Police Corruption and Misconduct
MS PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (18:10:36): My adjournment matter is for the Special Minister of State. As the minister is aware, the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission Committee last year inquired into, considered and reported on the external oversight and investigation of police corruption and misconduct in Victoria.
The extensive bipartisan report made 69 sweeping recommendations to improve the transparency, impartiality, effectiveness and efficiency of the system, determining that serious police misconduct should not be left to the police to investigate and that probes should instead be conducted by Victoria’s corruption watchdog, the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission. In fact recommendation 2 says: … IBAC should formally establish a dedicated Police Corruption and Misconduct Division to increase public confidence in Victoria’s system for the handling of complaints about police corruption and other misconduct, improve its capacity to conduct effective investigations, enhance its independence, develop its expertise and improve its overall performance.
This division should consolidate IBAC’s legislated functions that relate to complaints and disclosures about police corruption and other misconduct in Victoria. This was a very sensible recommendation and, as I say, it was a multipartisan committee. In fact the report is very extensive and runs to 700 pages. Unfortunately it was not tabled until September so the government did not respond to the inquiry in the 58th Parliament.
This is something that I am interested in—what happens to all of the recommendations from all of the very good inquiries that are done in this place? One day I will have time to go and form a list of the recommendations that have been made, the ones that the government of the day has agreed to and which ones have actually been enacted or just ignored. So the action I seek from the minister tonight is a commitment to implement the report’s recommendation in this term of government to ensure that serious complaints about police are independently investigated.
Fiona Patten MP
Leader of Reason
Member for Northern Metropolitan Region
Adjournment matter raised 1/5/19
Answer
Mr JENNINGS (South Eastern Metropolitan—Leader of the Government, Special Minister of State, Minister for Priority Precincts, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs):
The Government is currently considering recommendations directed to it in the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) Committee’s report on the Inquiry into the external oversight of police corruption and misconduct in Victoria (report), and will table a Government Response in Parliament in due course.
I note recommendation 2 in the report, that IBAC should formally establish a dedicated Police Corruption and Misconduct Division, is directed to IBAC. As IBAC is an independent body, the Government cannot commit IBAC to implement this recommendation.
The Government is committed to:
• supporting the ongoing role of IBAC in the external oversight of police;
• ensuring both IBAC and Victoria Police continue to play important roles in embedding and upholding integrity within Victoria Police;
• ensuring that IBAC has all the powers necessary to effectively oversee and investigate allegations of police misconduct and corruption; and
• providing a police complaints system that is transparent, accessible, and focused on improving the experience and protecting the well-being of complainants.
The Government will continue to work with stakeholders and the community to progress this important work.
Past adoption practices
MS PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (17:11:03):
My adjournment matter is for the Attorney-General, and the action I seek relates to the barriers to claims made by mothers whose children were forcibly adopted.
As many in this chamber would know, on 25 October 2012 the Victorian Parliament issued a formal apology to those harmed by past adoption practices in Victoria and acknowledged that many thousands of Victorian babies were taken from their mothers without informed consent.
I would just like to quote a little bit from that apology: We express our sincere sorrow and regret for the health and welfare policies that condoned the practice of forced separations. These were misguided, unwarranted, and they caused immeasurable pain. Between the 1950s and 1970s as many as 250 000 babies were taken from their mothers as a result of state government forced adoption practices.
However, given the passage of time between the conduct and the apology, claims for damages are barred by the Limitations of Actions Act 1958. Just as the Limitation of Actions Amendment (Child Abuse) Act 2015 removed the limitation period that applies to causes of action relating to death or personal injury relating to the child abuse, that limitation was removed to enable historical child abuse cases to be heard and compensated for.
The action that I seek is that the minister apply the same reasoning and consider establishing a mechanism to compensate mothers whose children were forcibly adopted.
