Cynical Labor backflip wipes powerful tool from prison system
Prison workers among those who will suffer from ending remissions, says Greg Barns
IN a healthy democracy public policy is informed by evidence, not prejudice and cynical opportunism. Because democracy is corroded and undermined when the political class thinks that its role is simply to win elections irrespective of the cost to society over the long term.
A case in point of the lack of health of Tasmanian democracy came recently in the Hodgman Government’s typically populist and evidence-free gesture of abolishing remissions for prisoners (disclaimer: this columnist is chair of the Prisoners Legal Service). As if that policy was not bad enough, along came the Australian Labor Party which, yet again, refused to stand behind a principled and policy driven position, instead back flipping for base political advantage. This episode showed that Tasmania needs a political force which is focused only on good policy outcomes, and which is willing to lose rather than be infected with the cancerous growth which is metastasising rapidly in our supposed democracy.
The Liberal Party plays the law and order card, not because there is any evidence to show it is good policy, but because they think it is a useful political tactic. If you oppose their irrational and evidence-free proposals like mandatory jail terms and abolishing suspended sentences (which as leading Tasmanian Supreme Court Judge Stephen Estcourt, in a decision, reminded us recently is a very useful and punitive sentence) then it enables them to cry that you are soft on crime. The consequences of the Liberal Party’s intellectfree policies is of course higher crime and crowded prisons.
The introduction of a law to abolish remissions is in the same vein. There was no, literally, evidence provided to the Tasmanian Parliament that abolishing remissions, which is a useful incentive to ensure prisoners’ participation in rehabilitation, was good policy. Unions, legal services, NGOs like Anglicare all pointed out the danger of removing such a tool.
It seemed that the ALP would stand behind the evidence and oppose such a retrograde law.
When the Hodgman Government introduced the law, the ALP’s shadow attorney-general Ella Haddad, who it must be said is more policy-driven than some of her colleagues, said that its consultations with the community, including the Tasmanian Prison Service, shows “there is broad support for the use of remission within the community of people who work with inmates in the Tasmanian Prison Service.” And, she add in her speech on September 18, “As we heard in our consultations with workers in the prison system, remission is a tool in the toolkit of prison staff. There are correctional officers who work day-in, day-out in very tough conditions, doing some of the hardest jobs in the Tasmanian Public Service. The use of remission is a useful administrative tool for those Tasmanian Prison Service staff, correctional officers and others, to manage behaviour within the prison,” Ms Haddad said.
Ms Haddad was joined by
the ALP Leader Bec White who rightly observed that the Hodgman Government had “not presented any evidence that demonstrates that removing remission will improve community safety,” and that remissions are a “tool to ensure they can keep our prisons — our officers who work in the prison and the staff that support them — safe and make sure we do have a restorative approach. It is about ensuring we have rehabilitation and that we reward good behaviour”.
The ALP was doing its job and refusing to head down the populist and undemocratic path proposed by a government which is bereft of policy except that which concerns the fetishes of the nutty religious Right.
But then something happened. Two days later, when the remissions abolition law hit the Legislative Council, the sound policy-driven approach from the ALP had vanished. Despite hearing from an ex-prisoner Tony Bull about how remissions helped him turn his life around, the Law Society and the community legal sector, when the vote came up in the Council the ALP supported the Hodgman government’s ploy. One independent Council member that contacted this columnist was bewildered and shocked by the ALP backflip.
There is no explanation for the ALP backdown other than its tacticians had obviously decided there are not votes in standing behind good policy. So the losers from this tawdry affair are of course prison workers, prisoners and the community itself as recidivism rates increase. The other loser is democracy.
The signal sent by the ALP now is that it will succumb to the dangerous law and order agenda of the Hodgman Government for fear of being tagged as ‘soft on crime.’ This not only represents an abdication of its responsibility as a political entity to oppose such mindless cynical initiatives, but it confirms that democracy is no longer about taking responsibility for the long term, but is simply about winning votes.
Tasmania needs a principled, policy driven liberal political force to save this democracy. Any takers?