November 16, 2022 • 11 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Listenlive at Tasmania Talks dot com au on the line
right now. Once again, it's been so long. Greg Barnes,
hello again.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Good morning.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
We keep meeting like this. People are going to talk,
you know, they will, they will, they will. Look, I'll
tell you what. There's been a few everyone's talking about
Ashley at the moment, but it seems to be it's
closing in twenty twenty four. And something that I didn't
ask you on Monday less was what the hell happens
to all the people in there? There's ten people in
there at last count. What happens to them?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Well, the idea of the government was to set up
in the north and south of the state centers which
actually deal with trouble young people so that we can
steer them out of the criminal justice system quickly, more quickly,
and that means you know, making sure they're close to family,
making sure they're close to psychological support services, and you know,
(00:56):
supports in trying to plug them back into education insills.
In other words, the sort of wrap around services you
need because we know that you simply punishing kids just
does not work well.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
The fact the fact that it's out in the open
there in the middle of practically nowhere is not good.
I mean, I've heard stories of people. I've heard stories
of people that have been in there. They've come to
the end of the thing, that's time to go home,
and they just get stuck outside on the road and
I have to try and work their way back to
Devinport or Luncester or wherever they're from. It's miles well.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
And also one of the problems is getting for example,
psychologists and psychiatrists who work with these kids to get.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Them to go there.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
And that's no criticism of them. They've got their own practices.
They've then got to drive there. You know, they're not
all sitting there in Delaraine. One of the problems with
Ashley has been that successive governments have been told to
close it. They've kept it open for one reason, one
reason only. It's been an employment scheme for Delaraine. Now,
that's no criticism of the people who work there. It's
no criticism of the people in Delaraine. But you don't
(01:55):
run a youth justice center just because you want to
employ twenty five or thirty people from the local town.
Should not be the basis upon which you run it.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Well, Roger Yen she was. I asked him just a
while ago the other day about how many people are
actually working there, and I think he said kind of
about fifteen, although it seems to be up and down
because they're having trouble funding people to work there. And
I wondered why that would be the case.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Well, that's certainly been an issue for some time, and
I think made worse by virtue of the fact that
people still want to work there. I mean, people are
saying the place is going to close. It's a discredited model.
I'd be interested in working with kids in an environment
which is safer for kids but also is near urban centers.
(02:41):
I mean, you know, to have I mean to have
a youth justice center stuck out in the middle of nowhere,
which effectively it is. It was an extraordinary move in
the first place, but I think the major concern is
that the minister can't guarantee that these kids will remain
safe between now in twenty twenty four. To have the
government being mentioned in dispatches in the United Nations this
(03:04):
week is not a good look. And you know, the government.
I've never understood why the Government's going to take three
years to close it, because we're talking about such a
small number of kids. If you're talking about two or
three hundred people, understand, But you're talking about at the
moment the minister saying ten children. Now you know, we
(03:26):
move heather on earth to get football matches here, we
move heaven on earth to do other things that we
want in Tasmania. These are the most vulnerable members of
our society and we need to fix things quickly.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
It's been there a long time and it's going to
be there for a couple more years. I suppose do
we know what sort of problems are cause putting somebody
in there? I mean, if you are well, well, I.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Mean the problem is you've got one hundred percent graduation
rate to Risdon. And I'm not exaggerating. So if you
end up in Ashley, which is yeah, if you end
up in Ashley, which is the last option for a
sus fentescing magistrate or judge, you are pretty well guaranteed
to end up in Resdon. You're on the road. Now.
The reason for that is because you know, either you've
(04:12):
been let down by the system or they've been a
bunch of reasons why you've ended up in Ashley. But
you're not going to get the support and the networks.
