POLICE, DISABILITY TRAINING

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT (14:56): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the minister representing the Minister for Police a question about police training around people with disabilities.

Leave granted.

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT: When the new Minister for Police, Hon. Jennifer Rankine, was appointed last year, I was quite excited. I was excited because I had not had much luck interesting her predecessor, Mr Kevin Foley, in a very serious issue. That issue is of course the problem of police interactions with people with disabilities. I am sure members have heard me speak about this before, but to refresh their memories I am concerned about the lack of police training in dealing with and interviewing people with disabilities.

The police have little training around disability itself; in fact, all they have is a short course delivered online. They have no specific training around disabilities, which they might need to deal with often, such as autism, and they have no training in how to interview or question someone with a disability, which is a particular problem when it comes to interviewing people who communicate using methods other than speech.

The result of these shortfalls, in summary, is a miscarriage of justice for people with disabilities. Their voices are most often not respected by the police and, when they are heard, they are often misunderstood. I want to address this issue, so I naturally sought to meet with the former minister for police, Kevin Foley. I made a request and his office rang to say that he was too busy working on the Olympic Dam mine expansion and that they would have to get back to us later. But, of course, for former minister Foley there was no later.

Minister Rankine was then appointed to the portfolio and I thought that I might have more luck with her. So, a month ago my office made a request to her office, asking for a meeting to be granted to discuss these issues. To this day I have had no response at all to that request. My questions of the minister are as follows:

1. Will the minister meet with me to discuss the very serious issue of police interaction with people with disabilities?

2. Is this issue not of interest to her, despite its being part of her portfolio area?

3. Does the minister, like her predecessor, believe that other areas, like mining, are of a higher priority than the human rights of people with a disability?

4. Has the minister spoken with her colleague, the Attorney-General, about the issue of justice for people with disabilities, or is she unaware of the reforms the government is supposed to be making in this area that directly affect her portfolio?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Communities and Social Inclusion, Minister for Social Housing, Minister for Disabilities, Minister for Youth, Minister for Volunteers) (14:59): I thank the honourable member for her very important questions on a very important topic regarding police training on the issues faced by people with disabilities. I will undertake to take that question to the minister in another place and bring back a response. I might just take the opportunity to refresh our collective memories about what the government has promised to do in terms of the disability justice plan, which will be developed in further consultation with people living with a disability. The Attorney-General in another place, the Hon. John Rau, has publicly committed to reviewing the Evidence Act 1929 to assist vulnerable people in the justice system, and I look forward to working with the Hon. Ms Vincent in pursuing those goals.