Media Release: Parliamentary Call on Government to act urgently on AYDC Taskforce

Parliamentary Call on Government to act urgently on AYDC Taskforce

23 May 2024

Independent Member for Nelson Meg Webb has tabled a motion in the Legislative Council calling on the Government to immediately put in place a taskforce to design and implement interim measures to remove children on remand from Ashley Youth Detention Centre, as proposed by the Commissioner for Children and Young People.

“The Government is clearly not responding in good faith to the Commission of Inquiry recommendation to close AYDC as soon as possible due to ongoing risk of abuse – in fact, it is incarcerating the highest number of children in a decade,“ Ms Webb said.

“If the Premier was genuine about ‘getting it right’ as he asserted during his ministerial update to Parliament, he would seize the offers of assistance made by community service organisations and establish the called for Taskforce as a matter of urgency.

“Instead, we are seeing this Government actively demonise and target young Tasmanians for electoral advantage with misguided tough-on-crime initiatives, filling AYDC with children on remand and putting them at risk of abuse in an environment where we know their human rights will be violated.”

Ms Webb said since September last year, the community services sector, led by TasCOSS, has actively offered alternative interim models to take children out of AYDC into evidence-based, secure accommodation in the community.

“The Government has dragged its feet for over eight months, ignoring the call to work with the community sector to get kids out of AYDC and into safer and more effective community-based care arrangements.

“Rather than prioritise the interim steps available to make kids safer and act on the spirit of the Commissioners recommendation, the government has turned its back and accelerated the imprisonment of Tasmanian children.

“What will it take for this government to act, when it hears time and time again from oversight entities such as the Commissioner for Children and Young People that children detained at AYDC are in an understaffed facility, subjected to regular isolation and remain at active risk of abuse?  

“Continued inaction can only be seen as gross negligence and dereliction of duty of care on the part of the Minister and the Liberal government.

“Quite frankly, the most recent call by the Children’s Commissioner for an urgent taskforce is a modest one.  If the Minister once again ignores this call, that will confirm for many that this government chooses to leave vulnerable children at risk, and ultimately, the Tasmanian community less safe.”

View below the text of the motion tabled by Meg Webb MLC: