Advocacy Meetings

The Hon. L.A. HENDERSON (14:51): I seek leave to make a brief explanation prior to addressing a question to the Attorney-General regarding advocacy meetings.

Leave granted.

The Hon. L.A. HENDERSON: On Friday 20 September, lawyer Andrew Carpenter said on radio that he was invited to a meeting with an undisclosed government minister and then was turned away and not welcome to participate. He said, and I quote:

I won't say who I was asked to go to a meeting with, someone from the Labor Party a few weeks ago. I was invited to that. And when I arrived at the building, I got told I wasn't allowed in because I'm doing too many civil actions against the state. Now, I was invited to go there and I got turned away at the door.

My questions to the minister are:

1. Did he or his advisers turn away Andrew Carpenter and, if not, is he aware which minister or their advisers did?

2. Is it standard practice now under this Malinauskas government to turn people away at the door despite having a scheduled meeting?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector) (14:52): I thank the honourable member for the question. Certainly one of the great privileges of the work that I do is meeting with a lot of people who have suffered very traumatic and quite horrifying experiences, but are advocates for change in the areas that have affected them, using their experiences of what they have gone through to make processes better for people in the future. I do that regularly in a whole range of areas, and very often I am very keen to hear directly from those who have been affected and involved. From time to time there will be forums where I want to hear directly from the people rather than through other people about their experience, and that is a practice that I will continue to do.