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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-07-15 Daily Xml
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ROBINSON, MR S.A.

The Hon. R.D. LAWSON (15:53): The government's response to the case of Shane Andrew Robinson has provided a perfect case study of its unprincipled approach to so-called law and order issues, and its preferred device of creating a scapegoat to avoid taking responsibility for matters of public policy. As future readers of this contribution will not necessarily be aware of the facts of the Robinson case, I should briefly describe them. Last week, Robinson went on a crime spree in the Mid North. He was approached by a lone police officer stationed at the Manna Hill station on the Barrier Highway. Robinson stabbed the officer (who, I am pleased to say, has made a full recovery) and then drove off in the police car. He took a 75 year old woman on a remote station as hostage and assaulted her. He forced her to open a gun store and took weapons from it. He later shot himself.

Robinson had a long criminal history of some 80 convictions for a range of offences. At the time of his running amok last week, he had been released on parole after the expiration of a nonparole period. On 22 June, the chair of the Parole Board, Frances Nelson, was informed that Robinson had breached the terms of his parole and the chair issued a warrant for his arrest. At the time of the offences to which I have referred he had not been apprehended.

There was quite justified community outrage at the offences committed by Robinson in his rampage and also considerable community concern about the fact that Robinson was in a position to commit such serious offences because he was at large.

What was the government's response to this outrage? It was to seek to scapegoat the Parole Board for this series of events. Scapegoating is a time-honoured device of scurrilous politicians, and the Rann government has perfected the scapegoat game since its election. It has a number of favourite scapegoats. Criminal lawyers are one section, and the Adelaide City Council is another. Paul Nemer was a scapegoat for a certain time. However, the government has found that the best scapegoat is an individual rather than an institution; that is why it usually picks on councillor Anne Moran rather than the city council as a whole.

In relation to the current matter, the obvious scapegoat was the chair of the Parole Board, Frances Nelson QC. Ms Nelson has been on the board for some 26 years. She has been fearless, hardworking, knowledgeable and conscientious in the discharge of these very difficult duties that she has. There was also a difficulty about scapegoating the whole of the Parole Board, because all of its current members have been appointed by this government—and, indeed, Ms Nelson herself had been reappointed by the current government—and the deputy chair of the board was a Labor mate, Tim Bourne, who I might say has also been a conscientious, diligent and effective member of the Parole Board since his appointment, notwithstanding the fact that he did not at the time of his appointment appear to have any great qualifications for it.

However, there was a danger about using the board as a scapegoat, because to do so would mean that Mr Bourne would be attacked. The Attorney-General said yesterday, 'The first thing I have to do is to work out who was on the Parole Board when this very bad decision was taken.' Clearly, the scapegoat once again was to be Frances Nelson QC.

Time expired.

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