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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2008-10-14 Daily Xml
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PRISONS, OVERCROWDING

The Hon. S.G. WADE (14:50): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Correctional Services a question about prison overcrowding.

Leave granted.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: In the minister's ministerial statement she stated:

Having two prisoners to a cell is not a breach of human rights. It is not overcrowding.

The 2005 South Australian Labor state platform states that Labor 'will ensure that South Australian correctional facilities comply, as a minimum, with internationally agreed standards for the supervision and treatment of offenders'. The relevant key international standard is the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners 1955. Rule 9(1) of the Standard Minimum Rules states:

Where sleeping accommodation is in individual cells or rooms, each prisoner shall occupy by night a cell or room by himself. If for special reasons, such as temporary overcrowding, it became necessary for the central prison administration to make an exception to this rule, it is not desirable to have two prisoners in a cell or room.

I remind the council that this is not an opposition commitment: it is a commitment of the Labor government in its platform less than three years ago. My questions are:

1. Does the minister concede that the government is in breach of its own 2005 ALP platform?

2. If two prisoners to a cell is not overcrowding, how many people does the minister think it is acceptable to keep in a cell designed for one occupant before she does consider that it is overcrowding?

The Hon. CARMEL ZOLLO (Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Road Safety, Minister for Gambling, Minister Assisting the Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (14:51): I thank the honourable member for his question. Perhaps he should ask the community out there when they go to public hospitals whether they think two prisoners to a cell is overcrowding. Doubling up has been used not just by this government; it was actually commenced by that lot, the Liberal opposition, which commenced doubling up as a means of maintaining safety in our prisons and maintaining those numbers. For the honourable member to stand up and talk that kind of tosh is really nonsense.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. CARMEL ZOLLO: Indeed, as the Hon. Robert Lawson recently said to me, it is actually desirable for reasons of a buddy system to have two prisoners in a cell. In relation to anything else, I have been on the record on a number of occasions now saying that we have the old forensic science division in Yatala where we can put three prisoners to a cell. They are actually not cells: it is the old forensic science hospital; and, of course, always as an emergency we may have to do other things. Clearly, we will be using doubling up as a means of ensuring that we have a safe and secure system in this state, and I make no apologies for that.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! Perhaps someone would like to visit the shearers' quarters out at the back of Bourke.

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