Published Thursday, 09 October, 2008 at 09:00 PM
Minister for Police, Corrective Services and Sport
The Honourable Judy Spence
New laws passed to prevent prisoners from making frivolous complaints
News laws to stop prisoners from abusing the prison complaint system have been unanimously passed by Queensland Parliament today.
Corrective Services Minister Judy Spence said: ”The Corrective Services and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 will stop the misuse of anti-discrimination legislation by offenders making frivolous complaints.
“This legislation does not entrench discrimination. What it does mean is that offenders must use the internal complaints mechanism to try and resolve issues rather than using the Anti-Discrimination legislation as their first port of call.
“This government is committed to providing a fair and just correctional system, but we are not prepared to sit back and watch prisoners abuse the complaint process and go straight to the Anti-Discrimination Commission with frivolous complaints.
“We have seen too many of them in the last couple of years.
“The Anti-Discrimination Tribunal awarded compensation to a prisoner after he complained about receiving tinned, instead of fresh, Halal meat.
“Complaints have also been made about anything from not being provided potatoes to not being allowed to purchase a certain brand of female deodorant, or a particular style of joggers.
“Every time we have to fight these cases at the Anti-Discrimination Commission it is costing taxpayers significant amounts of money – as the department has to engage lawyers and pay legal fees over very frivolous and vexatious complaints.
“I am pleased the Members of the Queensland Parliament unanimously agree that this is a practice we must stamp out.
“Prisoners need to understand this Government is not running a hotel and an offender’s every whim will not be accommodated.
“The passing of this legislation ensures offenders must exhaust internal complaints processes before making an application to the Anti-Discrimination Commission.
“The Anti-Discrimination Tribunal will also now be required to consider whether the treatment of a prisoner was reasonable within the unique environment of a correctional centre.
“And where the Tribunal does determine there has been discrimination its capacity to award compensation will now be limited to cases where it finds an offender has been treated in bad faith.
“Where an offender is awarded compensation because of discrimination or personal injury that money will be quarantined. An injured offender will be able to obtain future medical or legal costs but the balance will go to a victim trust fund.
“Queensland Corrective Services will make reasonable efforts to locate and notify eligible victims so that they may claim against the fund.
“And we are amending the limitation of actions so that victims injured many years ago, who would otherwise be out of time to claim, can make a claim within six months of the award being made to the offender.
“This legislation is giving victims a fair go at claiming against any legitimate compensation payments to prisoners while also cracking down on frivolous time wasting claims by offenders,” Ms Spence said.
Media contact: 3239 6172
Corrective Services Minister Judy Spence said: ”The Corrective Services and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 will stop the misuse of anti-discrimination legislation by offenders making frivolous complaints.
“This legislation does not entrench discrimination. What it does mean is that offenders must use the internal complaints mechanism to try and resolve issues rather than using the Anti-Discrimination legislation as their first port of call.
“This government is committed to providing a fair and just correctional system, but we are not prepared to sit back and watch prisoners abuse the complaint process and go straight to the Anti-Discrimination Commission with frivolous complaints.
“We have seen too many of them in the last couple of years.
“The Anti-Discrimination Tribunal awarded compensation to a prisoner after he complained about receiving tinned, instead of fresh, Halal meat.
“Complaints have also been made about anything from not being provided potatoes to not being allowed to purchase a certain brand of female deodorant, or a particular style of joggers.
“Every time we have to fight these cases at the Anti-Discrimination Commission it is costing taxpayers significant amounts of money – as the department has to engage lawyers and pay legal fees over very frivolous and vexatious complaints.
“I am pleased the Members of the Queensland Parliament unanimously agree that this is a practice we must stamp out.
“Prisoners need to understand this Government is not running a hotel and an offender’s every whim will not be accommodated.
“The passing of this legislation ensures offenders must exhaust internal complaints processes before making an application to the Anti-Discrimination Commission.
“The Anti-Discrimination Tribunal will also now be required to consider whether the treatment of a prisoner was reasonable within the unique environment of a correctional centre.
“And where the Tribunal does determine there has been discrimination its capacity to award compensation will now be limited to cases where it finds an offender has been treated in bad faith.
“Where an offender is awarded compensation because of discrimination or personal injury that money will be quarantined. An injured offender will be able to obtain future medical or legal costs but the balance will go to a victim trust fund.
“Queensland Corrective Services will make reasonable efforts to locate and notify eligible victims so that they may claim against the fund.
“And we are amending the limitation of actions so that victims injured many years ago, who would otherwise be out of time to claim, can make a claim within six months of the award being made to the offender.
“This legislation is giving victims a fair go at claiming against any legitimate compensation payments to prisoners while also cracking down on frivolous time wasting claims by offenders,” Ms Spence said.
Media contact: 3239 6172