Page 1414 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 6 April 2011
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Mr Corbell: I thought this censure motion was about me, not about Amanda Bresnan.
MR SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr Corbell.
MR SESELJA: It is interesting, isn’t it, that Mr Corbell interjects to defend his main defender in Amanda Bresnan. It is interesting; it is important that we frame this debate. Why is it that this Labor-Greens alliance is producing these kinds of outcomes? What would it take for the Greens to ever support a censure in a minister? How low are they setting the bar now, in terms of ministerial performance, in not supporting this censure?
You could not have a longer list of reasons for a censure than have been presented by Mr Hanson in his motion. We have got the Burnet report; we have got the Hamburger review; we have got the litany of failures from this minister, from the false opening onwards. We have had a minister who has been a serial misleader of this Assembly and of the community. He has misled from left to right on this issue. It is very difficult to believe anything we are now told by this minister.
He has had to acknowledge that he misled on drug testing. What was told to the Assembly by both Minister Corbell and the Chief Minister was shown to be completely false when it came to drug testing. And it was an interesting, convenient mislead, wasn’t it? It was a convenient mislead because it was at a time when this minister was defending and saying: “No, no. We have rigorous drug testing procedures.” They went on and gave us false information to try and back up that claim. We were lied to by this government when it came to drug testing.
The motion outlines the series of failures and the shambolic mismanagement of this facility by this minister in particular. And we can go to the Burnet report. This is not Mr Hanson saying this; this is the Burnet report. Having looked at it, it finds a lack of leadership; drug services that are fragmented and poorly coordinated; drug policies that are not developed with front-line staff consultation, leading to ineffective outcomes; the human rights compliant approach in some cases harming rather than aiding effective management of the AMC and drug rehabilitation programs; an inadequate blood-borne virus testing regime means any data on hepatitis C or other diseases is unreliable; the inadequate hep C testing regime may actually be encouraging prisoners to take risks; many prisoners with hepatitis C experience poor access to treatment; illicit drug testing at the AMC is ineffective; strategies to prevent illicit drugs entering the AMC are failing; searching for drugs and contraband is inconsistent and results are questionable; case management of prisoners is inadequate; prisoner through-care is inadequate; counselling of prisoners is deficient; education, employment and recreational programs and facilities are inadequate and compare unfavourably with New South Wales; drug rehabilitation programs are limited, are poorly attended and in some cases under-resourced; the mixed category AMC that includes male, female, remand and sentenced prisoners leads to negative outcomes, particularly for remandees and females; prisoners experience poor access to health care that is not in accordance with the human rights framework; prisoners with mental illness are not receiving adequate support; health staff appear to be pushing methadone on prisoners after they had already detoxed from other drugs; and there is conflict between ACT Health and ACT Corrective Services on a number of issues.
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