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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-04-08 Daily Xml
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EASLING, MR T.

The Hon. I.F. EVANS (Davenport) (15:58): As part of the investigation into Tom Easling, the Special Investigations Unit of the Department for Families and Communities contacted all of Mr Easling's previous employers. The reason I raise this is that the Special Investigations Unit investigators, I believe, paraded as police officers—in other words, impersonated police officers—to gain access to Tom Easling's employment files. That is a very serious allegation and I make the allegation based on a letter that I have received dated 23 March this year from the City of Mitcham. Mr Easling was employed by the City of Mitcham as a youth worker. The City of Mitcham has written to Mr Easling advising him as follows:

…on 12 August 2004 two investigators attended the Council office to conduct investigations into your employment with the City of Mitcham. They previously had rung the Chief Executive Officer claiming to be members of SAPOL working on the special task force established by the State Government and asked for Council's cooperation in conducting their investigation. An appointment was subsequently made to meet with the human resources manager where they examined your personnel file. I believe copies may have been taken of some documents contained therein.

Of course, in August 2004 Tom Easling was already arrested. The police had already undertaken the arrest, so what were the department's investigators doing conducting further investigations when the police had taken over the matter? What were they doing going to Mr Easling's previous employers parading as police officers, as alleged in the letter from the City of Mitcham?

I invite the government to go to some of Mr Easling's other employers and ask whether that occurred. And ask this question: did it occur before they went to the City of Mitcham? If it did and the previous employers rejected the investigators, because at that stage they might not have paraded as police officers, if they then went to the City of Mitcham and paraded as police officers that would be a deliberate deception, because when investigators roll up they have an obligation to show some identification.

How is it that the City of Mitcham has written to Mr Easling saying that these investigators paraded and put themselves out there as police officers? That is what the letter alleges, that they told the chief executive that they were police officers conducting an investigation. I have called for a royal commission into this matter for months and here is another piece of evidence, dated 23 March this year, relating to this particular matter.

There is one other matter I wish to raise while the Minister for Youth is in the chamber. I will say to him that I am not going to make the contents of this memo public, but I ask him to investigate this issue. This memo I am about to give you, minister, was subpoenaed twice by Mr Easling, once in a general subpoena, and then once specifically on its own under subpoena. The government said that this document did not exist.

Can the minister explain how a document that does not exist and was subpoenaed twice is in the possession of the opposition and Mr Easling? Can the government guarantee that there are no other documents that have been subpoenaed that were not provided to Mr Easling for the purposes of his trial? I have raised two very serious issues today and I hope that the government will do the right thing and have a royal commission into this matter.

Honourable members: Hear, hear!

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am sure that we all offer our congratulations to the member for Morialta, who is proceeding rapidly to her place.

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