Page 2200 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 4 June 2013
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schemes, we understand that reporting and record keeping are a fundamental safety measure for people who are dependent on others for treatment or care.
The 2012 Victorian community visitors annual report documents cases where a person’s injuries were not properly treated because they were not reported to staff, and about threats to the safety of patients that were not appropriately managed because they were not reported. These are safety issues. These are human rights issues. And these people deserve better.
We do not want that happening to people in the ACT. Vulnerable people must not be subjected to harm, abuse or neglect because systems have failed. By shining a light on record keeping, we send a clear message to everyone that the systems that service our most vulnerable people must be robust, effective, and capable of withstanding scrutiny.
What this bill does is change the emphasis in the new schemes from complaints management to transparency. The bill substitutes the word “inspect” used throughout the Official Visitor Act with the word “visit”. This is a benign amendment to clarify the way the scheme works. Official visitors do not inspect places. They visit places. They have the authority to inspect documents, with the relevant consent, but they are not inspectors.
Some individuals have expressed frustration that the official visitor scheme is not performing according to their notion of what official visitors do and what the scheme is designed to achieve. The official visitor scheme is not an advocacy scheme. It is a transparency and human rights monitoring scheme. It is concerned with the systems that are in place to protect the safety and the dignity of our most vulnerable people. Official visitors are problem solvers; they are dynamic and quick-thinking individuals with exceptional powers of observation and communication. They get things done—at a ground level or by escalating the problems they identify. And they achieve this by visiting.
When we debated the Official Visitor Act, we talked about the difficulty of applying a closed environment model to open environments like disability services and homelessness. Even understanding the significant differences between these environments, human beings need to feel that they have space that is their own, free from unreasonable intrusion.
So whether we are talking about cells or private homes, a bed or a room, if we are to uphold the principle of human dignity, we cannot apply a notion of inspecting these places.
The word “visit” in no way diminishes an official visitor’s authority. “Visit” carries with it the idea of a request to enter, the wait for an invitation, the notion of courtesy and respect. This is how official visitors interact in their environments. This is how our scheme must be understood.
The bill makes a number of changes to definitions in the Official Visitor Act which were unclear or incorrect. What I will add to this discussion is that the bill adds key
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