First nations custodial health care
Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (12:44): (732) My question is for the Minister for Corrections. We know all too well the consequences of not providing adequate health care to First Nations people in prisons, including the shamefully high number of Aboriginal deaths in custody in this state. After the investigation into Veronica Nelson’s passing the coroner recommended that prison health care should be equivalent to that available outside of prison and, fundamentally, that Aboriginal people should have access to culturally appropriate health care. In her 2024 report regarding healthcare provision to the Aboriginal community in Victorian prisons, the Victorian Ombudsman recommended that the Department of Justice and Community Safety work with key Aboriginal community controlled organisations to design and deliver holistic custodial health services that are culturally safe and responsive to Aboriginal people, culture and rights. What work has been undertaken since the tabling of this report to action this recommendation?
Enver ERDOGAN (Northern Metropolitan – Minister for Corrections, Minister for Youth Justice, Minister for Victim Support) (12:45): I thank Dr Mansfield for her question and her interest in Aboriginal health care in our custodial settings. I think it is a very important issue and as minister I am committed to seeing improvements, and we have made significant improvements during my time. I also take the opportunity to thank previous ministers who started that work. We do take our duty of care to those in custody very seriously, and last year we did improve services across the system, particularly the women’s system. We have got Western Health caring for the women at Dame Phyllis Frost Centre. We made improvements for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in custody with new health checks specifically designed to be the equivalent of what is available under Medicare, and I am pleased to report that there has been a very strong uptake of that, and that is equivalent to what is available in the community. We also understand that the health services we provide in correctional settings need to be tailored and sometimes cannot be exactly the same because of the custodial settings and the security measures that are in place, but we continue to work closely with the Aboriginal community to improve custodial health care and to improve culturally safe appropriate health care.
I can share with you that I have had a number of discussions with Aunty Jill Gallagher, and I want to thank her for her advocacy on behalf of Aboriginal community controlled health organisations. I do not have an announcement to make, but she has proposed a pilot at one of our correctional facilities. We are very close to having something. I am very hopeful of next year having something in our adult system – maybe at one of our men’s prisons, that being a larger cohort in custody, understanding that 95 per cent of people in custody are in the men’s system. We are trialling that. There is an example of that in the ACT, and I am very keen to go visit. I do not want to reveal too much about my movements, being the corrections minister, as you could appreciate, but I might be travelling to the ACT shortly to visit that trial, and that was on the suggestion of Aboriginal stakeholders and partners. Again I thank Aunty Jill Gallagher for that suggestion. So there is work being done. I do not have announcements today, but I will have shortly.
Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (12:47): I thank the minister for that encouraging response. As part of this recommendation the Ombudsman was explicit: adequate resourcing and funding is required in order to enable Aboriginal community controlled health organisations to deliver these services. So how much funding have you asked the Treasurer to allocate in the budget to do so?
Enver ERDOGAN (Northern Metropolitan – Minister for Corrections, Minister for Youth Justice, Minister for Victim Support) (12:48): I thank Dr Mansfield. As a service-providing minister in charge of a large operational system, I am always advocating for more funds and resources. But I understand that embedding Aboriginal appropriate care is not just about the financial resources; it is also about having people who are properly trained, and that is why our government has invested in health pathways, in particular our investments in the TAFE system and also the higher education sector. I want to reach out to the Commonwealth as well for doing some of that work. But from my perspective, I am advocating for greater resources, especially to trial a pilot first to see what kind of model it will be, because as I know Aboriginal community controlled organisations themselves will say, whether it is the primary care or an additional level of care in a culturally appropriate manner, we need to trial that. We have a much larger system than what exists in some other jurisdictions in the country, being obviously the second-largest state in the nation. But I will do that work, and I will be visiting the ACT very shortly to see the model they have applied there. I am not sure if it will be necessarily appropriate – they have one facility; we have over 15.
The PRESIDENT: Before I call the minister I acknowledge a previous member of this chamber, Mr Cesar Melhem, in the gallery.