Christies Beach Women's Shelter: Right of Reply

Extract from Hansard

Legislative Council
29 September 1999

Mike Elliott
Leader Australian Democrats
Member of the Legislative Council

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I. The request by former workers of the Christies Beach Women's Shelter Incorporated to have a statement incorporated into Hansard in accordance with the Resolution of the Legislative Council passed on 11 March 1999.

II. The decision by the President of the Council not to allow the statement to be incorporated and expresses its regret with that decision.

During the last session a motion moved by the Attorney- General was passed: it allowed for a response in Hansard from people who felt that, under parliamentary privilege, they had been in some way misrepresented or whatever. We in this place are all aware that former workers from the Christies Beach Women's Shelter had sought to avail themselves of that opportunity which had been offered for the first time in either of the houses of the South Australian Parliament- something which some people have been advocating for some years, as I have. I was pleased to see that we had such a motion on our notice paper.

However, when the former workers of the Christies Beach Women's Shelter sought to avail themselves of that opportunity, it was refused. Indeed, Mr President, you gave some reasons to this place at the time. There was no motion of dissent or anything else at that point. Clearly, nobody in this place knew the precise content of the submission that was made by the women, but I have since spoken with the women from the Christies Beach Women's Shelter and have had an opportunity to see their submission.

We passed the original motion to allow responses in Hansard because, even though everybody in this place supports the notion of parliamentary privilege, we recognise that from time to time it is abused- sometimes deliberately, sometimes unintentionally due to bad research or whatever, but it is misused. And, in some cases, real damage is done to people. In the nearly 14 years that I have been in this place, I cannot think of another case where parliamentary privilege had been used by a member of parliament and had done more damage to individuals than this particular case. We have all done it, and I think I have probably made some mistakes on one or two occasions, but I think they have usually affected other politicians. That sort of thing will happen from time to time, although I would have to say it was not done with intent, although on one occasion I can think of my research had not been thorough enough.

Here we have a case of a number of people who had been seriously impacted upon and who were seeking redress. For those newer members of this place, those who have come in only during the past 12 years and would not be fully aware of the problems in relation to this issue, I point out that the problems first emerged when the then Minister for Health, the Hon. Dr Cornwall, tabled in this place a report entitled `Shelters in the storm'. At page 65, that report stated:

Examples of unsubstantiated allegations made to the department about deficiencies in financial management, unacceptable management practices, and professional and personal misbehaviour, include persistent over-spending and inadequate financial recording operating costs used to augment salaries without the authorisation of the department, inadequate personnel records and ineffective control of personnel and resources, the granting of excessively generous terms and conditions of employment, inappropriate personnel and financial management, misappropriation of funds, failure to cooperate with departmental personnel in the normal course of funding procedures, sexual harassment, physical harassment and intimidation, professional negligence, unprofessional inappropriate and exploitative client counselling practices, including breach of confidentiality.

It was a 65 page report, of which I think about seven pages referred to the Christies Beach Women's Shelter, because the report theoretically looked at all the shelters in South Australia. It was really the content of those paragraphs that received the most publicity. In fact, I recall one of the authors of the report appearing on the 7.30 Report . I am not certain if the minister himself did not appear on the 7.30 Report , but it was reported on the front page of the Advertiser -it was everywhere. As members can recognise, all that stuff sounds pretty damn serious, and one assumes that, when a minister tables a report, a great deal of care has been taken.

At that time the women who worked at the shelter and people from the management board itself had all been substantially impacted upon. In fact, the workers lost their jobs virtually on the spot, and many of them struggled for years to get work: some to this day have never returned to the sort of work they would have expected to be able to do otherwise. Some people have gone interstate and others have had mental breakdowns. All sorts of things have occurred as a consequence.

Police investigations involved the interviewing of 200 people and, at the end of all of that, there ended up being one charge which related effectively to the keeping of the books, and it was of such a technical nature that the judge threw it out of court without any penalty and said that the money spent in pursuing the case would have been better spent on the women and children affected by domestic violence rather than being used in that way.

It is also worth noting that this Council eventually set up a select committee. The last three sentences of the conclusions of its report stated:

Following consideration of all written and oral submissions, the select committee is of the opinion that many of the unsubstantiated allegations stated on pages 65 and 66 of the document `Shelters in the storm' remain unsubstantiated. For that reason, unsubstantiated allegations should not have been included in the report, and hence should not and would not have been used in parliament as part of the explanation given for the defunding. The select committee in the strongest possible terms condemns the use of those unsubstantiated allegations by the authors of the report `Shelters in the storm.'

The fact is they were used in this place under parliamentary privilege and could be used in the public arena against these people. That was the unanimous conclusion of the committee that was established.

