Page 2361 - Week 06 - Thursday, 23 June 2011
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Doug Buchanan is very happy to go into the public domain to make his case and demand that scrutiny, appropriate scrutiny which Meredith Hunter wanted of this at one stage, comes to light. It is quite clear, from the estimates process and the answers provided by Mr Corbell, he intends for there to be no scrutiny.
Mr Buchanan also has made further damning allegations with regard to why he was pushed. I quote again from the paper:
Meanwhile the former superintendent of the Alexander Maconochie Centre claimed yesterday he was axed in part due to his opposition to the needle-and-syringe program at the jail.
The government has refused to divulge the reason for Mr Doug Buchanan’s departure last month, citing privacy concerns.
But Mr Buchanan has maintained his tenure was terminated against his wishes.
Yesterday he broke his silence about his departure, saying he believed one reason for his axing was his opposition to the Government’s proposed needle-syringe program.
“I opposed a needle exchange in a correctional environment due to the safety of staff …
What sort of message are we giving prisoners here that it’s okay to bring drugs into a prison? My position was well known. I would have opposed it morally and that wasn’t on the Government’s agenda.
“I support the union’s position on this, and I’m a union member myself. It’s dangerous enough without throwing syringes into the mix.”
We can see a motivation here from those in the government and those on the crossbench that they do not want this brought to light because it appears, based on the inquiry that we have made and the statements by Mr Buchanan, that there needs to be an investigation as to whether due process was followed. There is certainly enough evidence to suggest that it was not, and it needs inquiry. And it is not for me to make a judgement on that, and it is not for anyone else to, other than an appropriate authority. In this case, the Justice and Community Safety Committee of this Assembly is the appropriate authority that can make those proper investigations. If necessary, they can hold some of that in camera.
But what we do not want to see is another iteration of the bullying review that was buried as deep as it could be by this government. When allegations were made, when people, in that case, at the hospital were resigning en masse because of the problems, it was buried as deep as it could be by the government. What you are seeing here is that Mr Corbell has no intention of bringing this to light.
He is saying, on the one hand, that there is nothing to see here, that this was not a termination, that Mr Buchanan agreed to leave the AMC. But we have Mr Buchanan saying something very different. What we know is that Mr Buchanan was brought in
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