David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise on behalf of the Greens to indicate we'll be supporting the Commonwealth Parole Board Bill 2025, and we are very much looking forward to an independent Commonwealth parole authority. If we only needed one reason to support this bill, the reason I'd give would be David McBride. David McBride is a political prisoner in Australia who is in jail under a Commonwealth offence—a breaching secrecy offence—for telling the truth about war. David McBride, in the next 12 months, will come up for parole. I can tell you what I don't want to see happen. I don't want to see David McBride, as a political prisoner, have his parole application decided by an attorney-general—a politician from any one of the war parties. I don't want that to happen. I want to see an independent parole board actually look at the merits not just of David's parole application but of every parole application from anyone who's in jail for breaching a Commonwealth offence.

I've heard some pretty remarkable contributions in this chamber, but I have rarely seen one stray so far from reality as the one we heard from the shadow Attorney-General, Senator Cash, yesterday. Senator Cash suggested that having an independent statutory parole board at a Commonwealth level was some kind of political smokescreen, some terrible lack of accountability and a wicked political ploy from the Labor government to avoid accountability for parole decisions. She suggested that it was indicative of a collapse in political standards that we're finding, and she suggests that it would be an incredibly dangerous thing for community safety. As I said, rarely have I heard a speech stray so far from reality than that contribution from Senator Cash, and I haven't really done it justice. There was invective and passion that she also added to her attack on this bill.

But what Senator Cash forgot to say was that every other jurisdiction in this country has a parole board, every state and every territory has an independent parole board. The UK and the overwhelming bulk of jurisdictions across the world that follow a common-law tradition like us have independent parole boards. That is because the public expects decisions about criminal justice, about whether people go in jail or stay in jail, not to be decided by politicians but to be decided by independent bodies. In fact, our constitution requires that at a Commonwealth level. Courts making decisions about criminality and then independent parole boards making decisions about whether people should be released once their minimum sentence time has been reached—that's what happens across the Commonwealth. We then saw the shadow Attorney-General say this is outrageous because an independent statutory parole board will be making decisions about people who have committed serious Commonwealth offences such as terrorism, child abuse. They are incredibly serious criminal offences. The Greens believe that whether or not someone gets parole should be decided by an independent statutory body, not by a politician.

But again, what the shadow Attorney-General, who wants to be the Attorney-General in the future—a frightening thought that we would revisit that past—and the coalition forgot to mention was that, at a state and territory level, parole boards in their daily work across this country are deciding whether or not people who have been convicted of manslaughter, serious sexual assault, serious—even state based—terror offences, some of the most appalling crimes you can imagine get parole. They are doing it without the involvement and without a political veto from politicians at a state and territory level. That's how the public would expect our criminal justice system to work.

We currently have at a Commonwealth level—the only jurisdiction in the country—a politician in the form of the Attorney-General who can pretty much pluck any parole decision away from the bureaucrats in their office and make a political decision on parole. That is an incredibly dangerous political role in what is meant to be an apolitical criminal justice system. How it works in practice is the Attorney-General delegates the bulk of the parole decision-making to bureaucrats inside the Attorney-General's office. That is another thing the coalition forgot to mention—that, under their preferred model, the overwhelming bulk of Commonwealth parole decisions under the status quo are not even made by a politician but are just made by bureaucrats in the office with no statutory controls, no statutory independence; you don't even know who is making the parole decisions. They are nameless bureaucrats whose careers depend on keeping in favour with the secretary—whose career depends on keeping in favour with the Attorney-General. That is the current Commonwealth parole system. If the coalition had been honest about wanting nameless, faceless bureaucrats who owe their careers to the secretary—who owes their career to the AG—to be the ongoing parole system for the Commonwealth, they should be honest and talk about it truthfully.

What does this bill do? It creates an independent parole board which will have people appointed to it based on relevant expertise. Parole is really hard. I can tell you now, having spoken with people who have been on parole boards in my home state of New South Wales, members of statutory parole boards take their jobs incredibly seriously. They look at the evidence about the offence. They look at a person's record inside the criminal justice, rehabilitation programs they have or haven't done, their stated intention. They can consult most times with victims and they inform victims of decisions being made.