Transcript of Hearing - ADELAIDE
Tuesday, 2 July 2002
Please note: This is an edited transcript.
This witness later agreed that her evidence could be made public.
Commissioners:
DR SEV OZDOWSKI, Human Rights Commissioner
MRS ROBIN SULLIVAN, Queensland Children's Commissioner
PROFESSOR TRANG THOMAS, Professor of Psychology, Melbourne Institute of Technology
MS VANESSA LESNIE, Secretary to the Inquiry
DR OZDOWSKI: Opening the next session of hearing in-camera evidence and I welcome Ms Sharon Torbet.
MS TORBET: Yes.
DR OZDOWSKI: Thank you for coming. Everything that you will say here will be kept confidential. We will provide you with a transcript of what was said. If we would like to use any of the material you provided us in one form or another in any way which may identify you, we will come back to you, we will talk to you about it, but we won't use anything without your permission. Also, all the transcripts of information will be kept confidential. They will not go to anyone apart from the staff of my office which works on the report. Now, we will also make an affirmation in a few minutes but I will wait for my staff to come in, but could I ask you, for the records, to state your name, address and qualifications, and the capacity in which you are appearing here today?
MS TORBET: My name is Sharon Torbet, I live at [address removed], I am currently employed as a youth worker with [employer name removed] and I am a qualified youth worker.
DR OZDOWSKI: Thank you very much. Can I ask you to state the reasons why you decided to appear in-camera?
MS TORBET: Yes, the reasons that I've decided to appear in-camera are that I'm concerned that if anything I said - any statements I made - were to be made public it could jeopardise my current and future employment, but I also felt it necessary to make the statements on behalf of the children in detention.
DR OZDOWSKI: In what way could it jeopardise your future in your current employment?
MS TORBET: Okay, because I work for [details removed].
DR OZDOWSKI: I see, so there could be some linkages there?
MS TORBET: Exactly, yes.
DR OZDOWSKI: Now, can I ask you to make an oath or affirmation?
MS TORBET: Okay.
MS SHARON TORBET, sworn
Ex-ACM activities officer
DR OZDOWSKI: Maybe if you could just introduce yourself for the
record, if you could.
MR TORBET: Sure, I'm [name removed], Sharon's husband.
DR OZDOWSKI: Thank you very much. I forgot to introduce myself, I'm Sev Ozdowski and I'm a Human Rights Commissioner and I've got Dr Trang Thomas to my right and she is a Professor of Psychology at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, and to my left I've got Vanessa Lesnie, who is the Secretary to the Inquiry. We have also got a man sitting here from time to time, he is our legal counsel to assist with the Inquiry. Now, could I ask you to make an opening statement and to describe your experience of Woomera, how long you have been there, what you have been doing and some initial comments about what you felt about working there, what you would like to really say to us?
MS TORBET: Okay, I worked at Woomera from May 2000 and left in the last days of January 2002. I was due to end a contract a few days before I left. I was witness to the hunger strikes and the lip-stitching in January and I just - one day just walked out of the centre, I just said, ‘I'm not staying here any more’.
It was quite horrific, like, seeing that first-hand. The work I did, I was primarily involved in working with the children as an Activities Officer. I felt I was constantly, you know, fighting against a big machine, trying to advocate for the children and improve their conditions. Basically I feel like I was a - a square peg in a round hole, you know, I just - you know, I was able to do some things like implement excursions, that sort of thing for them, but it was very limited in what I felt needed to be done.
DR OZDOWSKI: Activities Officer, does that mean that you were also responsible for the school?
MS TORBET: Not - no, I sort of - like, we worked with teachers.
DR OZDOWSKI: Yes, but separately?
MS TORBET: Like, we would - depending on the teacher, if you - because of the staff turnover, you know, you could get teachers there for six months or six weeks, so if I came across a teacher who, sort of like was willing to work with us we would incorporate the activities into the children's education. Sometimes, yes, it works, sometimes not.
DR OZDOWSKI: You were more responsible for excursions for extra curricular activities?
MS TORBET: Exactly.
DR OZDOWSKI: For sport in the centre, and so on?
MS TORBET: Yes, yes, that's right, yes.
