Ms O’CONNOR (Hobart) – Mr President, I will only make a brief contribution on this matter and thank the member for Nelson for bringing it forward.
Is it not disappointing how often we have debates in this parliament about government underfunding our integrity and accountability structures? We have the Ombudsman’s annual report out today, which I have only had a glance at, again calling for substantial reform of right to information. The Integrity Commission, which receives about half the funding of comparative jurisdiction’s integrity bodies in the ACT and the Northern Territory, a statutory office, the National Preventative Mechanism, who is manifestly overworked but has done everything that the parliament and the government asked of them in this role, to the point now where the funding for this role, according to Mr Connick himself, is not enough for him to fulfil his statutory responsibilities but, more importantly, not enough to allow him to undertake those inspections that will prevent the torture, cruel and inhumane treatment of people who have had their liberty taken away from them.
I noted in the correspondence from the Tasmanian OPCAT network a nod to the Attorney-General stating that the underfunding of the NPM was unacceptable. I do not recall that statement. I certainly recall minister Ogilvie, when she was asked at the table about the underfunding of the NPM and the statements that have been made by Mr Connick, almost desperate statements, said very clearly – and this is something that we need to follow up – that it was not good enough.
If the Attorney-General said that and I have missed it, or was not paying attention at that moment, that is a positive that there is an acknowledgement of the underfunding, but Ms Ogilvie initially tried to read from the brief in response to the question. We had an exchange where I said it was not going to be so productive if she just reads from a brief. I pointed out that the government could find $4 million for a chocolate fountain and cannot fund the National Preventive Mechanism. Minister Ogilvie said at some point that it was not good enough. She said:
I am really aware that our government has a duty of care to everybody that we have in a custodial setting. It’s really important. We have established this function. I mean, ongoing conversation with the custodial inspector and the NPM specifically in my areas of purview, but I do want to also say that it’s important that that occurs right across our justice system, and we know with the commission of inquiry work that there is so much work to be done. I recognise also this is a hard Budget.
Well, it was not a hard budget for the gambling industry. It was not a hard budget particularly for fans of the stadium. It definitely was not a hard budget for Cadbury’s, which, by the way, having been allocated millions of dollars in public funds through an election promise that is being delivered through the state budget, just last weekend was sacking workers. What a surprise. This government has provided public cash money to a multinational corporation to build a chocolate fountain, but what it really did was it helped Cadbury to sack Tasmanian workers – more than 20, from memory.
We had minister Ogilvie here saying so. Ms Webb, the honourable member for Nelson, asked the question in this budget:
Not one visit will be undertaken. Is that acceptable to you that the facilities you’re in charge of, as minister, will not get one visit from the NPM?
We had a flare of honesty at the table. Minister Ogilvie said:
It is not acceptable that we are establishing an organisation that needs more resources to do its funding.
Well, it says here funding, which I suspect is a typo – more resources to do its work. She said:
That is something that I am concerned about, and as I have said, I am in dialogue with the organisation about that.
It is now on the government, on the Attorney‑General, Deputy Premier and Treasurer, to stop this farce. It is simply not good enough for government, during a state election campaign, to be able to find hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars, to sprinkle around as part of your electioneering or vote‑buying, to chuck some money at a multinational corporation which turns around and sacks some of our people, but underfund the architecture and the structure that holds up our institutions and our democracy in the Integrity Commission, the Office of the Ombudsman and the Custodial Inspector, and the National Preventive Mechanism.
Parliament made its position on this very clear. In fact, we led the nation at that time. New Parliament, new Attorney‑General, but a massive slap in the face, in fact to Parliament, which voted through the OPCAT Bill, which agreed we wanted to establish this statutory function, because from our history we know we need eyes in these places to protect people.
Right now, we still have young people suffering in Ashley Youth Detention Centre. I am sure some changes have been made – how could they not be? The Custodial Inspector’s most recent report on Ashley Detention Youth Detention Centre noted some improvements. Still, every day there are people in places of detention, in youth justice facilities, aged care facilities, and supported accommodation. There are not the eyes in there. As a society, we want to believe that we have created systems and structures that provide safety for vulnerable people, but we leave a lot of it on trust. Parliament trusted this government to fund this statutory function and it is not properly funded. In fact, it is funded in such a manner that it seems deliberate. I am sure government does not want us in here or members of the community forming the view that they are deliberately underfunding our integrity and accountability bodies. I am sure the Attorney‑General does not want members of this parliament or the community to hold the view that he did not fight hard enough for funding for the Integrity Commission or the NPM.
I will close with this. The thing is that we cannot be sure that people who have had their liberty taken away from them, or who live in a constrained space where their freedoms are restricted, are not being subject to cruel, inhumane treatment or torture. We recognise the risk as a parliament. The Australian Government recognised the risk when it signed up to the optional protocol. The Tasmanian parliament understood it needed to take steps to mitigate risk. A significant part of that was the horrors that unfolded as eyes were cast on Ashley Youth Detention Centre, and whistleblowers came forward to tell us what was happening in there to children and young people, and what had happened to them.
We cannot be absolutely sure those things are not happening. The NPM cannot do visits at the moment; cannot even do visits. That is obviously why Mr Connick is fed up to his back teeth, having worked so hard and given so much to the people of Tasmania, and he is certainly unleashed on a recent committee inquiry I sat on. He is inviting members of parliament to come to a briefing so that we can collectively understand the seriousness of this underfunding choice – because it was a choice – and hopefully walk away from that briefing with a new resolve to make the government come good on its promise. At the moment, the risk is not sufficiently mitigated. That is on this government – the government that made a political choice to fund a chocolate fountain instead of funding the Integrity Commission and the NPM properly. Mr Connick’s budget request for the NPM was quite modest. I think it is about $2.7 million over the forward Estimates.
We cannot accept this. We cannot accept that government should be allowed to choose chocolate fountains and stadiums over the protection of people in detention. We will not accept it.
