Aboriginal Liaison Officers

Mr BATTY (Bragg) (14:49): My question is to the Minister for Correctional Services. Can Aboriginal liaison officers access all prisoners at Yatala? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr BATTY: It has been reported that a recently resigned Aboriginal liaison officer had been denied access to certain prisoners by the Department for Correctional Services.

The Hon. R.K. PEARCE (King—Minister for Emergency Services and Correctional Services, Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing) (14:49): I thank the member for his question. I am happy to get more information and bring that back to the house, but I do want to reiterate: we are doing a lot of work in this space because we know that Aboriginal people within our corrections system proportionately are much higher than other cohorts that we have.

We are working in myriad ways to improve the rates in that area, which includes more engagement with community, focusing on the mental health components, as well as better understanding and incorporating culture into our corrections because at the end of the day we want to see better results through our corrections system so that when people are returning into community our communities are safer and all the better for it.