Page 3285 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 16 August 2011
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
show what this government are all about. The government say: “We have a human rights compliant system. We have a brand spanking new, shiny building.” It is all about bricks and mortar; it is never about people. They look and say, “Look how much money we spent on this building.” They spent $42 million. I may stand corrected; it may have been 40, but I think it was in excess of $40 million. It was originally a $20 million building; it became a $40 million building. And all that they can do is say, “Look at our wonderful building.”
It is a building that has failed. Before the building was opened, I attended a briefing out there and I was told how there were no hanging points. We know that that is not true because we know that a young person attempted to hang himself. As a result of that, part of the million-dollar security upgrade that we saw in the budget this year deals with the fact that there are hanging points all over the place in all of those cabins. That is what we were told when we went and visited Bimberi before it was opened.
We have seen it over and over again. We have all of these great facilities; it is a large and spread-out place. But for the most part these facilities are not used for the benefit of the young people there. We only have to turn to the issues in relation to education. We have seen continual failing in relation to education because of the turnover of staff, the lack of continuity of staff and the fact that the person who was responsible for the administration of the education centre is not on site. There was a constant turnover of staff and there was very little assistance for young people who, by the minister’s own admission in estimates and her staff’s own admission in estimates, or I think it was in the annual reports hearings—they talked about the usually low levels of intelligence of people who are in the youth justice environment, who have more than two standard deviations below the norm for IQ and who, because of their background and their experiences, are not good at decision making and who make bad decisions.
If these young people were in any other educational setting, they would have an independent learning plan and they would have teachers aides to assist them. They would be considered disadvantaged in the learning context. Almost every one of the young people at Bimberi fits that category, but none of those resources and facilities were available to them.
My time is about to expire, but this will not be the last time that I speak on the subject of the Bimberi youth detention centre. This report is welcome insofar as it highlights the litany of failures of this government, but that is not enough. We cannot have another report that says that you are doing badly. This government has to act, and we in this place have to ensure that it acts, for the benefit of the young people it is supposed to be protecting.
MS HUNTER (Ginninderra—Parliamentary Leader, ACT Greens) (4.43): I am pleased that the inquiry into the youth justice system in the ACT has produced such a thorough and comprehensive report. It is clear from the report that there is a lot of work to be done. A range of stakeholders were engaged to allow the commissioners to bring forward 224 recommendations to improve the outcomes for children, young people and staff within the youth justice system here in the ACT.
A human rights audit was conducted jointly with the Children and Young People Commissioner, and the findings of this audit revealed that being human rights
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video