Debate resumed from 14 October 2025.

The Hon. SUSAN CARTER (20:52): Rather than calling them jails, we call our prisons correctional facilities in the hope that prisoners will be detained for only the time necessary for them to reflect on their behaviour, get the support to correct the behaviour that required them to be excluded from society in the first place and return to society as productive members. That correctional support may require therapeutic interventions, education and training, and it will always require the discipline to help prisoners develop self‑discipline, keep prisons safe and orderly for all, and ensure a safe place of work for prison officers.

The Crimes (Administration of Sentences) Amendment (Standard of Proof) Bill 2025 is about prison discipline. It seeks to clarify how disciplinary matters are determined within our correctional centres. It responds to the NSW Ombudsman's 2024 report that found systemic failures in the administration of inmate discipline. The Ombudsman's recommendations were clear: Reforms that should improve fairness were needed. The Ombudsman was not alone in calling for reform. Following the report, Corrective Services NSW conducted its own internal review into the management of inmate discipline and found that prison staff were mistakenly using the civil standard of proof when the legislation required that the criminal standard of proof be used. That was said to be due to a lack of education and training.

Curiously, this bill responds to the internal review and appears to pay scant attention to the Ombudsman's more extensive investigation. It is not clear how much influence the Public Service Association has had in this Government decision. It is clear that the Public Service Association boss, Mr Stewart Little, has been directly lobbying the Premier to enact exactly the changes found in the bill: to lower the standard of proof for inmate misconduct to the civil balance of probabilities, which had long been applied by correctional officers in error, and to retrospectively apply that lower threshold to all past reviewable disciplinary decisions. It is Mr Little's right to lobby the Premier, and it is our right, in an open society, to know who is lobbying the Premier so that we can see all the influences on decision‑making.

What is unclear in the decision‑making process around this legislation is the role played by the Public Service Association lawyer with carriage of Corrective Services matters, the Premier's brother, Jim Minns. Minns junior is entitled to have any number of conversations with his brother, most of which I am sure would be of no interest to members of this place or the public. However, if those conversations were directly about the content of this bill and the decision of this Government to prefer the approach taken by the internal review and the Public Service Association over that taken by the Ombudsman, then we have a direct and justified interest in those conversations. The Premier told us that he and his brother discuss these issues in detail when he told Ben Fordham last month:

My brother is the union's lawyer ... Around the Christmas table, and around the family table, he tells me ... exactly what's going on.

It is because of this potential for familial conflicts of interest that the ministerial code of conduct, in the words of ICAC's annotated guide, seeks "to ensure that the public interest is always placed ahead of private interests when Ministers perform their duties". The test specified in section 7 (3) of the code is an objective one, and the commission found in Operation Keppel:

… it would be sufficient that the minister knew all the facts constituting the ingredients necessary to constitute a conflict of interest, without subjectively knowing they constituted a conflict of interest.

The schedule to the ministerial code provides methods of managing any real or perceived conflicts of interest arising from familial or other relationships, and those include disclosing all relationships promptly and abstaining at all decision‑making forums. It may be that the Premier has fully disclosed his relationship with his brother and abstained from Cabinet deliberations about this bill. We, of course, do not know because both the ministerial register of interests and Cabinet minutes are confidential. When journalists, including Jordan Baker from The Sydney Morning Herald, asked the Premier questions about these matters this week, there was stony silence. In the words of Baker, "The Premier decided it wasn't worth a response." This is disappointing but not surprising.

Despite assurances of integrity and openness, we in this place have become used to a government that eschews accountability and declines to answer questions or answers them in such a perfunctory way as to be meaningless. We can guess at why the Government made the decisions reflected in the bill, but we cannot know for certain what and who influenced the shape of the bill. The bill is one of many answers to the question of how to improve certainty, clarity and accountability in inmate misconduct proceedings, and while it may not be the answer we would have preferred or the answer advocated for by the Ombudsman, it is the Government's chosen answer. It is certainly a way to improve safety and disciplinary proceedings within correctional facilities, so the Opposition is prepared to support it.