DR OZDOWSKI: Could you maybe describe what kind of sports were there in the centre?
MS TORBET: Yes, okay. Some of the things that I was involved in were an after-school club where basically we did children's recreation, they played Lego, played various games, watched videos, and the games could be in art programs, outdoor games.
What else did we do? Also a kindergym, I ran - I ran a kindergym which ultimately ceased because of the recreation room being burnt down with all the equipment in it, so that stopped and the kids weren't getting that any more. What else did I do? There was a lot, like - a lot of sort of, like, welfare work went with it, you know, the detainees were distressed, you would go to a program one day and, you know, the kids would play while you would sit there for a couple of hours or an hour just talking with their mother.
DR OZDOWSKI: What percentage of children participated in your activities?
MS TORBET: The way that we worked was we were given a particular compound to work in, this is when the staffing levels were high, and that goes on how many detainees are in detention - determined how many staff we had - so where …
DR OZDOWSKI: So you were working in one compound?
MS TORBET: Yes.
DR OZDOWSKI: Not all of it?
MS TORBET: Yes, sometimes all of them.
DR OZDOWSKI: All of them, okay.
MS TORBET: Sometimes the whole lot, but generally, the kids, if you provided it, they participated, it was a high level of participation.
DR OZDOWSKI: Of all ages?
MS TORBET: All ages, from …
DR OZDOWSKI: Because I remember going to Woomera last year and it was extremely, in a way, disturbing for me, was that teenagers basically were hanging around all day …
MS TORBET: Yes.
DR OZDOWSKI: … and doing really nothing.
MS TORBET: Yes, the average age of children attending would be, say, from pre-school, maybe 4, 5 years old to 12, 13, 14 years old, so there was a gap with teenagers.
DR OZDOWSKI: Teenagers?
MS TORBET: Yes.
DR OZDOWSKI: Did you try to do something for teenagers?
MS TORBET: There - we just couldn't, there wasn't enough of us to do the task. We sort of tried to set up a youth club where you could - they would do dancing and things like that but the facilities were not - not appropriate. You know, you can't take 20 teenage boys into a room that's 6 feet by 20 feet and get quality service from that.
DR OZDOWSKI: Yes, did you have a chance to have a look at the Department of Immigration submission, which was put to this Inquiry?
MS TORBET: No.
DR OZDOWSKI: This submission provides information about a whole range of things, like what was provided in Woomera in terms of sports equipment, what excursions were made and so on. Could I ask you to have a look and see whether this reflects the tours more or less, or is it in fantasy land?
MS TORBET: Yes, I can tell you that I was involved in preparing the statistics for this sort of stuff …
DR OZDOWSKI: Yes.
MS TORBET: … and I'm telling you that it is purely statistics, it's - there's - the quality is not there and it was made to look better than it was.
DR OZDOWSKI: So basically it does not even make sense to look at their ... to consider it seriously?
MS TORBET: Yes, children's tricycles, like, you take a tricycle out there, it might last two days if you're lucky. You know, have you been to Woomera?
DR OZDOWSKI: Yes.
MS TORBET: You've seen the ground?
DR OZDOWSKI: Yes.
MS TORBET: You can't ride a tricycle there without it getting smashed. Soccer fields, you've seen the soccer field?
DR OZDOWSKI: Yes, if you fell down it is a hospital case.
MS TORBET: Yes, and people - one of the big complaints from the medical centre was, ‘People are always coming here with grazed knees and injuries from the recreation rooms’.
Like I said, six - you know, the demountable buildings, you know, for - really you're only supposed to have 20 people in them but sometimes there would be 60 people inside those rooms, and you're trying to run a bingo. But, yes, there were soccer balls, volley balls, basketballs, badminton, table-tennis, all those things, and the children's play equipment, you could really only - they could only access it when we were on duty, either the Activities Officers or the Welfare Officers.
DR OZDOWSKI: At what time did you finish in the building?
MS TORBET: We were, say, 8.30 till 5 and in the compound maybe 10 till 3.30, 4 o'clock.
DR OZDOWSKI: Basically they went to some kind of a school, what immigration was telling us, in the morning. So you were available to them really after school?