And there are many, many reasons for that. But firstly,
it's a punitive model. I mean, the fact is that
you've got kids locked in their rooms for periods of
time now because of a shortage of stuff. Now the
government can dress that up by saying, oh, well that's okay,
we look after these kids. That is a punit of
(04:34):
model and it's not working now. People will say to me, oh, well,
you know, you don't want to be too soft on
these kids. Actually, it's harder for the kids and it's
harder for workers to work with them in an intense
fashion then simply shunting them off to Ashley. And if
you want to reduce crime, the best way to do
it is to work with these kids on giving them
(04:54):
opportunities in life so that they don't continue to head
down the path that they've always continued from Ashley, and
that is down the road to Risden.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Mister Yench before I asked him about the time in
their room and he said that it was to try
and stop them from fighting. Is that a good reason
or is that just putting it lack of staff?
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Well, I don't know where he's getting his briefings from
But the fact that the government is saying the best
we can do is to keep kids in their room
because we want to stop them fighting just tells you
how derelict mister Gensy is when it comes to his
duty of care. I mean, you know, he ought to
be saying, I'm not going to tolerate that as an answer.
(05:36):
Do better, and if it means, for example, removing kids
from actually then remove them. I mean, why are they there?
I mean some of them are there on remand in
other words, they're there because they haven't got bail. Let's
get smarter about you know, is there a safer place
for these children while they await their cases, you know,
in terms of secure accommodation, etc. It's simply not good
(06:00):
enough for the minister to continue to tread water and
to say as he's as he's said to you, you know,
oh well, we've got to stop them fighting, so we
just keep them in their rooms. Is an extraordinary statement
in this day and.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Age, considering it's a controlled environment. Should Roger Yene be
in a position to absolutely guarantee the safety of these kids?
I asked him a few times, yes or no? Are
they safe? And he wouldn't quite say they were safe
in a controlled environment. Should that be easy to answer?
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Of course? Of course, of course should And you are
right to ask the question. And the fact that he
answered in the way that he didn't prevaricate it was extraordinary. Again,
he's got a duty of care at state, not personally,
but he's got a duty of care as minister, as
has the state to keep these children safe. To say
I can't guarantee it is an admission of failure and
a dangerous admission of failure, because what's he's saying, Look,
(06:50):
you know something terrible happens, then you know I warned
you that I couldn't really keep them safe. So the
government's got to be saying absolutely will keep them safe.
And if that means we have to remove with kids
from Ashley and put them into sofer environments and we'll
do that quickly, then so be it. It has to
be done.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
This model seems to be all over Australia where you
had images of that boy and Darwin in the spithood
and all that sort of stuff, and there was more
footage of another kid being dragged out of a door,
which was even the footage was terrible. You could see
what was going on, and the kid walked out of
the door, completely unaware that what was going to happen,
and suddenly he was on the ground. What the hell
are we doing?
Speaker 2 (07:28):
So we've got a serious problem in this country. We've
got Banksy hell over in Western Australia which is a disaster.
We've got don Dale which continues to spark a Royal commission.
We've got Ashley here, We've had routine problems in Victoria.
We've got a serious problem with the model we use,
which effectively is a jail model. It's a primitive jail
(07:49):
model for vulnerable young kids. And we continue to get
national and international exposure of the brutality and violence of
these places and what they're doing to kids. As I
think require at this point now on national leadership, it's
time for the federal government to step up and say
let's get the states and territories together. Yes, you're responsible
for this, but we've got a crisis.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Tried that after a four Corners expert we.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Had a Royal commission. We did have a Royal commission
on Dondal, but that was about that was a Northern
Territory response funded and essentially driven by the federal government.
But what we need is a nationwide examination of how
we're doing this, because it's not just a question of
the media exposure. It's the damage that's being done. And
I've acted for and worked with people who are now,
(08:36):
say nineteen twenty twenty one, who've been in those situations,
and they are damaged. And it's not a question of
you know, lawyer's ambulance changing. They are damaged people, and
therefore they're much more vulnerable and much more likely to
enter into the criminal entering into the criminal justice system,
which means, of course the community is less safe. So
we need a national strategy on it.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
New South Wales just a while ago they had those inspections.