We are comfortable that the bill retains the criminal standard of proof for offences referred to visiting magistrates, and it retains the power for serious matters to be referred to the New South Wales police for consideration of criminal prosecution. We acknowledge the advice that Corrective Services will implement policy updates and officer training, and we hope that those amendments will successfully achieve their objective.

Ms SUE HIGGINSON (20:59): On behalf of The Greens I contribute to debate on the Crimes (Administration of Sentences) Amendment (Standard of Proof) Bill 2025. We simply cannot support this bill. It is a cruel, inhumane and unjust attack on vulnerable people in the State of New South Wales. It has been brought about by a government that has a reckless regard for justice, law and the presumption of innocence in this State. I say loudly and clearly that these laws can and will result in more deaths in custody. They will increase the risk of First Nations death in custody. It is deeply cynical and deplorable that the Minns Labor Government has advanced these reforms even though the State Coroner has just released a rare statement lamenting that the State has killed more First Nations people in custody in 2025 than in any other year on record since colonisation. The Coroner said:

These are not mere statistics. Each of these deaths represents a person whose life mattered and whose loss is felt deeply by families, loved ones and across the state.

When the ABC contacted the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Treaty, David Harris, about this dire reality, he did not respond. When the Attorney General, Michael Daley, and the Minister for Corrections, Anoulack Chanthivong, were contacted about this, they sent identical statements to the ABC from a Government spokesperson which said:

"Each one of these deaths is a tragedy, and the government takes this issue seriously," the statement said. "We are working to reduce all preventable deaths in custody …

That is just a straightforward, outright lie. If the Government was really doing everything it could to reduce all preventable deaths in custody, it would not be introducing this bill before the House—not now and not in its current form. At the very least, the Government should agree to my amendment on segregation during the Committee of the Whole.

At its core, this bill withdraws the presumption of innocence from incarcerated people who are charged and convicted of correctional centre offences. It will allow innocent incarcerated people who cannot be found guilty beyond reasonable doubt to be locked in solitary confinement and to sustain harsh criminal punishments, as well as withdrawal from so-called "privileges", which are really fundamental human rights like phone calls and access to loved ones. Most alarmingly, this bill defies the recommendations from the shocking NSW Ombudsman report into inmate disciplinary proceedings tabled in August 2024. It is in complete defiance of that report.

Before going to the provisions of this bill, it is essential to explain the context and origin of the bill. This bill follows the Ombudsman's landmark investigation into inmate disciplinary proceedings, which was tabled in Parliament last year. The report exposed a lawless, defiant and nasty kangaroo court system that operates in the dark underbelly of New South Wales prisons. It exposed that Corrective Services was flagrantly and systematically flouting the laws set out by the Crimes (Administration of Sentences) Act [CAS Act] as well as the supporting regulations and provisions of the Custodial Operations Policy and Procedures [COPP].

In preparation for this debate, the Ombudsman proactively released senior counsel advice it received while investigating this matter, which it had also provided to Corrective Services last year. The advice makes jurisdictional comparisons between the inmate discipline process in New South Wales and the process in other States and internationally. The advice reveals that our system is flimsy, arbitrary, unaccountable and not designed to rehabilitate offenders. I will provide more detail on this later. First, we must consider the unaccountable system of inmate discipline in New South Wales and the harm it causes to the vulnerable incarcerated people who are overwhelmingly First Nations people, people with disability and people with severe mental health issues.

There are 71 possible correctional centre offences of varying severities. The Crimes (Administration of Sentences) Regulation prescribes these offences, which range from very minor instances of disorderly behaviour, including "fail to look after clothing, bedding or other items" or "unlawfully trade food", to severe offences like assault. Crucially, the CAS Act sets out the same allowable penalties for each of these crimes, which may be imposed by a governor, a delegate of a governor or a visiting magistrate. The most draconian of these penalties include confinement to a cell alone, which the Ombudsman confirmed constitutes solitary confinement, as well as deprivation of privileges and fines. When applied to young Aboriginal men, the penalty of solitary confinement contradicts the advice of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.