MS TORBET: Not all children would go to school.
DR OZDOWSKI: I see, so you were looking after children who just stayed behind?
MS TORBET: Yes, and when they weren't at school. The - how it works, children don't go to school six hours a day like they do in the community, they go for maybe a 2-hour class and that's it for the day, unless it's different now, but that's when I was there.
MS LESNIE: Could I ask whether you actively corralled kids to participate in the activities or whether they would just show up?
MS TORBET: They would show up.
MS LESNIE: When we were just recently in Woomera, most of the kids that I spoke to, many of whom were under 12, said, ‘There were no activities’.
MS TORBET: Right.
MS LESNIE: We had a different version of events from the Activities Officers themselves and I was just wondering whether there might actually - the two may be true, but the kids just weren't turning up or didn't know about the activities going on. Is that a plausible interpretation?
MS TORBET: It possibly is but I found that I had a real rapport with the kids, so if I went into a compound there was often times when I'd go in to run a women's program and couldn't do it because, you know, you would just be surrounded by 20 or 30 kids. So yes, generally when I was there the kids would - would come.
MS LESNIE: Would you have an activity schedule so the kids knew what was happening and when?
MS TORBET: Yes, I'd - well that's - I'll go back to, like, a turnover of teachers, the Activities Officers, Welfare Officers would make a schedule, paste it either in the mess-hall on the recreation room door, and then you'd get a new teacher, or the teachers would change their education schedule, so your schedule was out the window. So we just sort of, like, you know, it was too hard to keep up.
DR OZDOWSKI: So really there was no stability in terms of the system, it was rather a talk?
MS TORBET: Yes.
DR OZDOWSKI: Whenever, yes, you had the time and you could do something, then you did?
MS TORBET: Yes.
DR OZDOWSKI: And whenever kids came in, yes, you were happy to see them. Tell me, what was really the most traumatic experience of it?
MS TORBET: For me?
DR OZDOWSKI: What really impacted on you especially?
MS TORBET: The most traumatic experience, I would say, happened over a period of time but with a - with a climax. It was working with children, basically assessing them two days after they arrived into the centre, and they're still in detention as we speak, this is like - I'm going back to December 2000 and they're still there and watching happy kids, you know …
DR OZDOWSKI: Normal.
MS TORBET: … normal children, and so the gradual decline in these kids. In particular, the [name removed] family, who I'm not sure - I'm sure you'll be aware of this family. Like, we raised concerns, myself and other people, months, months before the hunger strikes in - in January, which was the - which was the last thing for me, the very last thing, having to look into the face of women, as close as I - as close as I am to [my husband], even closer, mothers, who you would have worked with, and see their lips stitched from corner to corner. You know, no life in their eyes because they haven't been drinking, they haven't been eating and then to watch their children just wandering around ragged with - you know, who can look after them, they have to look after themselves.
DR OZDOWSKI: You mentioned that when they arrived they were happy, okay. How long did it take for them to deteriorate?
MS TORBET: Usually with kids I noticed and, you know, I didn't sort of, like, do any recording of it at the time, but my own observations was around three or four months, between three and five months in detention they start to sort of - you see their behaviour change, you see their mood change.
DR OZDOWSKI: How would you describe this behaviour change? What has happened?
MS TORBET: They suddenly don't talk to us. You know, normally beforehand they'd be very friendly, very talkative, always smiling, laughing, joking. They stopped communicating with the staff that see them every day. Fighting, fight with each other. I remember one incident I had to hold a boy who was 12, 13, from another boy. They were very close friends. Well, the other one ran away and it was out of character behaviour. What else? They would tell me - they'd just come and say, ‘I'm really sad. This place is - I don't know if I can live in this place’.
DR OZDOWSKI: Lip-stitching of children, there was plenty of controversy in January around it and part of the controversy was associated with the parents who were accused of doing it. Are you aware of any evidence which would indicate parent involvement in any way, shape or form?
MS TORBET: No, none. All I can say on that is my experience with the [name removed] family. The morning that I saw [the mother] lying on the playground floor with other women, she couldn't even stand up, she couldn't even sit up. So how she could have stitched her son's lips the night before is just beyond me.
