Lidia Thorpe (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Morrison government fails at everything it does. Protecting the human rights of imprisoned or detained people is another thing to add to its long list of failures. This country is not complying with its international obligations with the optional protocol to the convention against torture, or OPCAT for short.

On 21 December 2017 the Liberal government ratified OPCAT because of the royal commission into the Don Dale children's prison in the Northern Territory. By ratifying OPCAT we gave a commitment to the world that we would be bound by the treaty to prevent torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The deadline for this country to fully implement its OPCAT commitments and incorporate the terms of the treaty into the laws, policies and practice of this country was 20 January 2022. Of course, again, the Morrison government failed. They had four years to act, and they failed.

The core obligation this country has in ratifying OPCAT is to establish what's called a national preventive mechanism, or NPM. The NPM is a system of regular visits to places of detention by an independent body that investigates any breaches of the human rights of imprisoned people. Ratification also requires this country to allow the United Nations Committee Against Torture to also visit places of detention and inspect them, to prevent abuses.

When we ratified OPCAT this government invoked article 24 of the convention, which allowed them to postpone their obligations to establish an NPM until January 2022. They argued that postponing the implementation of OPCAT to January 2022 was needed to negotiate with the states and territories. This government never gave a clear public indication of how they were going to meet the January 2022 deadline, and it wasn't because we didn't try to get answers; I raised these issues in estimates, the Australia OPCAT Network was also on the case, and the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service and a number of academics had been trying to get an answer from this government about how OPCAT was going to be implemented, and all we got was slogans and nonsense.

The Australian Human Rights Commission, the United Nations subcommittee on prevention of torture and particularly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander legal services have made it clear that the Commonwealth government needs to fully implement OPCAT through federal legislation and more public funding. Every state and territory have the responsibility to enact an NPM to oversee police and prison cells, police cars and other closed institutions within their state and territory. To do this, they need national leadership and public funding; it's as simple as that. But, of course, this government has done nothing.

Both Victoria and New South Wales have said the reason they haven't acted faster on OPCAT is that the Commonwealth hasn't provided any leadership or any money. The Attorney-General's own department has acknowledged publicly that the full, culturally safe implementation of OPCAT would achieve justice targets 10 and 11 of the Closing the Gap agreement. Remember Closing the Gap? You wave the Closing the Gap flag but forget about getting rid of any torturous behaviours within Closing the Gap targets. We wouldn't want to stop the torture! These targets in Closing the Gap are meant to reduce how many First Nations people are held in adult and children's jails. But, of course, the government have done nothing. They know there have been over 500 Aboriginal deaths in custody since the royal commission, and we still have no answers from the government. We still have no-one being held accountable and we still don't have a system to prevent torture and abuse in prison. We allow it.

In 2017, both the National Children's Commissioner and the Attorney-General acknowledged that, if a fully implemented OPCAT system had been in place, the horrific treatment uncovered at Don Dale would likely not have ever happened. In 2018, the Prime Minister announced the aged-care royal commission. He reflected on the closing of the Oakden facility in South Australia as the catalyst for the inquiry. He added that chief psychiatrist Dr Aaron Groves said OPCAT inspections could have prevented Oakden mistreatment. What do you know? We all know how much this government prioritises aged care!

It is absolutely unbelievable that I am standing here today asking—in fact, I'm begging—for this government to do the right thing and end torture. Just end torture in this country. End the mistreatment that goes on in these prisons and other places of detention. How is it that we have to beg the government to stamp out torture? Please stop torturing people in this country. Please!

This government doesn't care about us. It does not care about you. That's why it has to go. Implementing OPCAT is about protecting all people. OPCAT is about protecting people whose equal worth, rights and dignity are being challenged or denied. Implementing OPCAT is also about giving people who see these injustices the tools to get together and fight them. The full implementation of OPCAT would provide all of us—young and old, rich and poor—the tools to demand we are treated as equals in our society, particularly in closed settings like prisons, where abuse and torture flourish when there is no oversight.

While this country signed on to the international agreement to prevent torture in 2009, it wasn't until the disgrace of Don Dale that this country ratified it in December 2017. Fast forward to 2022 and this government is still denying imprisoned and detained people their full dignity, respect and justice. That is why they have to go.

The Greens, in a balance of power, would make sure that a future Labor government would live up to our international obligations under OPCAT. The Greens would make sure that public funding is secured for the full, culturally safe implementation of OPCAT. We would also establish a countrywide police ombudsman system. The police ombudsman would be a fully independent and impartial body to handle complaints about the conduct of police officers and take appropriate action. Is that too much to ask? Please end torture! Please!