To this day, I believe very strongly that justice has been denied to the former workers and the people on the management committee of the Christies Beach Women's Shelter. Even after all this time, the pain is so great that they have sought an opportunity to have their response tabled in this place. As I said, I sought to have a look at the letter members of the shelter had lodged with the President, and I said to them that I thought there were probably three areas where they themselves may have been accused of making judgments or allegations about others and that that really would not be consistent with the agreement that had been reached in this place by the passage of the motion. However, they were minor changes and required the removal of about 10 words. Those changes now ensure that the document fully conforms with what this place understood it was supporting when it passed that motion.

I will read the letter, as amended, so that it does not make allegations and judgments about other people. Justice demands that the letter, which explains in their own words- although my suggestion is with a few words removed-the reaction of members of the Christies Beach Women's Shelter to what was said about them, be included in Hansard simply to set the record straight. In this case, the letter is now addressed to me, as follows:

We, the undersigned former workers of the Christies Beach Women's Shelter Incorporated, wish to respond to allegations made about us in the Legislative Council under parliamentary privilege and, in accordance with the resolution of the Legislative Council passed on 11 March 1999, we wish to have this reply incorporated into Hansard . We have been adversely affected by the allegations made in the Legislative Council.

The Hon. John Cornwall made extreme allegations about us in a ministerial statement which he delivered in the Legislative Council on 11 August 1987, announcing the defunding of the Christies Beach Women's Shelter. The allegations were taken from a report he tabled on that day entitled `Shelters in the Storm', which contained unsubstantiated allegations about the personal and professional misconduct of us, the employees of the organisation.

In his ministerial statement, Mr Cornwall referred to `deficiencies in financial management and unacceptable management practices and professional and personal misbehaviour' of the staff of the Christies Beach Women's Shelter. He further stated that `there is no other shelter about which claims of this nature and volume have been received'.

The Attorney-General, the Hon. Chris Sumner, was questioned in the Legislative Council on 19 August 1987 about the withdrawal of funds from the Christies Beach Women's Shelter. He supported the termination of funding on the basis of a recommendation contained in `Shelters in the Storm'. He stated that `the government accepted that recommendation'. However, the report at all times acknowledged that the allegations against the Christies Beach Women's Shelter were not substantiated.

In Estimates Committee on 23 September 1987, Mr Cornwall referred to us as `bully girls' who attempted to intimidate Department for Community Welfare officers by using `political muscle'.

On 22 October 1987, Mr Cornwall severely aggrieved us several times when he spoke to a motion moved in the Legislative Council. The motion condemned Mr Cornwall `for his pre-emptory and destructive action by his defunding of the Christies Beach Women's Shelter'. In his speech, Mr Cornwall repeated the allegations from the `Shelters in the Storm' report as though they were fact, although the report clearly stated that the allegations were unsubstantiated. He claimed that the `maladministration' of the shelter and `uncertainty about services to clients' justified the withdrawal of funds. He also claimed that our attempts to defend ourselves were `a classic strategy of obfuscation'.

In this speech, Mr Cornwall claimed that we had signed the financial agreement after the review committee's report. In fact, the agreement was signed and delivered to the Department for Community Welfare by two officers of the organisation on 24 July 1987, while the report was handed down in the Legislative Council of 11 August 1987.

In this speech, Mr Cornwall described our `persistent refusal to accept accountability' despite the fact that, throughout the period prior to the defunding, we were actively negotiating with the Department for Community Welfare for an agreement which was acceptable to both parties.

During this speech on 22 October 1987, Mr Cornwall stated that the Christies Beach Women's Shelter `remained intransigent and refused to cooperate with the Department for Community Welfare'. He also referred to our attempts to refute the allegations as `the campaign of deceit and distortion'.

On 13 April 1988, Mr Cornwall stated that the decision to defund the organisation was `certainly not made on the basis of the allegations but was made on the basis of the failure of the Christies Beach Women's Shelter to properly conduct the business of that shelter and, in particular, to observe appropriate accountability procedures as required by the state and federal governments.' Mr Cornwall has never provided any evidence to support this statement. This statement from Mr Cornwall is inconsistent with his earlier statement to the Legislative Council on 11 August 1987 at the time of the tabling of the report when he claimed that the decision to withdraw funds from the organisation was based on the recommendations of the review committee.

In response to a question in the Legislative Council on 12 April 1989, Mr Sumner stated that `the reality is that the report says that there was sufficient evidence to justify the defunding of the centre', despite the fact that the report admitted that the allegations were unsubstantiated.

On 12 April 1989, a select committee of the Legislative Council, established to determine the circumstances of the withdrawal of funds from the organisation, tabled its report in the house. The unanimous report of the select committee failed to find evidence which could justify the withdrawal of funds from the organisation. The evidence presented to the select committee was also tabled on that day. That evidence, which remains on the public record, contains further unsubstantiated allegations.

