Des Houghton: $1 million for female prisoners to store possessions

The state government spending cash to allow female prisoners to store poessesions is an outrageous waste of public funds, writes Des Houghton.

Brisbane Women's Correctional Centre at Wolston, Picture AAP/David Clark

The state government has agreed to spend $1m providing space for female prisoners to store their pregnancy casts, fishing rods and other items while they are in jail.

I think the scheme is an outrageous waste of public funds.

That said, I should say up front I have sympathy for those who find themselves on the wrong side of the law. Not often, but sometimes.

And we all know the worst criminals are not in the slammer.

I was especially annoyed by the woke language in documents describing the storage plan. They were another example of how prisoners’ “rights” trump the rights of the victims of their crimes.

The briefing document says prison is traumatic for women. But isn’t that the point? It’s called punishment.

The scheme’s objective is to “reduce the traumatic impacts of custodial admission”.

It will be trialled in the north by Queensland Corrective Services.

Local police will be diverted from their duties to collect the prisoner’s items to be stored.

It may be churlish of me to say so but someone has to tell the offenders they can eliminate the trauma of going to jail by not breaking the law.

“The Queensland government has committed up to $926,000 (excluding GST) in funding over three years,” the briefing document says.

Small electrical appliances and items such jewellery, photos, phones and laptops may be stored.

“Culturally significant items and artefacts including, but not limited to, dried animal skin, pregnancy cast, weaving basket or carrying vessel (may also be stored).”

The storage service must be delivered by people “skilled at communicating with people marginalised in their communities, including First Nations people, people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, people with a disability, and/or people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI+).”

It said special considerations had to be applied “where a prisoner has been impacted by Sorry Business”.

Female prisoners pictured at Brisbane Women's Correctional Centre, Picture: Daniel Soekov for Human Rights Watch

I’m not quite sure what that means. It is not explained.

However, the document says stored items may include those of cultural or religious significance, or items that are socio-economically essential like bicycles and fishing rods.

Pets, pipes and other smoking paraphernalia and booze could not be stored. Cars and whitegoods will not be stored.

The storage plan expenditure was ticked off by the Miles government.

It is this kind of reckless spending that sent Queensland debt skyrocketing to $217bn, putting us more in debt than any other state.

Labor has left the Crisafulli government in fiscal quicksand.

The storage plan has several references to Indigenous women.

It is no secret that First Nations’ women are sometimes trapped in impoverished and violent communities.

But that does not give them the right to break the law.

As a foot soldier for this paper I have visited many Indigenous communities including those at Cherbourg, Palm Island, Yarrabah, Doomadgee, Hope Vale and Bamaga, where billions of dollars have been spent improving health and education facilities.

But too much is never enough.

The prisoner storage idea was recommended by Labor’s Women’s Safety and Justice Taskforce in its 2022 Hear Her Voice Report.

It was a costly and questionable exercise with more than 100 worthy recommendations, many impossible to implement.

Labor quickly put $363m on the table in response to the 89 recommendations in the first report.

Expect more raids on the public purse. Queensland Corrective Services wants to extend the storage program to towns in central and southeast Queensland – but only for women prisoners. Isn’t that sexist?

How do gender activists explain that bias?

Meanwhile, the corrective services department brags about its “culturally safe, gender-responsive” agenda with an emphasis on “wellbeing and healing”.

“All correctional practices will prioritise enabling women to maintain connections with culture, children and their families,” it says.

It adds: “Programs and services are responsive to the unique needs of women and delivered through the lens of women as head of household, mothers and women as victim-survivors.”

There you have it in black and white: The criminals have become the victims.

GENDER CLINIC UPROAR GROWS

A leading paediatrician who treats children confused about their gender says the Queensland Children’s Hospital gender clinic should be shut.

Dr Dylan Wilson said he had warned Health Minister Tim Nicholls that future generations would look back in horror at the use of puberty blockers and sex-change drugs in Australia amongst children.

Dr Wilson, who was born in Lancashire in England and received his first degree in medicine from the University of Wales, said growing numbers of paediatricians, psychiatrists and GPs were “quite horrified” as they began to understand that puberty blockers caused irreversible harm and had no impact whatsoever on suicide rates.

He praised psychiatrist Jillian Spencer who was stood down by Queensland Health for criticising the Brisbane clinic.

“There were people who raised concerns about lobotomy, thalidomide, vaginal mesh and Jayant Patel, and they too were dismissed and ignored,” Dr Wilson said.

“Every medical scandal has had someone who raised concerns but was dismissed or ignored … every single one.

“Jillian should be reinstated. She has raised valid concerns about the practices carried out by the Queensland Children’s Gender Service. Her concerns have been vindicated by the Dr Cass review in the UK.

Queensland paediatrician Dr Dylan Wilson is calling for a review of the treatment of children at public hospital gender clinics. Picture: Supplied

“Not only should she be reinstated, she should be thanked for bravely raising her concerns.”

Dr Hilary Cass, 66, a former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, conducted a four-year study into gender identity treatments and concluded they were built on “shaky foundations”.

This led to the closure of the famous Tavistock centre, a dedicated London gender identity clinic for children and young people. But it is business as usual for similar clinics in Australia.

Cass said children had been “let down” by the lack of reliable evidence on how safe transitioning was for them.

Wilson has studied the Cass report and a dozen other studies and agrees with Cass that gender clinics can do more harm than good.

Puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries have now been banned or sharply restricted in the UK, France, Italy, Denmark and Norway.

This week President Donald Trump signed an executive order stopping the funding of transgender affirmation programs in the US.

More than a dozen US states have already banned puberty blockers. But they have not been banned in Queensland. Why?