DR OZDOWSKI: She was lying on the floor because …
MS TORBET: On a mattress.
DR OZDOWSKI: … of the hunger strike?
MS TORBET: Because of the hunger strike.
DR OZDOWSKI: She was so weak.
MS TORBET: Yes, and later on that same day I saw her, like, walking across the compound in the big compound, the main compound, and sort of like being held up by her son who was [age removed] and she couldn't even hardly walk. So I don't see how she could have held this strong boy down and stitched his lips.
DR OZDOWSKI: Yes. Did you witness or did you know of any self harm by children?
MS TORBET: Yes.
DR OZDOWSKI: How young were the children?
MS TORBET: I observed a group of unaccompanied minors, maybe 10, 12 of them, in front of other children, you know, all people in the compound, these boys in a group just took their shirts off and they had razor blades and, you know, really slashing themselves like this in front of everybody.
DR OZDOWSKI: Blood everywhere?
MS TORBET: Blood, yes, blood, lots of it. It was on the ground afterwards.
DR OZDOWSKI: Other children saw it?
MS TORBET: Yes. I was working with a group of children in a recreation room and just looked out the window and happened to, sort of like, see something was going on so kept the kids I could in the recreation room but there were, you know, there were little children like two years old out watching it, and some of the children that were in my room left when some other boys came in and told them what was going on.
DR OZDOWSKI: Riots, did you see any riots happening? What was happening to children during the riots?
MS TORBET: They were just in the compound while it was going on. They - some of them were very scared. Usually the parents would whisk them into their rooms and shut the doors. You know, you can't lock the doors but they'd shut the door and try and keep people away. I saw, again the [name removed] family, I saw the second oldest child, a boy, screaming madly during a riot, just out of control, running around in circles. You know, I'm talking about it and I can see it as if it was yesterday.
DR OZDOWSKI: There were accusations that parents were using children during the riots to throw stones or to be in the front line. Did you see it?
MS TORBET: Yes, I did see that. I did see children at the front. Usually boys, and I did see them throwing rocks.
DR OZDOWSKI: What ages?
MS TORBET: From - I can't be exact - maybe around eight years old.
DR OZDOWSKI: As young as eight?
MS TORBET: Yes, certainly not any younger than that. Yes, I did see that, but they were boys, you know, usually boys. It wasn't all parents either. You know, most of the parents loved their kids, treat them like we do.
DR OZDOWSKI: I understand there is some kind of procedure by ACM that if riots do happen, children and women are to be taken into safe places. Do you know about the existence of such a procedure?
MS TORBET: I know that it happens once the CERT team, like the response team, has gone in to whatever riot it is. It doesn't happen, you know, during the riot. It doesn't happen during …
DR OZDOWSKI: So during the riot there is no attempt made …
MS TORBET: No.
DR OZDOWSKI: … to separate children and families from …
MS TORBET: Not while I was there, there wasn't. They would, you know, deal with the disturbance and then deal with the women and children.
DR OZDOWSKI: Did you see any document which would indicate that this kind of procedure is in place?
MS TORBET: No.
DR OZDOWSKI: No. Professor Thomas, you would like to ask some questions?
PROF THOMAS: You have observed the deterioration in the children. How about the staff, do you see that as an impact on the staff?
MS TORBET: Yes. Yes, on me.
PROF THOMAS: Yes.
MS TORBET: Yes, there is. I think particularly, like, for myself because I've chosen to be a youth worker because of how I feel about children, you find yourself in a position where I used to say that, ‘this much has to be done, and they will only let me do this much’. So there's a big discrepancy in how - in child protection, in protecting them and nurturing them.
I guess my - what I feel and what I believe I experienced was that that sort of - the commitment that staff felt to the children was used by people managing the centre, that we would go and do things, that we would keep going, we would keep working, when perhaps it was too much for us.
PROF THOMAS: So how did the children and some of the parents react when the kindergym was burnt down?
MS TORBET: They were really unhappy about it, yes. Like, a little girl who was two or three years old used to wake up and say to her mother, ‘Go and play with Mrs Sharon, let's go and play with Mrs Sharon’, and then she couldn't play any more. And I saw her, you know, a week or so later and she, the mother, told me that the girl had not been playing, she wasn't able to play in that time and she was being naughty and she'd been sad because she couldn't play.
It was - not just the parents but the people who used to help in the programs, you know, they became very dejected, very low, very - you can even see it. Like normally they stand like this, then they stand like that, because they don't have anywhere to listen to their music, they don't have anywhere to meet, you know, they don't have anywhere to play table-tennis.
PROF THOMAS: So in a way, even if we suggested put more resources in, it may not work?
MS TORBET: Yes, that's right, not unless - no, because if the resources are accessible, you know, if they're - they can be burnt down still. People can still burn it down. People can still, you know, break into the room and steal things.
PROF THOMAS: So do you have any suggestions on how we can improve the life of the children at the centre?
MS TORBET: Take them out.
PROF THOMAS: Yes, I know …
MS TORBET: Take them out.
PROF THOMAS: … that's the ultimate aim but it seems we can't. Are there any other things we can do?
MS TORBET: Yes, I think just keep them separate. Keep them separate from the men, which is difficult when you've got fathers involved. I sort of - one of the observations I made was that sort of like the boys, you know, in the youth age bracket, say from 12 to 18, were very impressionable. The young males, the young adult males, would take - you'd always see them hanging around, these young adult males, and then you'd see those same males at the front of a disturbance, at the front, pulling and crashing at the fences and that was always an indicator to me of when trouble was coming. I'd see in the boys, the teenage boys, that their behaviour would become very nasty.
DR OZDOWSKI: Aggressive?
MS TORBET: Aggressive, nasty, spiteful towards staff and you'd know that they'd been in with this group - the group - you know, they'd been in with the young men and they've listening to the stuff that they're saying and planning, and all that sort of thing.
PROF THOMAS: You see the differences in the behaviour of the boys and the girls?
MS TORBET: Yes, the boys - I mean, culturally the girls are sort of in my opinion pushed to the back a bit. They don't always come forward to attend activities, particularly if there's lots of boys in a compound. I used to work in the Mike compound where it got to the point where only boys were turning up for the programs. In the beginning I was getting anywhere from, you know, up to 50 children, and suddenly it went to 30 and there were no girls there.
So that was always a problem and, you know, not enough staff to run separate things. You'd try it and - overall I found the girls to be - just trying to think of a word - for want of a better word, apathetic. Like, ‘What's the point, why bother coming?’ It's not - not all the girls were like that but it did get to that point, particularly around times of trouble.
DR OZDOWSKI: If I could come backwards with one question because we will have to conclude soon. The question of reporting of incidents, and especially the role of state government, are you aware how the system worked? Could you describe it to us, please?
MS TORBET: Yes. Are you talking about reporting to the Child Protection Act …
DR OZDOWSKI: Yes, yes, it's basically what I'm interested in.
MS TORBET: The procedure was that there would be a minors’ - there's a minors’ management team, and every week, you meet every week and just talk about, you know, discuss things, address any problems or issues. And there were minutes taken from that, but also a weekly report was prepared that was about unaccompanied minors and any other issues related, you know, important issues related to other children. So that report was done and I know that because I did it. I was one of the people…
DR OZDOWSKI: Writing?
MS TORBET: It wasn't my role but sometimes I filled in for the other person.
DR OZDOWSKI: Where did the report go, to ACM or to DIMIA?
MS TORBET: The report went to the ACM Manager. He looked at it, said - well, it got to the point where you e-mailed it to him and you didn't see it again. I do know that I wrote one report for ACM and another report for Family and Youth Services with any bits that might not be looked upon favourably removed or reworded.
DR OZDOWSKI: The report for ACM, you would think they would keep it on their files?
MS TORBET: Yes, it is on the files.
DR OZDOWSKI: But ACM files or DIMIA files?
MS TORBET: ACM files have - yes, they have them.
DR OZDOWSKI: There was a standard report happening how often? Every week?
MS TORBET: Once a week.
DR OZDOWSKI: Once a week on every single issue relating to children at the centre?
MS TORBET: Yes.
