Analysis: Culture of cover-up a cancer on Tasmania’s democracy
Claims of abuse in education, hospitals and prisons have been known to the government – but kept under wraps for months or even years. What else aren’t we being told, asks David Killick >>
Tasmania
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- Detention Centre worker stood down over serious misconduct claims
- Ashley Youth Detention Centre abuse alleged over decades
- Tasmania the nation’s least open state, ombudsman declares
- Public meeting to thrash out planning scrutiny concerns
CLAIMS of sexual abuse and a cover-up at Ashley Detention Centre and Tasmania’s appalling record on handling Right to Information requests seem to have little in common.
They are the same thing: Tasmania’s culture of secrecy is a cancer on our democracy.
Abuse claims in education and in Launceston General Hospital and at Ashley Detention Centre have been known in government circles but kept under wraps for months or years. What else aren’t we being told?
Keeping bad news — or any news — from reaching the public isn’t some sort of aberration. It is the defining characteristic of this state’s political culture.
It infects almost every public institution. It is endemic in the health and education departments, and reflected in the unchecked nepotism of state’s the prison system.
It is the leitmotif of the police service and the courts. DPIPWE could give masterclasses to ASIO at keeping things secret.
It is an obsession that extends to the institutions supposed to protect us: to our milquetoast Integrity Commission and the hasty, opaque inquiries set up to hose down scandals. It runs through our councils and the planning system.
It’s reflected in the secret deals in favour of developers and fish farmers, the unfathomable issuing of essential worker’s permits for plasterers and carpenters, the parks deals for developers, the million-dollar grants and the favours for donors.
It is a culture that leaves newcomers gobsmacked at its blatancy and audacity.
It is the province of arse-covering public sector jobsworths and self-serving politicians and the army of spin doctors who help them stave off the eternally stretched inquisitors of the press.
It is a relic of our convict past, this fear of speaking out. It is a straight line from ‘Don’t upset the overseer’ to ‘Don’t trouble the Minister’.
The Tasmanian state motto is ‘fit in or f*** off”.
It is the untroubled embrace of mediocrity, the easy life on the public paycheck. This is no state for whistleblowers. Governance is conducted on a need-to-know basis.
So deeply entrenched, so unremarkable, is Tasmania’s aversion to openness that the Commissioner for Children felt it appropriate to tamp down public discussion of the Ashley rape claims. She says talking about children being raped or abused could harm children. Is that really the problem here?
It all sounds familiar. What other institutions hosed down abuse claims for years, held sham redress processes, dissembled and lied?
When asked in parliament on Thursday about potential abuse of netball players by paedophile nurse and coach James Griffin, Sports Minister Jane Howlett said she couldn’t talk about an ongoing police investigation. There is none, Griffin is dead.
It was appallingly, blatantly and obviously untrue. She corrected the record when called out.
Premier Peter Gutwein appeared surprised when he found out Tasmania is the worst state in Australia for releasing public information.
This is the same Premier who is hiding a report on electoral donation reform, it’s the premier who dodges and deflects at press conferences, who turns the questions back on the inquirer, it’s the bloke who is just following the advice of bureaucrats.
It is patronising and entitled and paternalistic. The fish rots from the head, but the whole fish is rotten. Transparency is deeds, not words, Premier.
Where is the anger, where is the outrage?
Why are we protecting paedophiles and abusers from the daylight?
How many child sex abuse scandals and cover-ups will it take for someone in this government to spot the pattern? We know it is more than three.
Is it five? Is it ten?
Originally published as Analysis: Culture of cover-up a cancer on Tasmania’s democracy
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