adverse findings against a number of individuals including, and especially in this context, state servants.
We do not feel comfortable with the fact that the Premier wrote that letter to the three commissioners of the inquiry on 17 October, on the day that he was required to provide the House with options for an investigation into this matter. He wrote to the commissioners of inquiry about their statements where they made it clear they were limited and unable to make a number of findings in respect of state servants that they would otherwise have made. They pointed to the limitations in the Commissions of Inquiry Act and they noted they had issued 30 notices under section 18 of the Commissions of Inquiry Act to 22 people but only made one finding of misconduct.
What the Premier wrote in the letter to past commissioners Neave, Benjamin and Bromfield looks fine on the face of it, but why did he not write that letter before the final report was tabled? We know this Government and every single minister had access; every agency looked at the draft commission of inquiry report and had it for weeks - up to a month - we understand, prior to the final copy being submitted.
Why is the Premier writing it six weeks later? Why is he writing that letter after the commission of inquiry has been wound up? There is no capacity for those commissioners to act in any manner on this issue. There is no resourcing or re-opening. There is no attempt to try to find a legal process, a resourced process, for the commissioners to do this work. On what standing is he actually requiring the commissioners to now, at this point, provide information to the Tasmanian Government that he should have sought from them before they handed down their final report?
All the questions, all the issues they had, were writ large in that report. Every single minister in this House and the Premier and all the heads of agency had the commission of inquiry final report a month before Tasmanians saw it - a month before it was tabled in parliament. They knew then that there were state servants against whom adverse findings could not have been formally made by the commission because of limitations to the act and because of the role of lawyers and the state government in acting with and for, and advising state servants.
It is the case that the commission said misconduct includes conduct that could reasonably be considered likely to result in disciplinary proceedings and conduct by state servants that might attract adverse comment could require consideration of whether there has been a breach of the State Service principles or code of conduct. We consider there should be scope for a commission of inquiry to make adverse findings about state servants without this automatically or necessarily also constituting findings of misconduct. It was the relentless manner in which litigators pushed the commission to taking an incredibly narrow and very litigious approach to a definition of misconduct under the Commissions of Inquiry Act. That meant they were required to provide a level of specificity about the allegation that they were making. They had to provide a level of evidence supporting the allegation and they were also required to run an inquisitorial process within a limited time frame that obviously presented difficulties to the commission.
When the Premier writes to ex-commissioners and asks them to provide advice on whether a finding was unable to be made because of time limitations, legislative constraints or any other matter that restricted the commission's work in relation to any of those individuals who received misconduct notice, it is already written in the commission of inquiry report. They have already said they could not do it. They have said it. They said it and they said it a month before the Premier had this report. What has now happened is that there has only been one finding of misconduct and the Premier is trying to narrow the frame. He is trying to talk about perpetrators and criminal enforcement. Obviously, that is important but what is important is State servants must be held to account for covering up or dismissing or not acting on complaints of child sexual abuse that could have been prevented.
That is what we are concerned is not being properly investigated by this Government. Those people are still in place. They are undertaking work in their roles. We do not know that they are not. We do not know what has happened to those people but we know that the commission of inquiry wanted to make disciplinary statements about them without a formal misconduct but were prevented from doing that. The Premier had the opportunity to find out who those people were and what the problems were. He missed it, so now he either has to start the process again or recognising that these people are still providing advice on these matters.
