Hansard: The prison breakout

HANSARD – 8 MARCH 2011

PRISONS – RISDON PRISON DISPUTE

[11.28 a.m.]
Mr MORRIS (Question) – My question is to the Minister for Corrections. Minister, do you have some comments in relation to the rather disturbing article on the front page of the Mercury today? Also, during the recent industrial dispute at the Risdon Prison complex you were asked whether you had a contingency strategy to ensure that prisoners were kept safe inside the prison? You responded at the time you were not able to disclose what this plan was for operational reasons. Minister, now that the immediate matter is resolved can you advise the House of what that contingency plan was?

Mr McKIM – I thank the member for his question, and yes I do and yes I can.

I will go to the Mercury story first, a highly concerning story. I am advised by my department this morning that the documents, excerpts of which were published in the Mercury this morning, were stolen from the Tasmanian Prison Service. This is a theft of protected and private case notes from the Tasmanian Prison Service. It is both illegal and a breach of the State Service code of conduct. I have asked the Director of Prisons to initiate an investigation, which is currently underway, and to report the matter to Tasmania Police for investigation, which has been done. I am also seeking advice on whether it would be appropriate to refer this matter to the Integrity Commission for investigation.

It is precisely this kind of behaviour from a very small minority of staff in the Tasmanian Prison Service that is unprofessional and the type of behaviour that I as a minister am endeavouring to stamp out of the Tasmanian Prison Service. Remember, we have had eight unauthorised lock downs in the Tasmanian Industrial Commission since 2007 and multiple other unauthorised, illegal lock downs occurring in our prison system over that period of time. This is further evidence that a small minority of staff will stop at nothing, even breaking the law, to prevent positive change from occurring in our correction system.

I have the utmost respect for correctional officers who choose to work in our prison system in the full knowledge that it is a high-risk environment. The overwhelming majority of correctional officers employed in the Tasmanian Prison Service are professional, hard working and supportive of change. It is a very small minority that will stop at nothing to prevent positive change from occurring in the Tasmanian prison system.

I am also deeply disappointed that the Mercury chose to run a story using stolen documents and did not approach either me or the department for comment prior to running that story. I am also seeking advice on whether the Mercury is in breach of Tasmanian law by running the information in that story.

Opposition members interjecting.

Mr McKIM – The Liberal Party might think this is not an important issue but this is a very important issue and I will not be distracted by the Liberal Party here.

No one who works in the department, nor I, will discuss personal information such as that revealed in the Mercury this morning, based on stolen documents and in breach at least of the Personal Information Protection Act. The Personal Information Protection Act 2004 makes it illegal to use information for another purpose other than that for which it is collected. The staff who have stolen this information have breached the principles in the Personal Information Protection Act. As I said, I will not be commenting on the details and personal information that were revealed in the Mercury today.

I want to make two other comments before I resume my seat. The first is in relation to comments that have been made, including erroneous comments from Liberal spokespeople, around the handcuffing regime at Risdon Prison. Let me be very clear about this. Any correctional officer at any time, if they feel threatened by an inmate, can handcuff that inmate. Any correctional officer at any time in any place in the prison, if they feel under threat, can handcuff the inmate. It is simply not true as some people, including Liberal Party spokespeople, have said that there are times when an inmate will not be handcuffed or cannot be handcuffed under the new operating model. That is false.

Finally, in the time available to me I want to respond briefly to the industrial situation that has been in existence at Risdon over the last couple of weeks. I firstly express my surprise that the Liberal Party do not deem this an important enough issue to ask a question on it today. As members would know, over a period of four days from Monday, 21 February this year, 58 correctional staff from the RPC were stood down without pay after they refused to undertake their required duties. I understand this has been a difficult time for correctional officers. I understand it has been a difficult time for their families, but ultimately the unions threatened an indefinite, illegal lock down of RPC maximum and medium security unless they got their way. As I have publicly said previously, the unions need to understand that they do not run Tasmania’s prisons; I do as minister and I accept that responsibility. I will do what I need to do to protect human rights obligations and ensure that we deliver under the Tasmanian Corrections Act.

As Mr Morris said, at times during that industrial dispute I was asked whether we had contingency plans in place if the dispute spread or ran for a long period. I acknowledge that I did have contingency plans in place and that at that time I was not going to disclose detail of those contingency plans because they were operational matters.

However, as a Greens minister I am committed to transparency so I am proactively going to disclose these today because there has been a cost incurred to the Tasmanian taxpayer as a result of the contingency plans. I am very glad to be able to do this. I want to make sure that people understand that as Corrections minister one of my primary duties is to ensure that the Tasmanian community is protected and safe and that our prison system is secure.

Mr Speaker, contingency plans were put in place in the event that the unions and their members broadened their industrial action to involve the State’s other prison facilities. The safety and security of our people, the Tasmanian community, is paramount and as is usual in these circumstances other jurisdictions were approached for assistance in providing correctional officers. The Western Australian corrections minister agreed to assist and was in a position to provide five Western Australian correctional officers. It was decided that the Western Australian officers would travel to Melbourne and remain there on standby in the event that unions decided to broaden their industrial action. They were there on standby to ensure that I could deliver on my responsibility to maximise and ensure that safety of the Tasmanian community.

Mr Speaker, Tasmania will pay the costs associated with these officers and that cost will be approximately $20 000. This action was motivated purely by an intent to ensure the safety of the Tasmanian community and the security and integrity of Tasmania’s prison system.

What Tim Morris, Greens Deputy Leader, says:

The Tasmanian Greens today welcomed the contingency plans enacted by the Minister for Corrections to deal with the potential back-down of more prison workers during the recent events at Risdon Prison that had previously been kept confidential due to ‘operational reason’.

Greens Deputy Leader Tim Morris MP said that now that the Minister was able to reveal what contingency plans were enacted during the recent Risdon Prison stand-down by employees shows that competent and appropriate measures have clearly been taken to protect prison workers and prisoners.

“The Minister for Corrections revealed that the recent contingency plan for the recent industrial dispute at the Risdon Prison Complex involved bringing some Correctional Officers from Western Australia to Melbourne so that they could be brought quickly to Tasmania if needed, fortunately they were not,” Mr Morris said.

“It is important to thank the Western Australian Government for being willing to assist in keeping the Tasmania community and the prisoners safe if there was a decision by workers to reduce staffing levels to a point where Tasmanian Police would be unable to fill the gaps.”

“Cleary there has been forward thinking and appropriate measures taken to enact a swift contingency plan should it have been required and the Minister should be congratulated for this effort,” Mr Morris said.

What the pollies said on the first day of Parliament,, TT Media releases HERE