DR OZDOWSKI: Okay. Then you sent the report also to FAYS, yes?
MS TORBET: Yes.
DR OZDOWSKI: What was happening? What was the department doing with it?
MS TORBET: Family and Youth Services?
DR OZDOWSKI: Yes.
MS TORBET: [identifying details removed].
DR OZDOWSKI: Yes. So what was the department doing during the time you were …?
MS TORBET: Well, this is the other thing, like, when an outside organisation to do with child protection, including Human Rights, came, program staff, which is Activities Officers, Welfare Officers, interpreters, are kept right away. Sometimes we don't even know you're coming until the day that you arrive. So, you know, the Family and Youth Services would come in to investigate. My unofficial understanding now is that, just speaking to certain people, is that it's - they've tried to remove children from detention but have been unable to because the Child Protection Act in South Australia is a State Act.
DR OZDOWSKI: And the complex was Federal.
MS TORBET: The Federal Act. The Minister uses the Immigration Act to override anything that Family and Youth Services are trying to do.
DR OZDOWSKI: When you were working at Woomera did you know that the Department of Community Services - Family and Community Services - tried to move children out?
MS TORBET: No.
DR OZDOWSKI: No, it was not to your knowledge?
MS TORBET: No, I asked that question later. Yes, I asked that of people in Family and Youth Services later.
DR OZDOWSKI: If there were allegations made that a child was abused or there was neglect or something like that, how vigorous was the department with the investigation?
MS TORBET: I don't know because …
DR OZDOWSKI: Looking from your point of view of working in Woomera, you don't know?
MS TORBET: No, I don't know because, like I said, the management would keep us away from that sort of thing. I guess to not let any information through, I - that's my opinion.
DR OZDOWSKI: Okay, okay. Why were you doctoring your reports going to the Department in comparison with your report going to ACM management?
MS TORBET: It was under the direction of the Centre Manager.
DR OZDOWSKI: So the Centre Manager told you to doctor it so it's a more civilised version that goes out?
MS TORBET: Yes.
DR OZDOWSKI: But he wanted to get from you a fair account of every single thing that was happening for himself?
MS TORBET: Yes.
DR OZDOWSKI: Possibly we will have to - yes?
MS LESNIE: I just have a couple of things. I wanted to know, in your opinion, what priority was given to the activities program by ACM? How important were you made to feel that that program was to the centre?
MS TORBET: My opinion is that the operational overrode everything. It overrode - it was sort of like, if you're talking about the hierarchy you had operations, medical - just trying to think of it - teachers, like education and then the activities and welfare people.
MS LESNIE: Could I read to you something from the Department of Immigration, the Minister's response to the hearings that we had in Perth. Have you had a chance to read that?
MS TORBET: No.
MS LESNIE: One of its points in rebuttal to the issue that was raised in Perth that there's not enough support for children with psychological problems, they say:
An important aspect of maintaining mental health is the provision of a suitable range of activities such as recreational and education programs. As required, other programs and activities are arranged to meet the particular needs of the group.
Were you ever asked to respond to the psychological needs of kids through your program?
MS TORBET: Under the direction of a social psychologist.
MS LESNIE: So how did that happen?
MS TORBET: Okay. There's - a social psychologist was employed to look at target groups, groups that were seen to be having difficulty, and they were firstly unaccompanied minors who, in my opinion, were not the most needy group in the centre. Then it was - no, firstly it was the group of men in the Oscar compound, to try and work with them, and then it was the unaccompanied minors, and then the project, the school excursion project, was implemented, and that was directly because the investigation into children in detention was happening.
MS LESNIE: So were you asked …?
MS TORBET: That as well, so those three projects.
MS LESNIE: Were you asked to tailor the types of activities that you would do to address the mental health of those particular groups?
MS TORBET: Yes, yes.
MS LESNIE: Were you given the resources that you needed to do that?
MS TORBET: No, I don't think so.
MS LESNIE: Can you give examples of things that you would have wanted to do but you couldn't because of lack of resources?