The UN carried out inspections New South Wales and another
state was that Northern Territory wouldn't even allow them to
come in and have a look. What are they trying
to hide something or what course of.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Course they are? Of course they are. They don't want
the exposure. I mean, you know when countries like China
do that, we say that's shocking, that's terrible. Why won't
they let the UN in. Well, we've got state governments
in Australia doing exactly the same, refusing to be accountable,
and particularly in the case of the Northern Territory, just
extraordinary that after the Royal Commission and the international outrage
(09:31):
over Dondale, not only is the place still going, but
we saw on four corners, you know, on Monday night
that the ongoing problems at Dondale which the state with
the territory government has simply done nothing about. And again,
you know, you're talking about you're talking about our future here,
you're talking about a bunch of kids who represent the
(09:52):
future of our society, part of the future of our
society and smart justice. So it's not soft or hard
smart justices. Let's get let let's get them out of
the criminal justice system. What do we have to do
to do that. Let's try things, but let's do it
in a human way, because that's usually the way you
get the best results.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
To fix this, the federal government, you reckon, should step in.
What should they do?
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Well? They need to, as they sometimes do in relation
to national issues, get state and territory ministers around the
table and said, we've got to form a national strategy.
There's got to be and this is not just about
one territory or one state. This is a systemic problem
around Australia and we need a national strategy. We need
to have standards. We need to move away from the
(10:34):
current unit of model and we need to look at
that and do that on a nationwide basis. We've done
it with mental health for example, where the commonwealths played
a large role as you know, in mental health strategies
around Australia. We've done it in other areas of policy
and it's sorely needed in relation to vulnerable children in
the justice system.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
All right, well, I guess we'll just sit back and
watch and wait and see what they do. If indeed
they do anything, hopefully something will come of it. Pretty well.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Thanks. I mean, you've done a great job with this
story this week because I think and you know, getting
the Minister to discuss the matter, I think it's the
first step, but you've highlighted the inadequacies of the issues.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
So well, well, hopefully we'll get it out there and
people will keep talking. People tend to move on fairly
quickly with Christmas coming up exactly. Greg Barnes, thank you
very much again for chatting and we'll talk again down
the track. Have a good one.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Much appreciated. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
That's Greg Barnes. Listen live at Tasmania Talks dot com
dot au.
Listenlive at Tasmania Talks dot com au on the line
right now. Once again, it's been so long. Greg Barnes,
hello again.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Good morning.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
We keep meeting like this. People are going to talk,
you know, they will, they will, they will. Look, I'll
tell you what. There's been a few everyone's talking about
Ashley at the moment, but it seems to be it's
closing in twenty twenty four. And something that I didn't
ask you on Monday less was what the hell happens
to all the people in there? There's ten people in
there at last count. What happens to them?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Well, the idea of the government was to set up
in the north and south of the state centers which
actually deal with trouble young people so that we can
steer them out of the criminal justice system quickly, more quickly,
and that means you know, making sure they're close to family,
making sure they're close to psychological support services, and you know,
(00:56):
supports in trying to plug them back into education insills.
In other words, the sort of wrap around services you
need because we know that you simply punishing kids just
does not work well.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
The fact the fact that it's out in the open
there in the middle of practically nowhere is not good.
I mean, I've heard stories of people. I've heard stories
of people that have been in there. They've come to
the end of the thing, that's time to go home,
and they just get stuck outside on the road and
I have to try and work their way back to
Devinport or Luncester or wherever they're from. It's miles well.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
And also one of the problems is getting for example,
psychologists and psychiatrists who work with these kids to get.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Them to go there.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
And that's no criticism of them. They've got their own practices.
They've then got to drive there. You know, they're not
all sitting there in Delaraine. One of the problems with
Ashley has been that successive governments have been told to
close it. They've kept it open for one reason, one
reason only. It's been an employment scheme for Delaraine. Now,
that's no criticism of the people who work there. It's
no criticism of the people in Delaraine. But you don't
(01:55):
run a youth justice center just because you want to
employ twenty five or thirty people from the local town.
Should not be the basis upon which you run it.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Well, Roger Yen she was. I asked him just a
while ago the other day about how many people are
actually working there, and I think he said kind of
about fifteen, although it seems to be up and down
because they're having trouble funding people to work there. And
I wondered why that would be the case.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Well, that's certainly been an issue for some time, and
I think made worse by virtue of the fact that
people still want to work there. I mean, people are
saying the place is going to close. It's a discredited model.
