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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2018-11-06 Daily Xml
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Correctional Services Monitoring Device Outage

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (13:25): My question is to the Minister for Correctional Services. Can the minister inform the house when the review of the Department for Correctional Services electronic monitoring system, announced in May, was completed and who conducted the review?

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD (Gibson—Minister for Police, Emergency Services and Correctional Services, Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing) (13:25): I thank the member for the question. I just need to clarify a couple of points that have been raised potentially here, which I think he was fishing for, and also in the media. As far as these Telstra outages are concerned, for the record—and there has been some confusion, I think—there was an issue on 4 May with the 000 calls. I think that was a severed cable, if my memory serves me correctly. That one on 4 May had no impact on the bracelets that are involved with Correctional Services that I talked about in my ministerial statement.

There was another issue on 21 May where a software problem made the signal from the electronic bracelets intermittent between the bracelet and the receiving end. There was a software issue. I think it was a transition from 4G to 3G that overloaded the system and it was intermittent for two hours. That was reviewed by Telstra, and I will come back to where that review got to. Then, of course, there was the issue on the weekend, which I outlined in my ministerial statement.

I was the minister at the time on 21 May and I was relatively new to the job. I discussed with Corrections that issue at that time and I said, 'Have there been delays like this before under previous ministers?' which would have been those on the other side, and the answer was, yes, there had been. I said, 'What action was taken?' and they said—

The Hon. J.A.W. Gardner interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The Minister for Education is called to order.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: —there was no action taken as far as the return—

Ms Stinson interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Badcoe is warned.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: —of the monitors, as far as I am aware here, and the reallocation of the monitors. On 21 May, when this first incident happened, which was a software issue—totally separate to what happened on the weekend, which was a hardware issue—we identified that there was no redundancy built into the actual units themselves. So, going out to procurement for the new unit—and this had not happened in the previous two years—

The Hon. S.S. Marshall interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Premier!

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: —we actually discussed with Telstra and have put into the procurement process ways we can build extra redundancy in. One of the things that we are looking at and discussing—again, Telstra have raised this and we have had conversations about this—is putting a dual SIM card potentially into the units so that if one telco falls over you can actually switch over to another telco.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: Again, I do stress the point: not done by those opposite. In fact, the leader was actually the minster.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Point of order.

The SPEAKER: There is a point of order.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: The member for Kaurna sits over there as well, very sheepish—

The SPEAKER: Minister, please be seated. We have a point of order. Member for West Torrens.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: The question was—

The SPEAKER: Relevance?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: —can the minister inform the house when the review of the department for corrections electronic monitoring system—

The SPEAKER: Thank you, I have the point of order.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, members on my right!

The Hon. S.S. Marshall interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The Premier is called to order. I have the point of order. In fairness to the minister, he was being interjected through most of that latter part of the answer. I will listen carefully. Minister, I do ask you to please return to the substance of the question. Thank you.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Members on my right will not interject.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: I was outlining that there were three incidents: 4 May, 21 May, and again on the weekend. The 4th had no impact on the bracelets. The 21st had intermittent responses, which was a software issue, which we have dealt with with Telstra, and they have given us assurance that that problem was fixed. That was a 4G to 3G transfer during an upgrade. Then there is the hardware issue that we have been working through with Telstra at the moment. I am waiting for a report on that. As I said, I had a phone hook-up with them over the weekend whilst we were in constant contact throughout this situation, I had a letter from them outlining the position and had a meeting again this morning. I know that those opposite maybe don't have conversations with their suppliers—

The SPEAKER: Please do not respond to interjections, minister.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: —and as I look back in the past, I can't see what the previous government did do.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Point of order.

The SPEAKER: There is a point of order. Minister, please be seated.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Relevance, sir.

The SPEAKER: Yes, I believe the minister is wrapping up his answer. Minister.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: Thank you very much. I am and, in that, I am outlining the work that we have done to review this situation. In the security and safety area—again, the Leader of the Opposition would know: he was the minister in this space—if something does go wrong, I would presume you review it. That would be my suggestion if you are in that space. We have done that review, we have looked at the outage on the 21st and we are looking into the outage on the weekend.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The Deputy Premier is called to order. Leader of the Opposition.

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