Clean slate for prison reform in the ACT
By Andrew Fraser
Oct 30, 2024

The Canberra community decided on 19 October to remove from its parliament the two most recent ministers for corrections, Mick Gentleman (Labor) and Emma Davidson (Green).

In mid-2023, Minister Gentleman chose not to act on the findings of the second and final report of Neil McAllister, the then independent inspector of correctional services.

Instead, Gentleman went on the attack, suggesting not only that the report was wrong in its conclusion that ACT prison conditions were deteriorating but claiming also that there was progress “that was not recognised in this report”. I must have missed his broadcast in the 18 months since about that progress.

Gentleman knocked back recommendations for more transparency and reporting about jail operations, particularly the transitional release program.

Davidson was minister when staff and former detainees were saying that the Territory’s sole prison was run by a clique, with bashings covered up and with its library a virtual drug supermarket, as reported recently in Pearls.

She was in the job, too, when prisoners died within the Alexander Maconochie Centre this year, and when Professor Ross Fitzgerald raised the parlous health of the celebrated inmate David McBride and other revelations about conditions in the supposedly human-rights compliant prison.

The absence of Gentleman and Davidson from the ACT’s 11th Legislative Assembly is an opportunity.

It is a chance for the returned “forever government” of Labor and Greens, as ABC analyst Antony Green puts it, to appoint a minister who can listen and absorb the evidence, and who has the courage to act on that evidence.

It is a chance for all the new and returned 25 parliamentarians to fulfil their oaths or affirmations to “discharge my responsibilities according to law”. That would include the Human Rights Act 2004.

Any problems with the prison fall squarely at the door of the parliament.

The legislative mechanisms, and relevant oversight bodies, are in place, and working.

The Human Rights Act provides, at Section 10(1) that no-one may be tortured; or treated or punished in a cruel, inhuman or degrading way. Section 19 provides that anyone deprived of liberty must be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person; that an accused person must be segregated from convicted people, except in exceptional circumstances, and that an accused person must be treated in a way that is appropriate for a person who has not been convicted.

McAllister’s manifold reports – including two whole-of-prison reviews – clearly showed the AMC falling foul of the legislation.

The new inspector, Rebecca Minty, has appropriate powers.

The Custodial Inspector Act provides that the inspector must examine and review the correctional centre at least once every three 3 years (and may review a critical incident on the inspector’s own initiative).

Ms Minty is to conduct her next whole-of-prison examination in 2025.

Further, the Act provides that the inspector may, at any time, enter a correctional centre at the inspector’s own initiative and may inspect any document, including a health record, relating to a detainee or the provision of a correctional service, or any other record required to be kept by the centre. She can also inspect any part of the correctional centre and any vehicle or equipment used at a correctional centre or in the provision of correctional services.

She may speak to, or privately interview, detainees and staff, as well as health workers and contractors.

The director-general, ACT Justice and Community Safety Directorate, Richard Glenn, must ensure that the inspector is given access to all parts of the prison and any relevant vehicle or equipment and also, at Section 20 (1)(b), that she “is able to talk to each detainee in the correctional centre at any time”. Obstructing or hindering the inspector is an offence carrying six months’ prison.

Ms Minty can also require a person to provide information, or attend an interview, if she reasonably believes they have material relevant to any inquiry.

The problem, clearly, is not the powers.
It has been the politicians.

But all of them, old and new, have a fresh chance now to take seriously what is put before them. It is, after all, but the product of their own legislation and the bodies they have set up.

The Legislative Assembly begins each sitting day with the Speaker asking Members “to stand in silence and pray or reflect on our responsibilities to the people of the Australian Capital Territory.”

Is there a greater responsibility than the treatment of our most marginalised?

Pearls and Irritations, October 30, 2024.