Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Hansard source

Today I want to talk about the custody notification service that has operated in New South Wales and the ACT for quite some time. It's a program that provides 24-hour legal advice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people if and when they are taken into police custody. It was set up in New South Wales and the ACT in 2000. It followed one of the recommendations and the model that was outlined in the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.

It has been about two years since I have spoken in this place about the custody notification system, or the CNS. It was under threat at one point. The New South Wales government was going to cease funding it. After quite a battle the federal government put some money in and the New South Wales government, I am very pleased to say, continued the service.

Why is it so important? Since its operation in New South Wales and the ACT, single-handedly the CNS has meant that, up until a tragic death earlier this year, there had not been one single death in custody in a police cell in New South Wales. It is because when the police take an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person into custody, they must phone the Aboriginal Legal Service, who runs the CNS program. That gives the person in custody early legal advice from an ALS lawyer, making sure that their fundamental legal rights are respected, and it has led to fewer Aboriginal people being imprisoned.

But the ALS lawyer will also ask the person being taken into custody, 'Are you okay?' And the answer is often no. There might be threats of self-harm or suicide. There might be concerns about access to medication, immediate medication that's required—that's a common concern—and they can also notify if they have any injuries or any injuries that may have been sustained in the arrest that need to be examined by a medical practitioner.

The CNS is absolute value for money. It costs just over half a million dollars a year to run—almost the same cost as locking up two juveniles. In New South Wales and the ACT, it assists over 15,000 people per year, averaging 300 calls per week. So for qualified legal advice for that welfare support, that wellbeing—court, bail and diversion efficiencies—it's not expensive for any government. As I said, significantly, it has prevented deaths in police cells up until the tragic death of Ms Maher last year.

Last year, I am proud to say, that the WA Labor Party adopted the CNS as part of its platform, indicating that it would, once in government, institute a CNS because WA has, along with the NT, very, very high rates of Aboriginal incarceration and we continue to have significant numbers of absolutely unavoidable deaths in WA. So I was really pleased to read in the paper last week that our Attorney-General, Mr John Quigley, has instructed his department to consult with relevant agencies and the federal government as to the procedural and operational details to implement the CNS in WA. I know that Minister Scullion has been fairly active around the implementation of the CNS, because he sees the value of it as it's happened in New South Wales and the ACT.

So what we are looking at now in WA is the introduction of this service and, unfortunately, it's come too late. After the tragic and avoidable death of Ms Dhu in custody in Port Hedland, it was one of the recommendations of the coronial inquest into her death that WA introduce a CNS. Unfortunately then, the Liberal government, Mr Barnett's government, was still in power and they ignored that advice from the coroner—in fact, they behaved disgracefully around the whole passing of Ms Dhu, as we know. Even more so, the federal government offered WA some funding to implement a CNS, and guess what? Mr Barnett, when Premier, refused. He thought that the visitor system—or indeed, his deputy at the time, or the person responsible, Mrs Harvey, who's still in the parliament, I might add, along with Mr Barnett—which operates in prisons across the country, is adequate. It is far from adequate. It does not offer legal advice. It happens after the event. It's a completely inadequate response and shows just how little the Barnett government really cared about the high rates of imprisonment of Aboriginal people that that offer was refused.

Certainly there is no doubt about it—there is no doubt in my mind or the minds of her family—that Ms Dhu would be alive today, if we'd had a CNS in place in Western Australia. She begged for help for severe pains in her stomach. If she'd been given access to an ALS lawyer on admission to that prison cell, the ALS could've agitated for that to happen. I am sure that agitation—external to the pleas that Ms Dhu was making—would have been acted upon. We know that she was taken twice to the local hospital where medical officers said there was nothing wrong with her, and we saw a police officer, in that shocking footage that the family wanted released, minutes before her death telling her she was faking it.

That's a disgraceful episode in our Western Australian history. Unfortunately, it's not unique.

If we get this CNS, as proposed by the McGowan government, and, indeed, Attorney-General Mr Quigley, that will go some way to rectifying and making prison a safe place if Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people find themselves arrested and taken to prison. Ms Dhu's mother, Della, said after the coronial inquest that she never ever wanted any other family to go through the trauma and the tragedy of her daughter's death. She said:

We do not want this to happen to anyone else. Our families are heartbroken and the pain has not left us. My daughter should be with us today. Her loss haunts me each day and it will remain but it will give me at least an ounce of peace to see the CNS implemented.

That was after the coroner recommended that Western Australia establish that.

In Western Australia, along with the Northern Territory and South Australia, we convict Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders at amongst the highest rates in the world. The CNS is a small step. I know that the McGowan government wants to change the record when it comes to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander incarceration. We know that Indigenous people are imprisoned at something like 17 per cent or 18 per cent higher than non-Indigenous people, and we really do need to change that record. I am not suggesting for a moment that the CNS is the be-all and end-all. It is a tiny little step. Much more needs to be done. We need to be doing much better on early intervention strategies.

In Western Australia, the McGowan government has inherited the highest rate in Australia of out-of-home care of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids. They are 16 times more likely to be taken from their families and placed in foster care, and of significant concern is that babies are being taken at birth. In the Kimberley region, every single child who finds themselves in out-to-of home care is an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child, and we know that there is a very strong correlation between out-of-home care and finding yourself in trouble as a juvenile.

I do note the sadness in Port Hedland. I was up there last week and I visited the youth centre, which is a fabulous centre. Those people knew Ms Dhu as a child and they all told me what a wonderful, remarkable care-free child she was. Her life was taken at the age of 21. The CNS would definitely have meant that Ms Dhu lived today.