Thursday, 3 April 2025

Questions without notice and ministers statements

Corrections system

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (12:00): (885) My question is for the Minister for Corrections. Minister, Corrections Victoria’s sentence management guidelines state high-security ratings should be applied to prisoners:

… who have a high level of notoriety which would cause the community to expect the highest levels of supervision to be applied.

Why is the government breaching Correction Victoria’s own sentencing guidelines by downgrading the security classification of mass murderers like Julian Knight?

Enver ERDOGAN (Northern Metropolitan – Minister for Casino, Gaming and Liquor Regulation, Minister for Corrections, Minister for Youth Justice) (12:01): Mr Davis, from the outset I just reject the premise of that question. We have had a number of discussions in this place about prisoner placements, but in relation to that individual there are laws in place to ensure that that person is never released back out into the community, and he is exactly where he needs to be – in a custodial facility, locked up; that is the right place for him to be.

Prisoner placements are important decisions about where people are placed in the system. They are operational decisions that assess a number of factors, and one of those factors is about security of premises – the appropriate setting for someone to be placed in – and they are done by professionals in the field. Corrections Victoria manage that process; there are over 6300 people in our corrections system, and they manage where people should be appropriately placed. In relation to high-profile prisoners we even have an expert panel with a Supreme Court judge and Victoria Police, and the ultimate decision is the decision of the Corrections Victoria commissioner, and I fully respect them in their decision-making on these matters; they make these assessments from a range of factors, including security assessment.

David Davis: You are downgrading the classifications.

Enver ERDOGAN: I will take that interjection. I think people are making their own conclusions, but I think classifications are well within the remit of the experts in this area. They are the professionals that understand the risks to the system, but the paramount duty – because these people are locked up, and the community is kept safe from them – is to ensure staff safety and the safety of the corrections system, and I can confirm that people of that type, especially those high-level offenders, cannot be moved from maximum or medium security; they cannot be put into our minimum-security prison system, which is more focused on rehabilitation and reintegrating people back into the community.

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (12:02): Further, high-risk crooks have been handed phones to keep them well behaved while they are locked down in their cells during lockdowns. Is this practice within Corrections Victoria’s guidelines and best practice prisoner and security management?

Enver ERDOGAN (Northern Metropolitan – Minister for Casino, Gaming and Liquor Regulation, Minister for Corrections, Minister for Youth Justice) (12:03): I am not sure if Mr Davis’s supplementary is necessarily related to prisoner placement, it is a matter of the corrections system, but I am happy to correct this, because I think there can be a lot of disinformation with the way the justice system operates and our corrections system operates. Prisoners having access to phone calls is a longstanding arrangement; every correctional system in the country has access to phone calls. During the pandemic we did have some cordless phones, but they are connected to the same system, and it is important to understand that people that use these phones have the same restrictions – that means they are monitored phone calls, there are time limits and there needs to be an approved list of who they can speak to, and that is what we expect for people that make calls. But no, prisoners do not keep these cordless phones in their cells.