“Lack of urgency”: Children’s commissioner joins calls for detention centre closure

As children at the Ashley Youth Detention Centre spend as little as one hour out of their cells, there are calls to speed up the closure of the centre. DETAILS>>

As rolling lockdowns leave Tasmanian children at the Ashley Youth Detention Centre (AYDC) with as little as one hour outside of their cells, the Tasmanian children’s commissioner has called for the closure of the facility to be expedited.

In September last year, former Premier Peter Gutwein announced it would close “in around three years”, but on Friday Department of Communities secretary Michael Pervan said the timeline was “very, very ambitious”.

In a statement on Sunday, Premier Jeremy Rockliff said the centre would be closed and a new model in place by the end of 2024.

Commissioner for Children and Young People Leanne McLean said it needed to be earlier.

“I called for the closure of AYDC back in September,” Ms McLean said.

“My view is Ashley should close as soon as possible.”

Children's Commissioner of Tasmania Leanne McLean listening in the public gallery. Commission of Inquiry into the Tasmanian Government's Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Institutional Settings held in Hobart. Picture: pool/ABC

There are currently 12 children at the centre between the ages of 11 and 17.

Ms McClean said it was anticipated the Commission of Inquiry into the Tasmanian Government’s Response to Child Sexual Abuse in Institutional Settings would lead to short staffing at the centre.

She said those anticipated shortages eventuated and now children were forced to deal with rolling lockdowns.

“On a good day the rolling lockdowns mean they’ll be locked in their room around 7 at night, they go in and then they’re not out until 10am the next morning,” Ms McLean said.

“Depending on the amount of staff available to work, the amount of time they spend out of their cells between 10am and 4, 5 or 6 at night depends.

“It could be one hour at a time it could be two, it’s a day by day decision that’s being made.”

Ms McLean said she’d been in discussions with the government about staffing levels for months.

She said the lockdowns had a detrimental impact on the wellbeing of the children.

“They’re not able to access they’re rights, rights to legal services, healthcare, let alone fresh air,” Ms McLean said.

“I don’t think we would accept that for any other group in our society, yet we somehow seem satisfied for our children to be treated in such a way.

“There’s a lack of urgency to actually change the situation for the children right now.”

Ashley Youth Detention Centre near Westbury in Northern Tasmania.

Ms McLean called for a rapid response team to be urgently deployed at the centre.

“It is a crisis, it requires a crisis intervention response,” Ms McLean said.

“This team should be focused on both the wellbeing of detainees and the wellbeing of the staff who remain at the centre and should remain as a transitionary arrangement while the new model is agreed ahead of the closure.

“While we take our time working this out, every day, children are being locked in their cells and that is not okay.”

Mr Rockliff said work was underway to secure extra staff.

“If there were better alternatives to AYDC available now, we would be taking them,” he said.

Premier Jeremy Rockliff speaks to the media at the University of Tasmania's Sandy Bay campus on Tuesday, August 23, 2022.

“While this is underway, our immediate priority is to ensure appropriate staffing ratios and support for the existing workforce responsible for the safety and care of young people currently in AYDC.”

Rally calls for immediate closure of centre

Victim-survivors of child sexual abuse are demanding that the Tasmanian government immediately close the notorious Ashley Youth Detention Centre, following a week of damning evidence presented to the commission of inquiry.

The government is facing unrelenting pressure to bring forward its plan to shut the centre, which it’s committed to do by 2024, replacing it with two purpose-built facilities.

A rally was held on parliament lawns on Saturday to call for Ashley to be closed, with abuse victim-survivors and advocates saying the shocking revelations aired in Tasmania’s child sexual abuse commission of inquiry should prompt the Rockliff government to act swiftly.

Alysha, a former clinical practice consultant at Ashley who blew the whistle on abuse within the facility and whose surname has been withheld for legal reasons, said “nothing justifies putting children at risk of abuse”.

Tiffany Skeggs and Alysha. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

“We’ve heard … that the centre is torturing children, the centre is guilty of sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, all of which I’ve evidenced, other people have evidenced,” she said.

“We know it has occurred, we know it is occurring and it’s time to just say, ‘This is not OK’.”

Several prominent organisations and individuals have backed the immediate closure of Ashley, including Amnesty International, UNICEF, and National Children’s Commissioner Anne Hollonds.

Tiffany Skeggs, who was sexually abused by the late paedophile nurse James Griffin – the first aid officer at her netball centre – for years from the age of 12, said the government was “enabling and complying with the abuse of children”.

“We need to keep children safe and it’s not happening,” she said.

Ashley Youth Detention Centre. PICTURE: CHRIS KIDD

A former ward of the state who helped organise the rally, and who the Mercury has chosen not to name, said it would be “horrific” if Ashley continued operating for another two years.

“I can’t sit here and let our Premier leave this centre open anymore,” she said. “It’s government-sanctioned child abuse, in my opinion.”

Mr Rockliff said he could “understand perfectly” why there were calls for Ashley to be closed immediately.

“If we could close sooner, that would be good,” he said. “And we would, but we need to ensure that we have that transition in place that we can support people within the youth justice system in that therapeutic environment.”

When asked if he was confident that bad behaviour at Ashley had stopped, Mr Rockliff said he was “confident there’s been enormous improvements over recent years”.

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Originally published as “Lack of urgency”: Children’s commissioner joins calls for detention centre closure