Wednesday, 3 December 2025

 Rachel PAYNE (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (19:22): (2197) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Corrections, and the action I seek is for emergency management days to be automatically considered in all cases. We recently both had the pleasure of attending She’ll Be Apples,a performance by the women in Dame Phyllis Frost Centre run by Somebody’s Daughter Theatre company. The performance was a powerful exploration of trauma, abuse and isolation. It also touched on how lockdowns triggered by staff shortages at the centre isolated women and impacted their wellbeing. At one stage it was unclear whether this performance would be able to go ahead because of the lockdowns, but thankfully it eventually did, albeit slightly delayed.

While these lockdowns thankfully appear to have eased, they highlighted several issues with the way these kinds of staffing shortages are handled. When these lockdowns were at their peak community legal services and support service providers raised significant concerns around access and restrictions on appointments, given the gates were only being unlocked for an hour to allow restricted movement. We were also concerned by reports that the Department of Justice and Community Safety was obstructing the women’s ability to know and enforce their rights by withholding mail, policing service providers, monitoring documents they bring in and telling service providers they cannot provide emergency management day application forms.

Emergency management days are a limited number of days that can be taken off a prisoner’s sentence if they suffer a disruption or deprivation beyond the usual disruptions and deprivations of imprisonment. This measure recognises the additional burden placed upon prisoners in these circumstances. It is also disturbing that service providers would be told that they could not provide emergency management day application forms. It also reflects a fundamental problem within the existing application process – that is, the burden for applying for emergency management days is often put onto the prisoners rather than being automatically considered. This leads to unequal outcomes and challenges when applying, particularly where access to legal assistance is limited, as was the case during the lockdowns at the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre.

Changing the process for emergency management days from an application process to automatic consideration will not reduce safeguards, including eligibility being restricted to people who were on good behaviour at the time. There is also precedent for these changes. During the pandemic Corrections Victoria implemented an automatic consideration process for emergency management days. So I ask: will the minister allow emergency management days to be automatically considered in all cases?