Senator WOODLEY (1:12 PM) —I rise today to speak on a couple of matters of public interest which affect my state of Queensland. The Senate will be aware that I have spoken on these issues a number of times previously, but I believe they are issues which will not go away. I believe that eventually the federal government will have to pass federal whistleblower legislation as the only solution to the issues which I am raising.

I want to update the Senate today on two whistleblower issues which will not go away. One is to do with Kevin Lindeberg and the shredding of the Heiner documents. The other is to do with the issue of a former policeman, Mr Gordon Harris. It is an issue of privilege which I believe really does interest the Senate, and I thank the Clerk of the Senate, Mr Harry Evans, for helping me to draw the attention of Mr Harris and others to what now quite clearly is a breach of privilege of the Queensland parliament. The advice given by Harry Evans has subsequently been confirmed by the staff of the Queensland parliament as well. So it is interesting for me to bring this update to the Senate.

Briefly, in the first instance, in the matter of the Heiner inquiry and Mr Lindeberg, I point out to the Senate that media reports in Queensland in recent days and evidence given to the Forde inquiry have underlined some information which was not available to the Senate when we conducted the two whistleblower inquiries, nor available when the Privileges Committee looked at that issue again. I am speaking about the whole problem of child abuse, which is a big issue in Queensland and, I know, around Australia. When the Heiner documents were shredded, I do not think anyone was aware of the fact that they actually contained quite a bit of evidence of child abuse in my state.

The tragedy is that it has taken eight or nine years since the shredding for that evidence to come to light again. That is the tragedy—that we had a hiatus of a period of time in which we could have been doing something about the issue of child abuse but, because of the shredding, the evidence disappeared from the record and is now being given in great detail to the Forde inquiry.

I will go over a couple of matters that I raised in a speech not quite 12 months ago and I will then add to that the recent evidence that has come to light. When I moved my motion to have the Lindeberg matter referred to the Privileges Committee a little over 12 months ago, I indicated that it appeared that what was shredded was evidence of possible child abuse. We now know for a fact that it was. Last year in the Courier-Mail there were reports that Mr Noel Newnham, a former police commissioner in Queensland who conducted an investigation for Mr Lindeberg, uncovered a number of instances of child abuse. They have been the subject of a lot of discussion in the media in Queensland and also in evidence given to the Forde inquiry.

Mr Newnham pointed out that the use of excessive or unnecessary force against people in lawful custody amounts to criminal assault. I would remind the Senate that we are talking about evidence of possible serious child abuse of detainees. Children as young as 10 and 12 had been handcuffed to water grates in the open air all night. One child was told that snakes would come out of the grate and was found the next morning with his blanket stuffed down the grate because he was so afraid. Others, it is alleged, were handcuffed to beds for extended periods. It is also alleged that there was inappropriate use of suppressant drugs for other than medical reasons and that there was also psychological and physical abuse.

I am not apportioning blame to anyone—that will no doubt arise once Mrs Forde has handed down her report to the current government—but I do believe that we need to underline how abhorrent child abuse is to this Senate and to most reasonable people in Australia. As I said, Mr Newnham pointed out in his report that excessive or unnecessary force against people in lawful custody amounts to criminal assault. Mr Newnham said:

In the case of minors such assaults by custodial officials, directly or indirectly, must always be regarded as extremely serious.

He further said:

. . . Australia has international treaty obligations regarding the treatment of people in custody and of children. It appears plain that officials disregarded some of these obligations.

He also said that it was an absurd notion to suggest that the Crown had to shred these documents to prevent people suing each other. I happen to agree with Mr Newnham. It is absurd to suggest that the Crown cannot handle documents containing such evidence, and that its only remedy was to destroy them.

To update the Senate, I will add some of the evidence given to the Forde inquiry. It appears that two of the girls who were handcuffed in the John Oxley Centre were Aboriginal girls, and that has been spelt out in evidence to the Forde inquiry. There is no doubt that the treatment of people inside institutions is a very serious matter, and I believe that international conventions, such as the Convention on Torture, need to be invoked in this case.

In a recent case, for which the evidence is now coming to light, one young Aboriginal lad hanged himself after being sexually abused in the John Oxley Centre. He used a ventilation grille, and apparently the problem of ventilation grilles was pointed out in some of the evidence shredded in the Heiner inquiry. This is why we need somewhere to expose the problems.

There is no doubt that the Forde inquiry will expose many of these issues, but I think it is important that the federal government and this Senate—because of its interest in these cases—be made aware of them. I again raise the issue of federal legislation in terms of whistleblower evidence. I believe that in the end, because many of the problems occur in state institutions, only federal legislation will give us the kind of forum which will enable many of these issues to be dealt with more quickly than has been possible in Queensland because of actions by the Queensland government and also by Queensland departments. That is the first issue.

The second issue is also of interest to the Senate. I will read parts of a letter written to me from Gordon Harris, because some of it is fairly technical. An outline of what happened—it is a very long issue—is that Gordon Harris is a former policeman who, because he pursued superiors within the Queensland police force, eventually was forced out of the police force but has continued to present his case in various forums.

In one court case in which he was involved—and in which, finally, the magistrate said he was technically in breach of the law but no conviction was recorded against him—much of the evidence used in the case against him by the prosecutor was taken from a document obtained from the Queensland parliament, and that document attracted absolute privilege. For the court to have used the document as evidence against Gordon Harris appears to be a very serious breach of that privilege. Harry Evans has given me some advice on this, and the staff of the Queensland parliament have backed up that advice. It may be that this case will go further, particularly on those grounds, but it is of interest to the Senate that something that Senator Abetz and I were involved in some years ago continues to be a matter of dispute because of the way in which things were done.

I will read into the record some of the technical issues so that they are available for the Senate. It may be useful. Gordon Harris and another person wrote to me and said:

We have previously detailed the position regarding parliamentary privilege and our claims that a document presented by the Crown to prosecute Gordon Harris was covered by absolute privilege (being published by the Queensland Legislative Assembly) and therefore not admissible in a court of law. Section 40A of the Constitution Act 1867 provides that the powers, privileges and immunities of the Legislative Assembly are the same as those of the House of Commons, its committees and members from time to time, and Article 9 of the Bill of Rights 1869 applies in Queensland (as it does throughout Australian jurisdictions) by virtue of s.40A. Section 3 of the Parliamentary Papers Act 1992 defines the document in question as a proceeding in parliament and therefore covered by absolute privilege.

It is a very interesting case, and it seems that not only was that document used to prosecute Gordon Harris but also it was used very selectively. At the time, it was not available to the Senate committee, except that we were allowed to read it in a closed room and not allowed to comment on it when we went out of the room. That document is now available publicly, and when one reads it, one can see how selectively it was used in prosecuting Gordon Harris in the court. I think that represents a very serious miscarriage of justice as well as a breach of parliamentary privilege.

I believe it is important that I bring this issue to the attention of the Senate. The prosecution was brought with the knowledge of the Queensland Criminal Justice Commission, the Queensland Attorney-General at the time, the Queensland Director of Public Prosecutions and the Queensland Police Service. It seems to me that, when all of those bodies work together to bring a prosecution against someone and then use a document which is subject to parliamentary privilege and quote from it very selectively—a document which is not available publicly and not available to Gordon Harris to defend himself—a serious miscarriage of justice has occurred.

Let me say in closing how grateful I am to the Clerk, Harry Evans, for his advice on this matter. It really did help Gordon Harris to work his way through the maze of technical detail. It was very helpful and may help in the end to get justice for Gordon Harris on this issue, as the issue may eventually go to the High Court of Australia for determination.

Senator Abetz —For a change, that was a good speech.