Talking Point: What sort of place fines the hungry for taking food from a bin?

GREG BARNS: Tasmania continues the oppressive style that began in 1803

IN recent years Tasmania has become a fashionable retreat for hipsters and educated baby boomers who visit its galleries, eat its food, wander through its wilderness and wash it all down with boutique wines, beers and spirits before heading back to their bespoke accommodation.

But while the image of this state has taken a turn for the better globally, the underbelly remains Dickensian and disturbingly reactionary.

On May 25 last year, while the well heeled hip tourists in Launceston were enjoying their $15 glass of local gin, around the corner a hungry homeless man was forced to rummage through a dumpster to find something to eat.

This man was charged by police with trespass and, as the Mercury revealed last week, he ended up in Launceston Magistrates Court where he was fined $250.

This case is not an isolated example of the criminalisation of the homeless in Tasmania. Only a few weeks earlier on January 28 in the Hobart Magistrates Court another man who is homeless found himself charged with being an “annoyance”. His crime? Calling a woman a “f---head” a few times.

Former Victorian attorney-general Rob Hulls, the last of the reforming first law officers in this nation, has criticised the fact that if you are homeless even the basic bodily function of urinating can land you in court. If you sleep in a doorway or sit on the steps of a public building police use their move-on powers to force you away onto the street.

The case in Launceston is mind-blowingly nasty. What sort of society thinks the criminal law should have any role in the circumstances of the hungry and homeless person without a cent, who is forced to rummage through a bin to find unwanted food and drink? Is it not the case that the fact this happens is what should concern us?

What would possess police to charge a person in these circumstances? Shouldn’t the police be trained to seek support for that person? Take them to a shelter, or provide them with some money or a voucher so they can access a meal. And what of the role of the courts? Fining a person, or even requiring them to do community work which was the alternative punishment here, are inadequate and harsh responses. Courts have to be re-engineered so they can support this person.

In Auckland the Launceston case would have been handled far differently. If it had got to court at all then it would have been in the remarkable Court of New Beginnings. The Court of New Beginnings deals with anyone before the courts who is homeless. It is as it says “a non-adversarial, co-ordinated, inter-agency approach to addressing the legal, social and health-related issues that have led to the participants’ offending and their homelessness. As well as holding them accountable for their offending, and ensuring that victims’ issues are addressed, the Court ensures that the necessary social and health supports are provided to address the underlying causes of the offending and the homelessness.”

This court saves governments money and makes the community safer. Newshub reported in 2017 that since it was established in 2010 the court has “been credited with a 66 per cent drop in reoffending rates among those who’ve been through the court” and that out of a “sample of 16 homeless offenders in the system, only three were still without a home six months after their appearance”. Of course, New Zealand has a progressive government not addicted to failed law and order policies.

The US has homelessness courts in 10 states. As Claudia Lopez of the National Center for Homeless Courts observes, “Homeless courts positively impact the participants because the program does not place bandages on the participants’ situations to provide temporary relief. Instead, the program directly addresses the participants’ basic human needs, as well as their legal needs … participants are willing to take responsibility for their actions and face the consequences.”

Compare that to what happens in Tasmania. The two cases referred to here are the tip of the iceberg. Every day our courts have many people who appear without accommodation and who are alleged to have committed petty offences. Even shoplifting offences can fall into that category. The desperate parent who steals some meat to feed their starving children, for example.

What does it say about Tasmania that while our government and media laud so-called economic growth and the cool factor the reality is a society that uses a 19th century legal system to repress and stigmatise the homeless and the marginalised. The so-called progress Tasmania has made is not felt below the surface. Tasmania began its European life, after the invasion of 1803-4, as an outsourced prison for the English ruling class. Today its own bourgeoisie have assumed the mantle but the oppression continues.

Hobart barrister Greg Barns is a human rights lawyer who has advised state and federal Liberal governments.