Fiona Patten MP
Leader of Reason
Member for Northern Metropolitan Region
Adjournment matter raised 20/3/19
Social and community housing
MS PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (16:45:36):
My matter this evening is important but probably not as interesting as Mr Finn’s. It is for the Minister for Planning, and the action I seek is an expansion of the Inclusionary Housing pilot program that has been going on, as well as an increase in the social housing percentages. It is sad; it is a disgrace that Victoria spends less than any other state on public and community housing. Just 3.5 per cent of all dwellings fall into this category. This is despite Melbourne boasting over 200 hectares of government-owned land that could host 30 000 homes—and this is according to the University of Melbourne. So I am joining with a number of organisations, being the Victorian Council of Social Service, the Council to Homeless Persons, the Community Housing Industry Association Victoria, Domestic Violence Victoria, Tenants Victoria and the Victorian Public Tenants Association, to work alongside them in building 3000 extra homes each year—effectively a new Whittlesea each year. Now, this can be done by expanding how we use public land, but it can also be expanded in lots of more novel ways like build-to-rent programs or by setting incentives for developers to introduce social housing into their developments. There is a whole range of tools and levers that we have. But we have to act now. At the moment the government has announced that it will build 100 new houses. That does not go anywhere near—that is a drop in the ocean—what we need. There were 80 000 people looking for housing over the last four years. Twenty thousand sought help from homelessness services just last year, and one in three of them was turned away. So we have an absolute crisis, and I know any of us who walk around the city can see that crisis firsthand. It is in our suburbs, but particularly we see it in our streets. So the action that I am seeking is for the government to extend the Inclusionary Housing pilot program and set up some ambitious social housing percentages in the surplus government residential land sales.
Fiona Patten MP
Leader of Reason
Member of Northern Metropolitan Region
Adjournment raised 6/3/19
Answer
Mr WYNNE (Richmond—Minister for Planning, Minister for Housing, Minister for Multicultural Affairs):
I thank the Member for the Northern Metropolitan region for her question.
The Government’s $2.6 billion commitment to increase and renew public housing and address homelessness is demonstrated through the Homes for Victorians package. The Inclusionary Housing Pilot (Pilot) is key part of this package.
The Pilot is utilising surplus government land for housing on six sites with good access to jobs and transport. The Pilot will provide a minimum of 100 new social housing homes across the six sites which will be delivered in partnership with registered community housing providers. In addition to social housing, there will be provision of affordable housing on each site.
The Government intends to use the findings of the Pilot to inform its future decision making around the sale of surplus government land and in developing its affordable housing policy.
I also note recent amendments to the Yarra Planning Scheme which require provision for 20 per cent of dwellings as affordable housing at the former Fitzroy Gasworks site and up to 10 per cent of affordable housing at 64 Alexandra Parade, Clifton Hill. In addition, recent changes to the Bayside Planning Scheme require provision of 10 per cent affordable housing on the former Highett Gas Works Site.
I acknowledge the Member’s ongoing interest in the Inclusionary Housing Pilot and her ongoing advocacy around social and community housing, if the Member would like to discuss any of these matters with me further, I encourage her to contact my office to organise a meeting.
Royal Commission into Mental Health
MS PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (18:39:22):
My adjournment matter today is for the Minister for Mental Health, Mr Foley, and it is about loneliness. I congratulate the government on the community consultation in putting together the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into Mental Health. I have certainly seen some of the submissions from organisations in my community. But in regards to loneliness, aloneness is one thing—being on your own. Spending a lot of time as an MP and speaking to lots of people, sometimes it feels really good just to be alone. But loneliness is the opposite.
Loneliness is where there is just a yawning lack of anything in your life, which could be human companionship, and it opens up a very deep and dark black hole inside us. In fact loneliness is an extraordinary health risk. It is linked to increased mental health issues. We know that loneliness is a precursor to a number of mental health issues and also to chronic health issues. Being lonely has the same health implications for heart disease as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, so this is an incredibly important health issue as well as a societal one.
We know people who are lonely are more likely to go to the GP. They are more likely to attend emergency departments. They are more likely to call ambulances. They are more likely to die earlier. They are more likely to get diabetes. In the last study that was done by Lifeline, it was found that 82 per cent of us had experienced loneliness in our lives.
We talk about social isolation in this chamber from time to time, and I think it is something that is really important. I for one have seen it in the end-of-life choices inquiry and in the retirement housing sector inquiry—in many inquiries in looking at how we can deal with social isolation.
The London School of Economics found that loneliness costs the community somewhere between $3000 and $11 000 per person per year, let alone deaths. In moving forward with this really important royal commission, the action that I am seeking is that the government ensure that loneliness is part of the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into Mental Health.
Fiona Patten MP
Leader of Reason
Member for Northern Metropolitan Region
Adjournment matter 19/2/2019
Answer
Mr FOLEY (Albert Park—Minister for Mental Health, Minister for Equality, Minister for Creative Industries):
The Andrews Labor Government recently announced the Terms of Reference and Commissioners for the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System—the first of its kind in Australia.
Through the Terms of Reference, the Royal Commission has been asked to consider how to most effectively prevent mental illness and suicide, recognising that strong mental health is a key factor that helps people to feel included in society, participate in the community, and connect with their friends and family.
