Page 1347 - Week 05 - Thursday, 31 May 2007
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Those aspects of custody which relate to the provision of health services will be governed by the requirement in the bill to provide adequate health care, the human rights standards which require detainees to receive health care equivalent to the health care available to the community as a whole, and the general law of governing the provision of health services in the ACT. A health professional must provide a standard of care equivalent to that available in the wider community regardless of how he or she is appointed. That is the safeguard, in the government’s view, that ensures that detainees and prisoners receive quality health care.
Proposed new clause 21A negatived.
Clauses 22 to 40, by leave, taken together and agreed to.
Clause 41.
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (5.51): I move amendment No 3 circulated in my name. [see schedule 2 at page 1362].
This amendment ensures that detainees are able to dress appropriately. While I do not suggest that ACT corrections staff will actually use clothing as a way of humiliating or prejudicing the legal position of detainees, it is best to make certain that they do not have that discretion. Anyone who has watched the A list in the Magistrate’s Court will know that many people are brought before the court in the clothes they were arrested in, having spent a night in police custody, and this can prejudice them. There is no doubt that the state should not be able to tilt the scales of justice by, for instance, requiring them to wear something like the Guantanamo-style orange jumpsuit—or red, blue or whatever. My amendment affords some protection against that happening. Proposed clauses 41 (l) and (1C) of my amendment recognise that sometimes it is not appropriate for detainees to wear their choice of clothing, but this should be a rare exception.
MR SESELJA (Molonglo) (5.52): The opposition will not be supporting this amendment. There comes a time when you can go a little bit too far in putting particular and specific rights into legislation and I think this is an example of that. I think that we can rely on corrections staff to act reasonably and not to force detainees into wearing things which are humiliating or otherwise. Going the extra mile and having a particular clause that requires the chief executive to ensure the remandees are allowed to wear the remandee’s own clothes while in detention is, I think, taking it a step too far and is more prescriptive than I would want to see in this legislation. I think it is probably taking the rights culture just a step too far, so the opposition will not be supporting this one.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo–Attorney-General, Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (5.53): The government will not be supporting this amendment. The reason we are not supporting this amendment is not around issues to do with putting some sort of indignity onto prisoners and remandees. It comes actually from the perspective of saying that these are matters which are important in terms of actually protecting the health and wellbeing of the person who is incarcerated as well as ensuring that the prison itself can operate in a reasonable way.
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