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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2018-05-29 Daily Xml
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Humphrys, Mr C.C.

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (14:31): My question is to the Minister for Police but also in his capacity potentially of corrections. Has the minister taken the time to discuss the court-ordered release of Colin Humphrys with the Correctional Services chief executive or the police commissioner?

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: Point of order, Mr Speaker: clearly that is comment in relation to time. But in any event, can I say this: the Leader of the Opposition knows full well that this is a matter—

Mr Koutsantonis: This is a speech.

The SPEAKER: What is the point—

The Hon. V.A. Chapman: I am answering the question.

The SPEAKER: She is answering the question.

Mr Koutsantonis interjecting:

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: You're on that side now, Tom; we're on this side. We get to answer the questions.

The SPEAKER: The Deputy Premier is answering the question. Is there a point of order, or are you answering?

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The point of order is for commentary?

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: In relation to these, yes.

The SPEAKER: In that case, would the leader like to rephrase the question, which might be answered by the Attorney?

Mr MALINAUSKAS: Sure. My question remains to the Minister for Police and the Minister for Correctional Services. Has the minister discussed the court-ordered release of Colin Humphrys with either the Corrections chief executive or the police commissioner?

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General) (14:33): Thank you for the question.

Mr Malinauskas: I wasn't asking you. I was asking—

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: Well, bad luck. You get to ask the questions; we get to answer them. Any one of us can answer the questions.

The SPEAKER: Could the Attorney please get on with answering the question?

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The Attorney will be heard.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The Deputy Premier will remain seated. It has been long a practice of the house—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Members will cease interjecting. It has been a long-held practice of the house that another minister may answer a question. It is not a licence for opposition members to interject if they do not like who is answering the question. The Attorney will be heard in silence.

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: It is with pleasure that I answer this question as Attorney-General, who not only has responsibility for dealing with the determination of Justice Kelly's decision on 27 March but who has also worked with the DPP in respect of the identified appeal before the Full Court, which was held last week, and providing the necessary instructions to the Solicitor-General to undertake that work and indeed in relation to the investigations in relation to the nine drafts of the legislative response to how we deal with those released on licence, which is now the subject of a bill before the house, so I won't make any direct comment in relation to that. In the course of this whole exercise, I have had briefings, including from Corrections, in relation to the licence arrangements.

The reason we have done that is to identify what would be set in place, what arrangements could take place and how long they would take to implement. As members would be aware, in this case Justice Kelly determined that she would publish in her judgement the whereabouts, by way of precinct, as to where the prisoner may be released on a licence to release.

Mr Mullighan interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Lee is warned.

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: That was identified in the judgement. In the course of that, a senior police officer and Mr Brown from Corrections have provided advice. For those who don't know, Mr Brown is the chief executive of the Corrections department. Furthermore, I have had other meetings with him generally in relation to the release of prisoners, including others who are under consideration for different reasons. Some of them are via parole.

Yes, we have ongoing negotiations with the police and the Department for Correctional Services, and indeed I have had a number of conversations with the Parole Board chair, in relation not just to the Humphrys case but to others, for the development of the legislative reform options, which are now before the parliament, and also to how we deal with persons who are the subject of those. The only public one at this stage is the matter of Humphrys and, for the reasons I have indicated previously—at least the member for Enfield will be aware of this, because from discussions this morning from the opposition it seems that most of the rest of the former cabinet didn't have a clue what was going on—in relation to the matter of Schuster. Yes, we do have ongoing discussions with these relevant authorities.

Furthermore, in the course of election commitments that we have made for the review of operational police matters which we promised, as a result of that I have had conversations with the police commissioner, who has provided his contribution in respect of that and indicated that he will consider whether he would like to have other matters considered in the terms of reference of that review. He has been provided with a copy of a draft and, of course, we will consult with him in relation to matters of the review itself and who should conduct the same.

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