I'd be interested in working with kids in an environment
which is safer for kids but also is near urban centers.
(02:41):
I mean, you know, to have I mean to have
a youth justice center stuck out in the middle of nowhere,
which effectively it is. It was an extraordinary move in
the first place, but I think the major concern is
that the minister can't guarantee that these kids will remain
safe between now in twenty twenty four. To have the
government being mentioned in dispatches in the United Nations this
(03:04):
week is not a good look. And you know, the government.
I've never understood why the Government's going to take three
years to close it, because we're talking about such a
small number of kids. If you're talking about two or
three hundred people, understand, But you're talking about at the
moment the minister saying ten children. Now you know, we
(03:26):
move heather on earth to get football matches here, we
move heaven on earth to do other things that we
want in Tasmania. These are the most vulnerable members of
our society and we need to fix things quickly.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
It's been there a long time and it's going to
be there for a couple more years. I suppose do
we know what sort of problems are cause putting somebody
in there? I mean, if you are well, well, I.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Mean the problem is you've got one hundred percent graduation
rate to Risdon. And I'm not exaggerating. So if you
end up in Ashley, which is yeah, if you end
up in Ashley, which is the last option for a
sus fentescing magistrate or judge, you are pretty well guaranteed
to end up in Resdon. You're on the road. Now.
The reason for that is because you know, either you've
(04:12):
been let down by the system or they've been a
bunch of reasons why you've ended up in Ashley. But
you're not going to get the support and the networks.
And there are many, many reasons for that. But firstly,
it's a punitive model. I mean, the fact is that
you've got kids locked in their rooms for periods of
time now because of a shortage of stuff. Now the
government can dress that up by saying, oh, well that's okay,
we look after these kids. That is a punit of
(04:34):
model and it's not working now. People will say to me, oh, well,
you know, you don't want to be too soft on
these kids. Actually, it's harder for the kids and it's
harder for workers to work with them in an intense
fashion then simply shunting them off to Ashley. And if
you want to reduce crime, the best way to do
it is to work with these kids on giving them
(04:54):
opportunities in life so that they don't continue to head
down the path that they've always continued from Ashley, and
that is down the road to Risden.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Mister Yench before I asked him about the time in
their room and he said that it was to try
and stop them from fighting. Is that a good reason
or is that just putting it lack of staff?
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Well, I don't know where he's getting his briefings from
But the fact that the government is saying the best
we can do is to keep kids in their room
because we want to stop them fighting just tells you
how derelict mister Gensy is when it comes to his
duty of care. I mean, you know, he ought to
be saying, I'm not going to tolerate that as an answer.
(05:36):
Do better, and if it means, for example, removing kids
from actually then remove them. I mean, why are they there?
I mean some of them are there on remand in
other words, they're there because they haven't got bail. Let's
get smarter about you know, is there a safer place
for these children while they await their cases, you know,
in terms of secure accommodation, etc. It's simply not good
(06:00):
enough for the minister to continue to tread water and
to say as he's as he's said to you, you know,
oh well, we've got to stop them fighting, so we
just keep them in their rooms. Is an extraordinary statement
in this day and.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Age, considering it's a controlled environment. Should Roger Yene be
in a position to absolutely guarantee the safety of these kids?
I asked him a few times, yes or no? Are
they safe? And he wouldn't quite say they were safe
in a controlled environment. Should that be easy to answer?
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Of course? Of course, of course should And you are
right to ask the question. And the fact that he
answered in the way that he didn't prevaricate it was extraordinary. Again,
he's got a duty of care at state, not personally,
but he's got a duty of care as minister, as
has the state to keep these children safe. To say
I can't guarantee it is an admission of failure and
a dangerous admission of failure, because what's he's saying, Look,
(06:50):
you know something terrible happens, then you know I warned
you that I couldn't really keep them safe. So the
government's got to be saying absolutely will keep them safe.