Alongside the Royal Commission, the Productivity Commission is conducting a national inquiry examining the effect of mental health on people’s ability to participate and prosper in the community and workplace, and the effects it has more generally on our economy and productivity.
Together, these inquiries will explore new ways to most effectively prevent mental illness, including through tackling the impact that isolation and loneliness can have on a person’s health and wellbeing.
The Andrews Labor Government currently supports a range of community participation programs and platform for particular cohorts, such as young people, people with a disability and older Victorians. This includes support for over 400 neighbourhood houses and 100 men’s sheds.
Citizens Jury to review elections
Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (18:36): Before I start, I would just like to wish everyone a merry Christmas. I hope you all have a lovely break and come back with renewed energy for this place—
Members interjecting.
Ms PATTEN: I know. It is day one, but somehow—
Members interjecting.
Ms PATTEN: Yes. My adjournment matter this evening is for the Special Minister of State, and it relates to electoral reform. As we are well aware in this house, the joint house Electoral Matters Committee is required to inquire into, consider and report to the Parliament on any proposal, matter or thing concerned with the conduct of parliamentary elections and referendums in Victoria. Having sat on this committee in the 58th Parliament, and I hope that I might get the opportunity to do so again, I know that it acts with integrity and has completed some excellent work. But it still remains the situation that those who get elected review the election, and while I know we do this, there still seems to be an inherent conflict of interest. Certainly it could be perceived as that.
I have every belief that the Electoral Matters Committee can and will thoroughly review the 2018 state election, but I also believe that the system needs to be reviewed outside, and outside to us. I know that many of us will have had comments made about the system over the election period. Post-election I have certainly had people asking, ‘How can we do democracy better?’.
We trust citizens juries on complex criminal trials every day. We trusted a citizens jury following the dismissal of Greater Geelong City Council in 2016, when the Victorian government consulted with the community on the structure of its future elected council. That was a groundbreaking engagement process. No other community had ever before had the chance to influence its council structure to this extent. That 100-person jury, which met over four days and considered a wide range of inputs and information, set a fine precedent for a community review of democratic processes.
With that successful process in mind, the action I seek is that in parallel to any work of the Electoral Matters Committee the Special Minister for State commission a citizens jury to review the 2018 Victorian state election and make recommendations to this Parliament on the conduct of future elections.
Fiona Patten MP
Leader of Reason
Member for Northern Metropolitan Region
Adjournment matter 19/12/18
Answer
Mr JENNINGS provided the following response in the House:
Ms Patten raised for my attention a matter dealing with a review for electoral reform. If this was a citizens jury in this chamber, I would think that probably at the moment something in the order of 30 or 40 of the members of this chamber would actually be pretty happy with the electoral outcome, but we do not take that for granted. Ms Patten is actually putting on record that there may be some people in the community who may have a different view from the views of those of us in the chamber in relation to whether we think the electoral outcome is a good one or a bad one. What happens is that the Electoral Matters Committee of the Parliament will review the effective operations of the Parliament, so a committee will be established in the Parliament to look at that. The Victorian Electoral Commission itself will have a look at these matters and actually look at the review of the effectiveness of the operations of the election.
I will take consideration of what Ms Patten has implored me to look at, which is in fact to use a particular method, a citizens jury, as the way in which we may review the effectiveness of the electoral outcomes and the way in which our electoral system works in terms of determining the outcome of this chamber. But I start from the premise of recognising the choice of the people and the outcome of the election on the basis of the method of electoral process that has led to us all being here. I do not start by questioning the legitimacy of any member that has actually arrived through the electoral process, but I look forward to the debates and consideration of the appropriateness of that method into the future.
Victorian Electoral Commission direct enrolment
MS PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (17:42:04) — My adjournment matter tonight is for the Special Minister of State, and it relates to the Victorian Electoral Commission’s (VEC) direct enrolment of students onto the electoral roll. The VEC had been doing automatic enrolments since 2010, and it was actually a great service. They sent out a 17th birthday card to students and then when the student turned 18 years they would be directly enrolled onto the electoral roll. But this process stopped a couple of years ago. The VEC stated that this was due to the fact that they became overwhelmed with a whole range of electoral matters and they really could not keep up with the direct enrolment process that they had done previously.
They are re-instigating direct enrolment now, which I am very pleased about. As we know, they get that information from the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority. But what they have decided to do is only directly enrol students at the end of term, after they have done all their exams. So all of these 18-year-olds will miss out on voting in this election unless they enrol themselves.
