Page 1011 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 30 March 2011
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MS BURCH: Yes, well, I just thought I would get that out of the way from the very get-go. This government is absolutely 100 per cent committed to assisting children and young people, particularly those vulnerable children and young people who reside at the Bimberi Youth Justice Centre. It is a high risk and challenging environment, and I would like to put on record early in this debate that I fully support the current staff, the teachers, the youth detention officers and those working with difficult young people to change their lives for the better. This is the mantra of this government.
We have been very clear that we support the inquiry, and we encourage all people with an interest to participate fully, openly and frankly. I will get to some of those comments in a minute. When things go wrong, there is no doubt that we need to learn from them and improve our services to these young people. But it is important that this learning occurs in a positive, safe and secure environment. I welcome the strong community interest in Bimberi, and I am committed to transparency. But it is a shame that the Liberal opposition continue to distract from or even, indeed, obstruct the process of improvement.
We put in place a Human Rights Commission review to conduct an inquiry into the human rights audits of the youth justice system. The government is cooperating fully with the Bimberi review, because that is the appropriate mechanism of change. I urge everybody to embrace the change.
The chief executive and I have announced that Disability, Housing and Community Services staff are to cooperate fully with the inquiry by providing information in an open and honest way. I understand the advice has been reiterated by senior executives to their staff on many occasions. We have demonstrated this cooperation by encouraging staff to participate in surveys, attend interviews, write submissions and attend the Bimberi review drop-in clinics. Every utterance from my office and from the department has been for staff to be supported to cooperate.
I refer firstly to the third matter of concern in Mrs Dunne’s motion, which refers to the need for staff to work out a “strategy”. The matter was raised in a newspaper article on Monday, 28 March, and I am assured that staff were not asked to collude before the inquiry. If that occurred, I would find it unacceptable. I have advice from the officer involved, in whom I have faith. This is an officer who has dedicated his working life to supporting vulnerable people, particularly now in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Services unit. In regard to the discussion around the Bimberi review, my recognition was that Baz indicated that he was advised by officers close to the review process that they believed members of the review team were interested in contacting ATSIS to talk about the review. The offer was then made that, if staff wished to talk to the review team, they let their managers know so that strategies could be worked out in regard to how they may be supported and, given the very small numbers, to ensure minimal disruption to the work area. That is the advice that I have from those who were there.
Mr Hanson: Who cooked that one up?
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