The Act sets out that for any correctional centre offence, no matter how minor, governors can apply deprivation of any withdrawable privilege that the governor may determine for up to 56 days, impose confinement to a cell for up to seven days and cancel an inmate's right to receive payments for up to 14 days. Visiting magistrates can impose even stricter penalties. For offences involving drugs or mobile phones, deprivation of privileges can extend for up to six months in duration. When we talk about the deprivation of the things described as "privileges", we are talking about fundamentally disrupting the ability of an incarcerated person to be rehabilitated, which is doing them immense harm. We are talking about weeks and weeks of no contact with loved ones, no phone calls, no ability to purchase food or shaving equipment, no books and no ability to access education. Guilty findings for correctional centre offences can also impact parole classifications and an incarcerated person's ability to access work release.

These are the maximum allowable penalties under the CAS Act, but the Ombudsman report notes that Corrective Services has regularly and systemically imposed punishments that far exceed what is legally permissible. Nothing in the Act or regulation links the severity of a correctional centre offence with the severity of its penalty, meaning incarcerated people can be given the same draconian and harsh penalties, including weeks on end of solitary confinement, for an offence as minor as misusing a bell or for an offence as major as causing injury to a corrections officer. This differs radically from how inmate discipline is administered in other States.

Inmate discipline proceedings are almost always administered by a governor or a delegate of a governor, who are usually Corrective Services officers. Neither governors nor their delegates have any legal training. The Ombudsman found that they get very little support from Corrective Services to assist them in effectively administering the inmate discipline process. In practice, this has meant that findings of guilt and severe penalties have been imposed by untrained and unaccountable Corrective Services officers who, through absolutely no fault of their own, have no understanding of the law. They have catastrophically broken the law across decades.

When considering this bill, it is vital to note that what is written in the CAS Act, the regulation or the COPP is not necessarily what happens in practice. The Ombudsman found that Corrective Services has been flagrantly disregarding the CAS Act provisions on inmate discipline in a number of ways. That is why this bill is sinister and ill-conceived. It enshrines and endorses the lawless behaviour of a rogue public agency. The key finding of the Ombudsman report was that Corrective Services has been flagrantly disregarding the correct standard of proof of beyond reasonable doubt during inmate discipline proceedings, despite that standard being set out in law. It has instead been unlawfully applying the lesser standard of proof that this bill seeks to enshrine. Corrective Services has effectively decided to illegally lessen the standard it holds itself to when imposing draconian and harmful punishments.

According to the Public Service Association, this wrongful and unlawful application of the law has been going on for at least 20 years. It has resulted in thousands of illegal punishments, including illegal solitary confinement, illegal fines and illegal deprivation of privileges. It has caused immense damage to the wellbeing of incarcerated people, and that is why this bill is so shocking and reckless. It endorses years of lawlessness and harm. It absolves Corrective Services of unlawful behaviour and deliberate defiance, and the bill's retrospectivity greatly diminishes the chances of incarcerated people accessing restitution for illegal findings and subsequent punishments. It is essential to place on the record the dysfunction and harm that exists throughout the entire inmate discipline process as it stands. The Ombudsman's report is one of those documents that makes your stomach churn. The Ombudsman exposed the most shocking culture of deliberate law-breaking, secrecy, maladministration, cruelty, incompetence and harm occurring within the inmate disciplinary process. That culture was not specific to one process or one correctional centre; it expanded across the entirety of Corrective Services.

The Ombudsman exposed lawlessness and an unaccountable kangaroo court. I will touch on a few of the points made in the Ombudsman's report to give members a glimpse of the injustice we are being asked to enshrine into law today. The Ombudsman exposed that one in three charges of correctional centre offences laid against incarcerated people were completely incorrect. If an inmate is charged with a correctional centre offence, there is a one‑in‑three chance it is fabricated, the wrong charge for conduct alleged, a charge that should have gone to another incarcerated person or a duplicate charge. In 70 per cent of cases, charges are not finalised until after a guilty verdict has already been determined. It is difficult for incarcerated people to plead not guilty when charges have not even been laid before a finding of guilt has been determined.

