Page 920 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 29 March 2011
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
It is the same internally—there need to be compliance checks of policies and procedures. Staff need to be properly trained and have an ongoing training program. It is fine to have somebody go in and to walk through to look at the practices of staff. That is all well and good, but that person on their own is not going to change the culture. This needs to be embraced by all. It needs to be embraced by the department. The department need to be very open about what they are doing and how they are doing it.
I remember asking several months ago about the Aboriginal liaison position, because I had been approached by members of the community to say that there was no identified person at Bimberi in the Aboriginal liaison officer position. I got answers back to say: “No, no, it’s okay. We have got a person.” It turned out that it was one of the case managers who performed this role for a small part of their normal job. But it was not clear that any of the families or any of the young people had been informed that this was the person.
I note in the statement today that recruitment is going on for an Aboriginal liaison officer. I guess I am pleased that at least it has been identified as a position and recruitment is going on, but we know about the over-representation of Aboriginals in our youth correctional facility, and it is a scandal. It is a terrible situation, and it is essential to have in place cultural programs and support and contact with kin and family. That is one of the reasons why that position is so important.
Now that many of these things are on the table, I really am hopeful that we might see some change, but it requires commitment, it requires resources and it requires dollars. They will have to flow not just from this report but, no doubt, from what comes out of the Bimberi review inquiry.
There are a number of things that cause me concern, as I said. I am surprised we have not had a training officer and a quality, care and compliance officer. I am surprised that it has taken the bashing of a man to bring about these reviews to reveal that we probably should have improved staffing levels to match the increasing resident population. We have known for several months that there has been an increase in population. We have gone from about 10 to 12 young people at Bimberi to up to 30. It is not rocket science to know that that requires extra staffing and, therefore, recruitment needed to be undertaken to support the staff on deck and on board.
Unfortunately, we got to a place where we needed to contract MSS security officers to fill gaps in security. But I was told very clearly in a briefing that MSS security officers would not have contact with young people and they would be supervised at all times. The review as a result of this incident clearly shows a major breach has occurred. I will look with interest at what comes out of the Clayton Utz inquiry and other information and recommendations that will come from the current two inquiries. We have not got the full inquiry at this point.
I ask the minister to be strong on this issue and to ask the department the hard questions. She should not just take information on face value; she should be checking that with the community organisations going into Bimberi. I know from many
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video