In the Legislative Council, on at least 20 occasions over several months, Mr Cornwall and Mr Sumner used the term `maladministration' in relation to the operations of the Christies Beach Women's Shelter. While they based their claims on the report `Shelters in the Storm', they persistently failed to point out that the report stated that the allegations were unsubstantiated.

We stress that the allegations made against us were acknowledged as unsubstantiated in the report. However, on the basis of these allegations, funds were withdrawn from the Christies Beach Women's Shelter on 4 September 1987. At the time they were made and at every opportunity over the past 12 years, we have steadfastly maintained our position that the allegations were demonstrably false and that there was absolutely no basis for the withdrawal of funds. We believe we were severely and demonstrably aggrieved by the statements of Mr Cornwall and Mr Sumner in the Legislative Council. The consequences of the debate in the Legislative Council have very severely impacted on all our lives.

We were devastated when Mr Cornwall tabled the `Shelters in the Storm' report on 11 August 1987. A committee had been established by Mr Cornwall to examine the administration of all women's shelters. We were shocked that the report detailed allegations of personal and professional misconduct against us, including sexual and physical harassment, intimidation of clients, unprofessional exploitative counselling, professional negligence, misappropriation of funds, inadequate financial records, financial mismanagement and persistent over spending. We question why no effort was made to authenticate the accuracy of the allegations before the organisation was defunded. Our devastation was compounded by the intense media attention which the report attracted.

The extent of intensive investigations, which were undertaken early in 1987 by the Criminal Investigation Branch of the SA Police and the Corporate Affairs Commission, distressed us considerably. Over a number of months, several hundred people were interviewed and thousands of financial documents were examined. The investigations failed to find evidence to justify the decision of the Bannon government to withdraw funds from the incorporated body.

We were incredulous when the issues were brought into the public domain as two of us were charged in September 1987 for breaches of the Associations Incorporation Act in the Christies Beach Magistrates Court. We were encouraged that the magistrate questioned the probity of the legal proceedings initiated by the Corporate Affairs Commission. In his deliberations, he stated that the charges brought before him were the most trivial he had ever heard, and that he considered that the moneys spent on the case would have been far better used to assist women and children who were victims of domestic violence. Each of us suffered intensely during this time. To this day we remain adversely affected by the ongoing consequences of the tabling of the report and subsequent debate in the Legislative Council.

Throughout the past 12 years, we have been affected in many areas of our lives: financially, professionally, physically, socially and personally. We are angry that we have been forced to endure financial difficulties as a consequence of extended periods of unemployment and underemployment which have resulted in considerable deprivation to us and our families, and which have included the loss of homes.

We have suffered numerous stress related health problems including asthma, psoriasis, alopecia, back problems, insomnia, panic attacks, agoraphobia and depression. Personal relationships have also suffered considerably. Throughout the ordeal, our families have shared our traumas and difficulties, which has added to our stress.

We have also found many social situations very stressful and have often chosen to stay home rather than risk extremely difficult encounters. We are outraged that our professional and personal reputations were irrevocably damaged by allegations, which were never substantiated.

This right of reply is welcomed as a procedural advance and we appreciate the opportunity to have our response included in the parliamentary record. However, we have been severely aggrieved by the allegations made during debates in the Legislative Council. These allegations have had a profound effect on us over the past 12 years and will continue to do so for the rest of our lives.

Helen McSkimming, Anthea Staiff, Margaret Allen, Heather Tangny and Vicki Lachlan.

This was some time ago but, as I said, it is the most extreme case that I have seen during my time in parliament, and I hope that I will never see anything like it again. There is no question that the harm has been ongoing and continues.

We would not normally want to go back 12 years, but this option has not been available to these people before, and I believe that the effluxion of time is not sufficient reason why these people, in their own words, should not have the opportunity to respond. In hindsight, I regret that 10 years ago after the select committee finally reported I did not receive such a letter and read it onto the record. The harm is ongoing.

I think it is a great pity-and I know how embarrassing politically it was for the government of that time-but I feel that the incoming government might have in some way helped to compensate these people. I note that, with the change of government, obligations-albeit legal-to the Chapmans in respect of Hindmarsh Island were not removed. Although this might not be a legal obligation, harm has been done by government-I do not mean Labor or Liberal-and the parliament, and I do not think there has been an adequate moral response. I think that is a great pity.

The Hon. M.J. ELLIOTT: I will not react on the spur of the moment, but I will get the chance to close the debate later. I thank members for their forbearance. I went on a little longer than I intended, but I thought it important that this should be put on the Hansard record.