In 80 per cent of cases where an incarcerated person pleaded not guilty to a correctional centre offence, there were no recorded reasons for the subsequent guilty finding. In 74 per cent of cases, incarcerated people penalised for correctional centre offences had vulnerability indicators that should have factored into their penalty, but did not. In 43 per cent of cases, incarcerated people penalised for correctional centre offences were First Nations people, despite the fact that First Nations people make up around 32 per cent of the prison population in New South Wales. Like all other facets of the criminal justice system, the inmate discipline process disproportionately punishes First Nations people and entrenches inequality and harm against mob. It is just shocking. I remind everyone that these figures are not just numbers; they represent real people who matter, and they matter to other people. The State has taken their liberty and the responsibility for their rehabilitation.

The Ombudsman also exposed that incarcerated people have systematically been denied their legally enshrined right to plead not guilty to correctional centre offences, and denied the right to call witnesses. In many cases where there were records that an incarcerated person wished to contest their charge, the person was simply recorded as having refused to sign forms registering a guilty plea and was subsequently recorded as having pleaded guilty anyway. It is precisely Corrective Services' illegal use of the balance of probability standard of proof that allows this grave injustice and lawlessness to thrive, because Corrective Services does not have to go to the true effort to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the conduct it alleges has actually occurred.

In summation, if an incarcerated person is subject to charges of a correctional centre offence, there is a one‑in‑three chance they will get the wrong charge. They will not know what the charge is until after they have been found guilty. In 70 per cent of cases, the guards will record a non‑guilty plea as "guilty" anyway, and nobody will record the reasons the incarcerated person was found guilty, even though they pleaded not guilty, in 80 per cent of the cases. The Ombudsman's report is a harrowing account of what we have been doing to people who are already being punished by the State in the harshest possible way. In other words, what has been happening is the charged person will be dragged through a kangaroo court where guards act as prosecutor, judge and jury. They will be found guilty based on an unlawfully low standard of proof, locked up without adequate support and retrospectively denied any avenue for restitution.

The Ombudsman did not just expose this occurring in a few prisons; this was a systemic issue that occurred across our prison system. It would be shameful and cruel for this Parliament to now endorse that lawless system, which is what we are being asked to do with the bill before the House. The Ombudsman's report sets out a number of harrowing case studies. For example:

Moses was charged with disobeying direction … after refusing to allow an officer to look between his buttocks during a strip search after the officer suspected he saw a syringe secreted there. Moses objected to the direction, saying that he was not going to do it because he "was molested as a kid".

He was then told, "Just hand over the syringe, you'll get 7 days pound, happy days, if you fail to comply with my directions, you may be segregated for 14 days and regressed".

Moses was then secured in a segregation cell. It is not clear from the paperwork … why it was considered necessary to confine him.

At the hearing, Moses is recorded to have pleaded guilty and stated, "I didn't have nothing—was probably toilet paper." He was found guilty of the offence … and penalised 56 days off television, buy‑ups and contact visits. There is no record on the OIMS for any related charge for the suspected syringe.

I want every single person in this Parliament to imagine for a second that you are Moses. You have been incarcerated and are doing the penalty for your crime. As a child, you were sexually assaulted. That person was not only violent and violated you forever, but they also increased the likelihood that you would be engulfed in the criminal justice system. You did not beat the odds; you ended up in prison. Another person in a position of power used the power they held over you to tell you to strip naked so that they could touch and examine your genitals without your consent. When you refused, you were dragged before a nasty, lawless, kangaroo court—the system that this bill is seeking to enshrine. You told the nasty, lawless, kangaroo court that you had toilet paper, not a syringe. You were recorded as having pled guilty, despite maintaining your innocence. You were locked up in solitary confinement for 14 days, forced to relive the injustice perpetrated against you. That punishment was not legal; it exceeded the maximum penalty of seven days confinement. And now, if you want restitution for being unlawfully found guilty on the incorrect standard of proof, or for being unlawfully punished for more than seven days, this bill, if it is passed, will make that impossible.