MS TORBET: Okay. I would have wanted to take the children out more often. I would like to have given them like an area of their own to play in away from men, away from other adults, namely because like, for instance, in the main compound it was very difficult, we didn't have a recreation room in the beginning, so it was very difficult to - I was constantly fighting with officers and men to have that room, the mess, for two hours a day to run a children's program. Sometimes it didn't happen and we were shoved outside for activities. What else would I like to do? I would like, I think, indirectly to improve the life of children in the detention centre, would be to employ staff who actually specialise in working with children, like teachers for instance.
MS LESNIE: Stop kids from screaming, for instance … [reference to children outside hearing room]
MS TORBET: You know, there were teachers who were employed to teach children who had worked as TAFE, ESL teachers with adults. Perhaps some of the officers themselves could come from a background where they had worked with children in some area or other.
DR OZDOWSKI: Any other activities were undertaken as a direct result of us calling the Inquiry into children in detention?
MS TORBET: Okay. Excursions. When I first started as an Activities Officer it was in January 2001. We were told that Human Rights were coming tomorrow, ‘Go out and tell the families they're going on an excursion tomorrow’. What they called grounds beautification, they would suddenly plant lots of trees, you know, lots of bushes and things like that, paint buildings to make them look nicer.
MS LESNIE: If excursions could be organised overnight why didn't they have them more often?
MS TORBET: Generally my experience is it is the operations, operational people, depending who is in charge at the time, don't want it to happen. They don't want it to happen. And the other problem is just the actual organising of it. Like it can take a week to organise an excursion. You've got to liaise with the town board, the Woomera Town Board, you've got to …
MS LESNIE: Sorry, why do you have to contact the Woomera Town Board?
MS TORBET: Because it's a Defence facility town and the Area Administrator is basically in charge of what goes on in the town.
DR OZDOWSKI: So if you would like to take kids to the swimming pool or something like that, he had to bless it?
MS TORBET: Yes, you have to - yes, basically, that's exactly right.
MS LESNIE: If you and your husband wanted to go to a restaurant did you have to ask the Woomera Town Hall?
MS TORBET: No, no. If you wanted to move house you did though. So basically that's the way it runs. The way I describe it to people is it's like the old days where you have a king who looks after the village. It's like that, yes.
The other problem with excursions was organisation, just not - because the way I see it, the whole time I was there it was crisis management every day. Every day you go in, you take each day as it comes. Just letting detainees know - like I was in the practice of not telling detainees there was an excursion until the night before, because it would be cancelled so often that it can make them feel worse. You know, if you think you're getting out of the centre for a couple of hours and then 10 o'clock in the morning you're not going now, what happened?
MS LESNIE: What were the reasons for cancelling an excursion?
MS TORBET: A disturbance.
MS LESNIE: Even if the disturbance didn't involve any of the kids participating in the excursion?
MS TORBET: Yes, because the officers would be needed to, you know, to hang around the centre.
DR OZDOWSKI: I see, so it wasn't punishment for disturbance, it was rather for practical reasons to have officers there in case something else will happen?
MS TORBET: Yes, that's right, yes, yes. Other reasons would be - I just think it was not enough staff to run things properly, like there'd be - suddenly medical would need to use the bus to do something. The medical centre would need to go and do x-rays or something, and there wasn't that communication beforehand either. We didn't know. An extra bus - I can remember my manager putting a proposal for a bus specifically for excursions, that would help.
DR OZDOWSKI: Yet they have got these two blue cars parked outside.
MS TORBET: Yes.
DR OZDOWSKI: They could swap one of them for a second bus?
MS TORBET: Yes, you would hope so, yes.
DR OZDOWSKI: Ms Torbet, thank you very much for your evidence. I'm aware it was difficult for you to come forward. We will keep it in confidence and we possibly will come to you asking those questions by telephone, just when we are writing the report, to ensure that we are as correct and factual in the report as possible. Thank you very much on behalf of the Commission for coming forward.
MS TORBET: That's okay. Like I told [Mr Hunyor], it's for the kids. I know it's for the children.
MS LESNIE: I would actually just like to add an extra element to that. I know you were one of the first people who came forward to the Inquiry when you had concerns about the children and we really appreciate your initiation of contact at that time.
MS TORBET: Thank you.
Last Updated 12 August 2003.
