Page 3088 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 24 September 2014
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is certainly what Minister Rattenbury and I have been trying to do over the past 1½ to two years since we have had some shared responsibility for this issue. That is exactly what we have been trying to do, to consider the health needs of a particularly vulnerable population within the jail and to look at how we balance their needs with what the health professionals and what the population health professionals would say.
As much as you would like to ignore this group, from the Canberra Liberals’ point of view, these people do leave jail and they leave jail with hepatitis C and then there is the risk of spreading that across the general population. They may actually have some contact with people that the Canberra Liberals like and then they are presented with the chance that they could get hepatitis C from the fact that this person has contracted hepatitis C in an environment where we did not offer a range of alternatives to reduce the risk of transmission.
It is not something that we could all pretend does not affect us because it affects one vulnerable group that we have nothing to do with and we do not socialise with them and we do not really want to see them that much, if that is the view. This affects the whole community and that is why we have needle and syringe programs operating across the general community—because we acknowledge that community transmission is a risk.
In response to our request, we have had lots of debates around the healthcare system in this place over many years, but would we accept any other workforce coming in and dictating whether or not they will allow a particular program to work? Would we allow the nurses in the adult mental health unit, for example, to say, “Sorry, actually, no, I do not want to work with those people” for whatever reason, or, “I am not going to implement that program”? Or do we allow teachers to have a clause in their EBA that says, “We will work but we will not work with children who require this type of treatment because that presents some health and safety risk to us”? We do not allow it across the ACT public service; we should not allow it in the jail.
The clause that is currently subject to some discussion around the table should not be allowed to remain in there. The government’s request that this head to arbitration so that we can resolve it and prison officers can get their pay and all the rest of it, as I understand it, has been rejected by the union representing those officers. I wonder why, when you could have an independent umpire come in and form a view and then, depending on the outcome, go and resolve the EBA, and people can get their pay and we can continue on the path we have taken for the last two or three years, which is to negotiate sensibly about the introduction of a very rational, very evidence-based policy to ensure that we are protecting the broader community and a very vulnerable group within the community to the best degree that we can while acknowledging the workplace concerns of members of staff.
All those concerns can be dealt with. Every one they have raised with me has had a reasonable and rational response but, as soon as we tick off those items and say that we have addressed that concern, other concerns present. The reality is that prison officers across Australia do not support needle and syringe programs. We do, and we will continue to work to implement one. (Time expired.)
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