It is the most fundamental aspect of injustice we can perpetrate. I give some other examples from the Ombudsman's report of the punitive and lawless kangaroo court system that we are being asked to endorse in this place today:

Colin was found guilty of the offence of failing to comply with correctional centre routine … and the offence of intimidation … At the hearing, Colin requested to call a Justice Health nurse as a witness, but the delegate refused his request because he didn't know the nurse's name.

Colin made a complaint to our office … The governor dismissed the charge following our inquiries and recorded on the discipline action form that it was because "procedural fairness was not afforded to the inmate".

In another case study:

Kent, an Aboriginal man with a recorded history of self‑harm, was charged with, and found guilty of, disobeying a direction … and penalised with 28 days off buy‑ups.

… Kent was found sitting in his cell with a razor blade and was threatening self‑harm. The correctional officer gave "multiple directions" to Kent to hand over the razor, then threatened to remove it by force or "chemical munitions" if he did not comply within 2 minutes.

Kent did not comply at first, but eventually put the razor down. The witness statement recorded that Kent was then cuffed and strip searched. According to the case notes he was placed on hourly suicide watch. OIMS contains no record or indication an ISP was developed in response to this incident.

Those are just a few of the likely tens of thousands of cases of false and badly recorded findings of guilt imposed by the inmate discipline process. This refusal of Corrective Services to follow the law and the subsequent lack of transparency is particularly acute for the most vulnerable incarcerated people. The Ombudsman found that in 10 per cent of cases where a vulnerable incarcerated person is confined alone, the required checklists of vulnerability indicators were missing. In 66 per cent of cases, the checklist was present, but it was blank or incomplete. In 48 per cent of cases, the required notifications to the governor, manager of security or Justice Health officers, before solidarity confinement was imposed, were not made.

What is most confronting about the maladministration that the Ombudsman has exposed is that it seems for a time to have resulted in genuine appetite and steps for reform. Earlier this year, the Minister for Corrections commendably introduced laws to establish an internal review process in the CAS Act for incarcerated people. It is unclear to what extent this new review process has been utilised or communicated to incarcerated people, but it was a step in the right direction that had the support of The Greens. We now know that Corrective Services has been undertaking a comprehensive review of findings of guilt as a result of inmate discipline proceedings. According to the Public Service Association [PSA] podcast published on 2 October 2025, Corrective Services changed its policy to reflect the Ombudsman's recommendations. Industrial officers on the podcast said:

What's happened in the last month has brought this up. So corrective services said, "Hey, we're gonna start implementing all of these recommendations …we've received draft policies on these things."

They also said:

Misconduct matters from 2018 onwards have to be reviewed. And if the matter cannot be supported to the beyond reasonable doubt, standard of proof - if there was a fine implemented - that fine is to be refunded... this report's saying, "Well, hang on, if the whole process has been flawed, you've gotta go backwards and lower people down if they've been refused reclassification."

The industrial officers also detail that up to 100,000 instances of false findings may have been found. If false and illegal findings of guilt had been imposed on any other cohort in the order of 100,000 people, there would be national outrage. We are talking about an incredibly grave and systemic case of maladministration. Simply legislating to absolve that maladministration, rather than confronting its cause, is poor governance and emblematic of the Minns Labor Government's cowardice and incompetence. The industrial officers on the podcast also revealed that "the department's already paid back around $84,000 in compensation". That is an incredibly significant amount to have been refunded in a few short months when we consider the maximum allowable fine is $500—even though the Ombudsman found that Corrective Services is routinely defying its own policy to impose even higher fines.