And if that means we have to remove with kids
from Ashley and put them into sofer environments and we'll
do that quickly, then so be it. It has to
be done.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
This model seems to be all over Australia where you
had images of that boy and Darwin in the spithood
and all that sort of stuff, and there was more
footage of another kid being dragged out of a door,
which was even the footage was terrible. You could see
what was going on, and the kid walked out of
the door, completely unaware that what was going to happen,
and suddenly he was on the ground. What the hell
are we doing?
Speaker 2 (07:28):
So we've got a serious problem in this country. We've
got Banksy hell over in Western Australia which is a disaster.
We've got don Dale which continues to spark a Royal commission.
We've got Ashley here, We've had routine problems in Victoria.
We've got a serious problem with the model we use,
which effectively is a jail model. It's a primitive jail
(07:49):
model for vulnerable young kids. And we continue to get
national and international exposure of the brutality and violence of
these places and what they're doing to kids. As I
think require at this point now on national leadership, it's
time for the federal government to step up and say
let's get the states and territories together. Yes, you're responsible
for this, but we've got a crisis.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Tried that after a four Corners expert we.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Had a Royal commission. We did have a Royal commission
on Dondal, but that was about that was a Northern
Territory response funded and essentially driven by the federal government.
But what we need is a nationwide examination of how
we're doing this, because it's not just a question of
the media exposure. It's the damage that's being done. And
I've acted for and worked with people who are now,
(08:36):
say nineteen twenty twenty one, who've been in those situations,
and they are damaged. And it's not a question of
you know, lawyer's ambulance changing. They are damaged people, and
therefore they're much more vulnerable and much more likely to
enter into the criminal entering into the criminal justice system,
which means, of course the community is less safe. So
we need a national strategy on it.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
New South Wales just a while ago they had those inspections.
The UN carried out inspections New South Wales and another
state was that Northern Territory wouldn't even allow them to
come in and have a look. What are they trying
to hide something or what course of.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Course they are? Of course they are. They don't want
the exposure. I mean, you know when countries like China
do that, we say that's shocking, that's terrible. Why won't
they let the UN in. Well, we've got state governments
in Australia doing exactly the same, refusing to be accountable,
and particularly in the case of the Northern Territory, just
extraordinary that after the Royal Commission and the international outrage
(09:31):
over Dondale, not only is the place still going, but
we saw on four corners, you know, on Monday night
that the ongoing problems at Dondale which the state with
the territory government has simply done nothing about. And again,
you know, you're talking about you're talking about our future here,
you're talking about a bunch of kids who represent the
(09:52):
future of our society, part of the future of our
society and smart justice. So it's not soft or hard
smart justices. Let's get let let's get them out of
the criminal justice system. What do we have to do
to do that. Let's try things, but let's do it
in a human way, because that's usually the way you
get the best results.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
To fix this, the federal government, you reckon, should step in.
What should they do?
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Well? They need to, as they sometimes do in relation
to national issues, get state and territory ministers around the
table and said, we've got to form a national strategy.
There's got to be and this is not just about
one territory or one state. This is a systemic problem
around Australia and we need a national strategy. We need
to have standards. We need to move away from the
(10:34):
current unit of model and we need to look at
that and do that on a nationwide basis. We've done
it with mental health for example, where the commonwealths played
a large role as you know, in mental health strategies
around Australia. We've done it in other areas of policy
and it's sorely needed in relation to vulnerable children in
the justice system.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
All right, well, I guess we'll just sit back and
watch and wait and see what they do. If indeed
they do anything, hopefully something will come of it. Pretty well.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Thanks. I mean, you've done a great job with this
story this week because I think and you know, getting
the Minister to discuss the matter, I think it's the
first step, but you've highlighted the inadequacies of the issues.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
So well, well, hopefully we'll get it out there and
people will keep talking. People tend to move on fairly
quickly with Christmas coming up exactly. Greg Barnes, thank you
very much again for chatting and we'll talk again down
the track. Have a good one.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Much appreciated. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
That's Greg Barnes. Listen live at Tasmania Talks dot com
dot au.
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