Page 4228 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 21 September 2011
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were sensible steps implemented in response to an incident by the managers responsible. The government is confident that our managers continue to take the appropriate actions to deal with these matters.
The reality of the prison environment is that there are people in that environment, detainees, who have powerful drug abusing tendencies. They are prepared to do things to access drugs that others would find offensive. They do not baulk at making themselves sick and then separating out the drugs from their vomit. They do not baulk at hiding things in the private parts of their bodies. It can sometimes be hard to prevent diversion when people are prepared to go to these lengths.
But what is important to stress is that the rate of such incidents at the AMC is low. It is less than three incidents relating to diversion out of 40,000 occasions of the delivery of methadone to prisoners at the jail since the jail commenced operation. The good news is that the rate of incidents is low, it does occur, and we need simply to ensure that we take steps to respond to it as appropriate.
Finally, the only concern I have about Mr Hanson’s amendment is the issue of the call for a review of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. I trust that Mr Hanson is not asking the government to do a complete review of every element of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, because that is not something which is relevant to the ACT government’s jurisdiction. Indeed, it covers a whole range of matters that are not relevant to the matter before us in the Assembly at this time.
But if the intention of that proposal is to review the Aboriginal deaths in custody report in relation to our obligations around self-harm to Indigenous persons and notification requirements, which is what I understand it is, then the government is quite happy to agree to that.
Mr Assistant Speaker, what this highlights is that a shadow minister with a lot of time on his hands thinks that all of these matters should be managed in a micro fashion from his comfortable seat in the Assembly rather than recognising that our managers and Corrective Services staff on the ground just get on with the job and do it. An incident occurs and it is responded to. Procedures are updated and improved as a result.
It also recognises that the rate of incidents is very low. But where it does occur, because of the extreme behaviour of some detainees, there are staff and procedures in place to respond and to address it. The government has nothing to hide in relation to this matter. The government is prepared to accept the motion because what Mr Hanson asks are all things that have already been done or are being done. The motion highlights the type of micromanagement and simplistic approach we see from the shadow minister for corrections.
MS BRESNAN (Brindabella) (5.05): The Greens will support Mr Hanson’s motion today and thank him for bringing this important issue for Aboriginal people in custody to the Assembly for debate. What happened was a serious matter and I do hope no long-term harm has been caused to the detainee. I support Mr Hanson’s request for an
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