Incarcerated people are given paltry weekly allowances of between $24.60 and $85, so these fines devastate an incarcerated person's ability to purchase basic items like books and deodorant. We know, quite clearly, that Corrective Services NSW has been beginning to do the right thing and that somehow, or someone, has caused the Minns Labor Government to do a complete about‑face. The report in The Sydney Morning Herald today to which another member of this House referred perhaps sheds some light on why the Government is pursuing such perverse reforms to the law relating to inmate discipline proceedings. We know that Corrective Services has started to do the right thing. Senior people in Corrective Services have reached out to me to indicate that Corrective Services is not supportive of the bill, particularly its retrospectivity, nor is the policy and legislation branch of the Department of Communities and Justice [DCJ].

That is according to clear messages I have received from what we refer to as whistleblowers—people who are watching what this Government is about to do. We know there has been some pressure from the leadership of the PSA and that there has been direct relationship between the leadership branch and the Premier's office. Perhaps that is what has been driving these reforms. The Legislation Review Committee has been clear that the bill trespasses unduly on personal rights and liberties, allows the imposition of solitary confinement on a lesser civil standard and is in defiance of the Ombudsman and international law. Its retrospectivity denies the rule of law principle that a person is entitled to have knowledge of the law that applies to them at any given time. The committee states:

The Committee also notes the NSW Ombudsman's advice that a failure to routinely apply the criminal standard should not be addressed by lowering that standard through legislation, as this may adversely impact upon the rights of individual inmates.

What, or who, is motivating the Minns Labor Government to defy the Ombudsman, defy senior counsel advice, defy the Legislation Review Committee, defy the United Nations and international law, and allegedly defy Corrective Services and DCJ? We may never know. Regardless, the bill is poor law, and it should not pass this House. Schedule 1 [1] removes from all relevant schedules of the CAS Act the phrase "beyond reasonable doubt", which is the proper criminal standard of proof, and replaces it with "on the balance of probabilities", which is the civil standard of proof. Items [2] and [4] separate section 56A (1) of the CAS Act, so that findings of guilt for drug or mobile phone offences, which incur maximum penalties of six months withdrawal of privileges, can be made on the civil standard in matters dealt with by governors or their delegated officers, but on the criminal standard in matters dealt with by visiting magistrates. Item [3] has uncontroversial changes, but item [5] makes consequential amendments.

We also need to confront the spurious and contradictory arguments of the Minns Labor Government as justification for this bill. The Ombudsman has taken the extraordinary step of releasing senior counsel advice provided in the course of the Ombudsman's investigation. The Ombudsman gave this advice to Corrective Services in July 2024. The Ombudsman proactively released that advice because it knew this bill was being introduced and debated in this House. I hope that every member who votes on the bill has read that advice. It details that in other States there are minor and major correctional centre offences with different standards of proof. Specifically, beyond reasonable doubt is the standard for major offences. Minor offences would be matters such as looking untidy or graffitiing one's cell. Major offences would be assaults or serious drug offences.

Crucially, there are lesser penalties for offences decided on the lesser standard of proof. In other jurisdictions, unlike New South Wales, there are also alternative dispute resolutions methods offered to incarcerated people—something that this bill does not address. If the Minister was seeking to set out a similar system for inmate discipline matters in New South Wales—one that balances effective administration of correctional centres with justice for vulnerable incarcerated people—that would be a body of work The Greens would wholeheartedly support. The Ombudsman has released information so categorically piercing the false arguments of the Minns Labor Government because the Government is misleading the people of New South Wales by arguing this bill brings New South Wales in line with other States. It does not.

