Welcome to Brisbane Times’ Queensland public sector column, Public Circus. This week: curly questions for the (acting) prisons boss, a Health hot-desking update, and mega commission gets the green-light without change to governance concerns.
Less than two months into his acting role as commissioner of the state’s corrections system, Jon Peach has faced his first round of curly questions from a parliamentary committee.
On Monday’s agenda was a bill floated by the Crisafulli government last sitting week, which would make prisoners on life sentences jump through extra hoops to get parole. But that’s not all.
Tucked into the bill, introduced by Corrective Services Minister Laura Gerber, is a much broader provision to essentially bypass the human rights protections of all prisoners.
But did Peach or his predecessor Paul Stewart ask for it? That would be covered by cabinet confidentiality, Peach helpfully offered in response to a query from Maiwar Greens MP Michael Berkman.
In response to a follow-up, acting assistant commissioner Natalie Smith noted the department’s own legislation includes a primary principle for the “humane containment of prisoners”.
“So it’s woven through all of our policies,” Smith said. “And there remain safeguards in the Inspector of Detention Services and the Ombudsman, which will continue to, I guess, promote human rights and compatibility with international human rights conventions for prisoners.”
The clause has raised the ire of peak legal bodies, along with (still) acting Ombudsman Anthony Reilly, and Queensland Human Rights Commissioner Debbie Platz. Neither appeared before Monday’s hearing.
In a written submission to the justice, integrity and community safety committee, the commission said the move would hit the human rights of other people affected by decisions or acts under the Corrective Services Act, “such as people seeking to contact or visit a prisoner”.
This would leave all 12,500 of the state’s prisoners with no basis to raise a complaint about the department to Platz’s watchdog, or any related argument in court about an alleged breach.
“These provisions will apply to all persons who are imprisoned, including those who have been imprisoned because of non-violent offending, and those who are imprisoned on remand (i.e., those who are imprisoned pending trial and have not been found guilty of any offence),” the submission continued, before getting to the really pointy part.
“If recent proposed amendments to Queensland’s bail regime proceed, the number of people imprisoned on remand in Queensland is likely to significantly increase.”
The controversial “breach bail, go to jail” bill, of course, has raised concerns of its own about just how the already over-capacity corrections system could handle a further influx of 12-month mandatory sentences for those committing a serious offence while on bail.
Neither Stewart nor Peach were part of the bureaucratic briefing of the committee over that bill, with several stakeholders urging the MPs to seek detail of any such modelling.
The government, for its part, appears either unfazed by what any such numbers show or is willing to bank on a lack of public sympathy for anyone (for whatever reason) who has found themselves in a cell.
Premier David Crisafulli himself has been busy repeating the line that if it was a choice between having criminals in a cell or people’s lounge room, he’d choose the former.
But are things looking Peachy for on-the-up prisons boss?
The Circus tent has also caught word that the man currently running the state’s prisons in an interim capacity has rebadged his all-staff updates as the “Commissioner’s Communique”.
Not simply just a catchy new name, the more newsletter-style mailout format is a far cry from the bare-bones email broadcasts used by Stewart and his various deputies and assistants.
A Corrective Services spokesperson told us in a statement that the change was simply an “iteration” on the long-standing practice of all-staff emails, but wouldn’t confirm if it was Peach’s idea.
“It is one of a suite of internal communication activities used to communicate important information and engage with our more than 9000 staff across the state,” they said.
But it’s a move which has raised eyebrows, given Peach’s short time in the role so far. Crisafulli and Co’s approach to such gigs would also seem to suggest Peach is a shoo-in for the formal nod.
This would mark a meteoric rise for Peach, given he only joined the department last September as deputy commissioner for custodial operations.
Before that, Peach held an executive role in the ACT public service – shifted sideways into the newly created job around the time his boss was considering a report on a 2020 Canberra prison riot that made critical findings about his actions.
Peach had been the ACT Corrections Commissioner until early 2021, when that Inspector of Correctional Services report found he publicly downplayed the seriousness of the incident and attended the prison in person, leading to confusion about who was in charge.
A spokesperson for Gerber said a “permanent commissioner will be appointed in due course”.
One year of Queensland Health’s hot-desking penny pinch
The halfway point of this government toward the end of this month will be a milestone, but there’s another anniversary in our calendar also worth a mention: one year of Queensland Health hot-desking.
Readers may recall the note to staff of David Rosengren’s mega-department last September, with aims to make “smarter use” of space across the Charlotte Street, Butterfield Street and O’Connell Terrace sites.
This was hoped to deliver $50 million in savings over seven years, a spokesperson said while explaining the shift last September, with a new “desk booking” system for staff on the cards.
To facilitate, staff have been told to move personal items from their desks to shiny new lockers.
So how has this gone down among the troops? For a start, Circus hears it hasn’t been strictly applied across the offices – with media teams in particular tied to the location of the old-school landline lit up by pesky journalists.
We reached out to the department’s media team (via email) with questions about how successful the move has been, and whether any staff have kicked up a stink about it.
The department did not get back to us by deadline. We can only assume efforts to respond were hampered by difficulties finding the rotating and unmarked desks of relevant people.
Controversial new child safety mega-body gets committee greenlight
Friday saw the rubber-stamping of the government’s proposed new child safety watchdog by parliament’s education, arts and communities committee.
The tabled report leans heavily on to-be absorbed comments from Queensland Family and Child Commissioner Luke Twyford to wave away the various governance concerns raised by other agencies, including the Crime and Corruption and Human Rights commissions.
While writing an included statement of reservation highlighting the issues, Labor MPs on the committee – led by deputy chair Corrine McMillan – say the opposition will ultimately vote for the bill’s passage when it lands back on the floor of parliament.
The next sitting week on George Street kicks off on Tuesday.
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