The action I am seeking from the minister is for him to ask the electoral commission to go back to their regular process of automatically enrolling students when they turn 18 years rather than doing it in a bulk lot at the end of term when the Australian tertiary admission rank scores come out. This will obviously enable students to be enrolled for the upcoming November election.
Assisted reproductive programs
MS PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (17:24:13) — My adjournment matter today is for the Minister for Health, and the action I seek is a review of the requirements under the Assisted Reproductive Treatment Act 2008. Under this act all patients that are accessing assisted reproductive programs, or IVF, are required to undertake a Victorian criminal police record check prior. They are also required to fill in police form 820B, ‘Consent to check and release national police record’. They then have to fill in another form applying for a child protection order check, and if they are from overseas, they have to then go back to their native country and apply for a police check in that country.
Now, as many of us are well aware, the process of IVF is quite a roller-coaster for many people, and many people do not have a lot of time. This process takes up considerable time that many couples seeking IVF just do not have the luxury of. Of course no-one requires a police check to conceive naturally, so this application process really is discriminatory. It implies that somehow people seeking IVF are criminals or cannot be trusted. I certainly think this is very misguided.
I could not find any reasoning for this requirement when this was raised by a constituent. I did find that the Victorian Law Reform Commission back in 2007 said that we certainly do not want any violent sex offenders from accessing IVF, and I fully agree. We could certainly work out a way that people on the sex offender list did not qualify for IVF. But to say that anyone seeking IVF must undertake a police check I think is really based on prejudice. I think it is clearly misguided, and there is no basis in evidence for this. There are the normal preconditions: financial stability, functional relationships. People who are seeking IVF do so because they very, very, very much want a child, and this is different quite often from people who conceive naturally. Melbourne IVF and many others do not support these requirements. So the action I seek from the minister is: could she review this policy position and see if we can work out a fairer framework for those couples that are actively seeking to bring a child into their family?
Missing persons
MS PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (00:10:23) — My adjournment matter is for the Attorney-General, and the action I seek relates to missing persons and creating an official missing persons status. In raising this I would like to congratulate the Missing Persons Advocacy Network, which is completely unfunded yet provides amazing support for families in need and families that have someone missing.
When you look at this, one person goes missing every 14 minutes in Australia. That is 100 people a day that go missing. Many of them are found very quickly. Many of them go missing because of mental health issues or a range of other reasons. The majority are found within a short period, but hundreds remain missing forever. There are 38 000 families every year dealing with this loss, and emotionally and psychologically this is really hard. I think the Missing Persons Advocacy Network does a great job here, as do the police and other welfare agencies in helping to connect and find these people.
There is a particularly sad aspect that I want to raise in my adjournment tonight, and this is the financial nightmare that follows when something goes missing — not only financial but administrative. Even if the family and the authorities believe the person is deceased, it takes years for a coronial inquest to produce a death certificate, meaning that families are stuck in limbo, insurances cannot be paid out and superannuation is held and generally, over those years, eaten away by fees. Thousands of Australians are dealing with the predicament of not being able to stop phone bills, cancel memberships and close accounts, and they struggle to maintain their households and mortgages.
This is why the action I seek is the creation of an official missing status in Victoria. This is principally for banks and financial institutions. It is an idea that is currently being considered in the Netherlands, and it is a concept that is familiar to our military. I urge the Attorney-General to consider this and be a leader in this area in Australia.
Giving life
MS PATTEN — I would like to remind everyone about the amazing photo exhibition that is on at Parliament all this week. The other day accomplished photojournalist and organ recipient Andrew Chapman took us on a tour of his impactful exhibition, capturing the last moments of an organ donor’s life and a recipient receiving a life-saving donation. It is a great time to have that conversation about becoming an organ donor.
Clergy mandatory reporting
MS PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (10:30:17) — In a recent adjournment I reinforced the critical need for governments to stop perceiving religious organisations as above the law when it comes to child sexual abuse. I have been working toward this change for more than a decade and have urged the church to put victims’ needs ahead of its desire to defend its reputation. Sadly, victims continue to suffer.
I would like to commend Nationals leader Peter Walsh who last week announced that if the coalition won the Victorian election, they would amend the law to allow sexual abuse revealed in confession to be reported to police and used as evidence. That was even echoed straight from the Vatican this week, with Pope Francis issuing a letter to Catholics around the world deploring the crime and cover-up of child sexual abuse by priests. He said:
The heart-wrenching pain of these victims, which cries out to heaven, was long ignored, kept quiet or silenced …
And:
Looking back to the past, no effort to beg pardon and to seek to repair the harm done will ever be sufficient. Looking ahead to the future, no effort must be spared to create a culture able to prevent such situations from happening …