This bill does nothing of the sort. It simply adopts a blanket approach that Corrective Services has already been unlawfully using with catastrophic and unlawful results. New South Wales's upper limit of 56 days withdrawal of privileges is already more severe than every other Australian State and one of the most severe penalties in the developed world. In Victoria the maximum penalty is 14 days deprivation of privileges for a first offence and up to 30 days for multiple offences. In Queensland, seven days is the maximum. It is also worth pointing out that prisons are some of the most heavily surveilled places on Earth. It is not as difficult as we are being led to believe to prove correctional centre offences beyond reasonable doubt. It occurs without calamity in Victoria and Queensland, just across the border. The Government also argues that by maintaining the criminal standard of proof for matters referred to a visiting magistrate, it is safeguarding against the most egregious cases of injustice that this bill will perpetrate.

However, the Ombudsman's report found that in the 10 years to 2024, there was not one recorded case of consideration ever having been given to a referral of any proceedings for any hearing by a visiting magistrate, as is permitted by the legislation. That failure renders the separations in items [2] and [4] completely obsolete, and it absolutely undermines the justification that is being proffered on 2GB and wherever else. There is nothing in the supporting regulation detailing correctional centre offences that sets out which offences should be dealt with internally via the governor or their delegate and which should be referred to a magistrate. Similarly, there is no formal policy or process articulated to governors or delegates to set out standard practice for such a referral. Visiting magistrates are simply not being used in inmate disciplinary proceedings, and they have not been for years. The Government has not publicised or detailed the steps it is taking to rectify those issues. That contradiction makes it clear to me that the Minister is, at best, not thinking through how this bill will be applied and, at worst, not serious about using the visiting magistrate provision as a safeguard.

The Minns Labor Government argues that because Corrective Services NSW has already been flagrantly disobeying the law for decades or longer by applying the incorrect civil standard of proof, there is no practical change imposed by this bill. Imagine if it trotted out that argument in favour of any other public agency breaking the law. It would never wash. The only reason it is washing in this case is because the harm that is being perpetrated unlawfully by Corrective Services is only impacting vulnerable, helpless, overwhelmingly disabled and overwhelmingly First Nations people. The retrospectivity of the bill means many of the incarcerated people who have been wrongfully convicted or punished because of unlawful findings of guilt will have their opportunity for restitution ripped away. It is frightening that in Chris Minns's New South Wales, the State can wrongfully convict someone of an offence that they are innocent of, wrongfully lock them up in solitary confinement and wrongfully deny them their human rights, and then be legally absolved of that injustice and lawbreaking by Chris Minns and the Labor Government. This bill is nothing less than an endorsement of the rogue behaviour of a public agency that has been doing it for decades.

Of course, The Greens sympathise with concerns about resourcing and cultural issues within prisons. This bill will not improve outcomes for Corrective Services staff. Unqualified officers will still be asked to act as judge, jury and prosecution without any legal training or support, and the cultural and resourcing issues will continue. All the bill will do is lock in dysfunction, injustice and harm. The Government cannot credibly argue that it cares about workers when Premier Chris Minns and Treasurer Daniel Mookhey are absolutely desperate to cut workers compensation payments for workers who are psychologically injured in the workplace. Multiple inquiries have verified the cuts will result in the suicides of officers and nurses in Justice Health or of other Corrective Services staff. I refuse to be told that this bill is being brought in the name of workers' rights when the Minns Labor Government is working day and night to pass workers compensation reforms that will kill injured workers, including workers in Corrective Services.

This Parliament must consider the grave consequences of supporting this bill. It risks causing more deaths in custody, particularly of First Nations people. In an open letter sent to the Minister for Corrections today, the authors—Aboriginal Legal Service, AbSec NSW, ANTAR, justice experts, legal experts, community legal centres and university law schools—made it crystal clear that this bill, during the worst year on record in New South Wales, will increase the risk of First Nations deaths in custody. Experts have made it clear that incarcerated people who are subjected to disciplinary proceedings and then locked in solitary confinement, fined and deprived of their rights are at increased risk of death in custody if this bill passes. Incarcerated people who are wrongly penalised by the kangaroo court are overwhelmingly First Nations people and overwhelmingly people with disability. The NSW State Coroner just issued a rare statement, lamenting the worst year for First Nations deaths in custody in the history of New South Wales. Passing this bill, which will increase the risk of deaths in custody, would be completely contradictory to the coroner's pleas for action from the Government.

