Page 366 - Week 02 - Thursday, 8 March 2007
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further queried why the definition of privileged material was broader than the definition contained in the Corrections Management Bill 2006. I have provided a detailed response to the chair of the committee in response to these issues. The committee’s comments did not require any government amendments to the bill.
Let me turn to some of the comments that previous speakers have made. I listened to Dr Foskey with great respect on this matter. I understand her commitment to children and young people and to the day-to-day goings on at Quamby. I agree that it is a process of continuous improvement. This work has been ongoing for the last couple of years. It often seems to take a long time to progress these matters to where they are today. I will look more closely at the issue raised about consistency in how young people are treated at all times and whether we have incorporated or covered that through the exposure draft which is out for consultation at the moment.
The standing orders, the provisions in the new act and the amendments which we are urgently dealing with today, outside the exposure draft, are indications of steps that we are all taking to make sure that the framework that exists to support children who have to reside at Quamby is the best it can be. The legislative framework needs to be there first. The standing orders will come, but then there will be a process of training and other day-to-day activity at Quamby to make what we are talking about here a reality for young people and for staff.
We are working on the new scanning machine. We are going through procurement of that machine. It will greatly assist with some of the issues we have talked about today—in terms of subjecting young people to this kind of exercise when they enter Quamby. We will be one of the first jurisdictions to use a machine such as this to get around some of the very difficult issues of searches of young people. I look forward to that machine being in place at the earliest opportunity.
Let me turn to Mr Seselja’s comments about how we do not really need a Human Rights Act in order to treat people with dignity. To some extent I agree with that—that we do not need one piece of legislation to tell us how to do another piece of work which can equally be covered through its own provisions in its own legislation. However, it is important for members to remember that it is precisely because of the Human Rights Act that this work was commenced and undertaken. It was precisely because of the Human Rights Act that we established that Quamby was not legal in the first place, and never had been, and that for over 10 years we had been detaining young people at Quamby in an illegal shelter. It was through the human rights legislation and the human rights review of Quamby that these issues were picked up. That was also the case for the lack of a legislative or other base for some of the practices that had been going on in Quamby for many years—even prior to the establishment of Quamby at Symonston.
Whilst I accept Mr Seselja’s opposition to the Human Rights Act, I just remind him that, if it were not for this government’s position on Human Rights Act, the human rights audit of Quamby would not have been undertaken. It would not have been undertaken in accordance with the act; we would not have had that report; we would not necessarily have gone to these amendments. We would not have found that Quamby was illegal and fixed that up. And all the work that has been done on the
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