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  4. 27 October 2004

General Purpose Standing Committee No. 3

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About this Item
SubjectsPrisons and Prisoners; Juvenile Crime; Parliamentary Committees: New South Wales: General Purpose
SpeakersCusack The Hon Catherine; Fazio The Hon Amanda; Chesterfield-Evans The Hon Dr Arthur
BusinessCommittee, Motion


    GENERAL PURPOSE STANDING COMMITTEE NO. 3
Page: 12017


    Reference: Kariong Juvenile Justice Centre

    The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK [11.25 a.m.]: I move:

    That the resolution of the House of 22 September 2004 relating to General Purpose Standing Committee No. 3 meeting for the purpose of taking evidence from youth workers and staff at the Kariong Detention Centre be amended by inserting at the end of paragraph 3:

    (2) That additional witnesses may be called by order of the committee.

    The Hon. AMANDA FAZIO [11.25 a.m.]: I oppose the motion moved by the Hon. Catherine Cusack for the reasons I have already outlined to some crossbench members. To put it simply, if the Hon. Catherine Cusack had wanted an ordinary inquiry conducted by General Purpose Standing Committee No. 3 into the Kariong Juvenile Justice Centre there are procedures that should have been followed. However, the honourable member chose not to follow the usual procedures in setting up this inquiry. Indeed, the motion moved by the Hon. Catherine Cusack was very prescriptive in terms of what could happen. For the convenience of the Hon. Catherine Cusack but no other committee members, she attempted to hold hearings the day after the debate in this House was to take place and on the following day. The original motion for the inquiry also named 16 people who would be invited to give evidence, which is unusual. That part of the motion was amended after lengthy debate in this Chamber, and an amendment by the Hon. John Tingle provided for the timing to be more flexible.

    I have jokingly referred to the Hon. Catherine Cusack as "Princess special treatment". I am beginning to regret that I referred to her in that way only jokingly. If the Hon. Catherine Cusack wants to do things properly she should follow the procedures set down by the House. We have broad guidelines on how to refer an inquiry to a committee; those guidelines leave the determining of the timing, the number of witnesses and the way in which it is conducted in the hands of the committee itself. However, as the Hon. Catherine Cusack has pursued this most bizarre path of having an inquiry set up in such a strange way, with the committee's actions restricted to exactly what was carried in the original motion passed by the House, she should live with the consequences of her actions.

    When the Hon. Catherine Cusack came to the first meeting of General Purpose Standing Committee No. 3 for its inquiry into the Kariong Juvenile Justice Centre she did not even have a list of all the additional witnesses she wanted to call, because she simply had not done her homework and was not prepared. It is about time we put the Hon. Catherine Cusack in her place and said, "If you want to have a proper inquiry into Kariong, call it in the proper manner. Don't do this sort of half-baked attempt at pursuing new ways of having inquiries called." The Hon. Catherine Cusack should do things the way they are supposed to be done; there would be no hassle and no qualms. The committee is able to organise things to suit itself. Instead, we are having this most bizarre debate today because the inquiry was formed with a most unusual set of procedures put in place by the Hon. Catherine Cusack.

    I am sure that the Hon. Catherine Cusack will complain about the length of time it takes to call inquiries. That is simply because most committees organise inquiries at the convenience of the majority of committee members, not at the direction of one person who is a proxy member of the committee for the duration of the inquiry—a person who is not even a member of General Purpose Standing Committee No. 3. So I urge all honourable members to support the normal committee processes laid down by the House and reject this motion.

    The Hon. Dr ARTHUR CHESTERFIELD-EVANS [11.28 a.m.]: I did not intend to speak to this motion and I was not delighted with the Hon. Catherine Cusack's original motion, which named 16 witnesses, perhaps putting some of their careers in jeopardy. However, in fairness to the Hon. Catherine Cusack, the Hon. John Tingle amended the original motion, which widened the scope of the inquiry to look more broadly at Kariong. So it became a much bigger inquiry. I do not believe that that was the Hon. Catherine Cusack's intention. So in a sense, as with many things that come out of this House, the final product was something of a camel. The motion has been shown to be too restrictive. The Hon. Catherine Cusack merely wanted to hear evidence from a number of witnesses; the amendment moved by the Hon. John Tingle has made it a broader issue. The terms of reference are flawed and need to be fixed.

    The Hon. Catherine Cusack: The terms of reference are not flawed.

    The Hon. Dr ARTHUR CHESTERFIELD-EVANS: The terms of reference are limiting the witnesses to be called. We now have a lot of sour grapes from the Hon. Amanda Fazio. If this House did not spend half its time amending flawed Government legislation, we would have much less to do. However, it is not a perfect world and sometimes things are flawed. We put up with the Government bringing back flawed legislation time after time. Therefore, it is a bit rich for the Government to say that this motion is flawed and should not be corrected. It is sour grapes and stupidity on the part of the Government. We should vote to get good outcomes from General Purpose Standing Committee No. 3. That is what we all want.

    The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK [11.30 a.m.], in reply: I shall deal with the rewriting of history and why the motion was moved in this way. During the estimates hearings of General Purpose Standing Committee No. 3 the Government moved a motion that closed down the Minister's evidence to the committee until at least after the expiry of 35 days. That motion delayed any attempt to call witnesses in relation to the Kariong matter for a minimum of two months. The Government moved that motion and virtually gagged the committee from pursuing these issues. In those circumstances, the only alternative was to bring the matter before the House. It was not some spontaneous preciousness on my part to do this; I was simply pursuing a matter after the Government had closed the only door previously available.

    During debate in the House the motion changed slightly. The original purpose of my motion was to have some committee hearings to allow people to put information on the record. As the Hon. Dr Arthur Chesterfield-Evans has said, that motion developed. For example, it was proposed that the Minister should be invited to respond to the evidence. To that end, the Hon. Amanda Fazio issued the agenda for the first deliberative meeting. That agenda requested members of the committee to submit names of additional witnesses, which we duly did. Subsequently, we were advised that technically we could not do that as a committee. Therefore, this motion was a simple solution to a technical problem and would give effect to the wishes of the committee. There was no objection at that meeting, even from the Hon. Amanda Fazio.

    The intention of the House when it passed that motion was to develop this inquiry a little further. I think the Hon. Dr Arthur Chesterfield-Evans got it right when he referred to a case of sour grapes. I have also been reminded by my colleague the Hon. Rick Colless that while a reference from the House is not usual, the House reserves the right to refer any matter it wishes to a committee. It has that power. As I said, it has been a case of sour grapes on the part of the Hon. Amanda Fazio to not support this motion and to effectively consume the time of the House to make another personal attack on me.

    Motion agreed to.

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