The bill will also dramatically worsen the rates of recidivism of people who are released from prisons. If a person gets out of prison having been supported, given care, educated and challenged to improve themselves, then that is a person who does not commit another crime. But if a person gets out of prison having been found guilty of a crime they are innocent of thanks to a lesser standard of proof, locked in solitary confinement, denied their opportunity to communicate with loved ones and shut down in their efforts to access rehabilitation, then that is a person who commits more crime, who ends up back in the prison system and who continues in the cycle of injustice, power imbalance, violence and dispossession.

The explanatory memorandum for this bill makes clear that only one institution was consulted in the development of this bill, the Public Service Association. The Ombudsman was simply notified. No consultation was undertaken with the brave and staunch institutions working day and night to close the gap, including the Coalition of Aboriginal Peak Organisations, people with legal expertise and people focused on ensuring justice. By enshrining the dysfunction and harm in our prisons, the bill makes our communities less safe and does nothing to protect workers, incarcerated people or communities. The bill represents an extreme retraction of the principles that underpin criminal law and justice in democracies across the globe. Famously, the beyond reasonable doubt standard of proof for findings that incur criminal punishment is known as the golden thread that runs through our legal system as we know it.

The bill defies the Ombudsman—and, The Greens suspect, the wishes of Corrective Services—to instead lock in a nasty kangaroo court system that has been run illegally to impose punitive punishments, often on innocent incarcerated people. Corrective Services' deliberate law-breaking is dangerous and harms the community, workers and incarcerated people. The Labor Government's bill locks in a culture of lawlessness and injustice, worsening outcomes for incarcerated people and Corrective Services staff. The bill will increase the number of deaths in custody, particularly First Nations deaths in custody. The fact that the bill was introduced in the same week that we recorded the worst year ever for First Nations deaths in custody, and without any consultation with Aboriginal people or peak bodies, is nothing less than abhorrent and shameful. Every member of the Minns Labor Government should hang their heads in shame over it.

Injustice is at its most sinister when it is dressed up as a form of justice. Our system is at its most precarious when the system designed to uphold justice is used to perpetuate injustice. That is why the bill is so cruel, so evil and such an affront not just to the wellbeing and rights of incarcerated people but to the fundamental idea of justice as we know it. The bill is knowingly designed to allow innocent people to be found guilty and to suffer draconian criminal penalties. The fact this State gets away with that is because of the dark underbelly of the prison system. To dress up grave injustice and harm as a form of justice by allowing incorrect findings of guilt to occur in a lawless and unaccountable backroom masquerading as a court is an egregious breach of our community's ability to trust the justice system and this Government.

The bill is a shameful step in the wrong direction. It is cowardly, it is wrong and The Greens will not support it. We will be moving amendments. We are talking about people who have no way of accessing any form of actual justice because they are already incarcerated. They are doing their time. This State has the right under law to take a person's liberty and punish them for a crime they have committed in the community. The State does not have the right to breach the fundamental human rights that people who are incarcerated still have. Just because a person is in prison does not mean the State has the right to deny their human rights. It is time the Government recognises that the bill is a complete step in the wrong direction. The Government has the opportunity to not pursue the bill.

The Hon. STEPHEN LAWRENCE (21:39): I contribute to debate on the Crimes (Administration of Sentences) Amendment (Standard of Proof) Bill 2025. The contributions by the Hon. Susan Carter and Ms Sue Higginson were extremely unfortunate. They both suggested that the public could not have confidence in the bill because of the issue relating to the Premier and his brother. I do not think that a reasonable member of the community would think that a relationship between two adult brothers, one working as a lawyer in an organisation and the other serving as the Premier, would cause a potential conflict of interest. I note that even Anthony Whealy, KC, who was quoted in The Sydney Morning Herald today, did not seem to suggest it was a conflict of interest. He said words to the effect of, "You would be erring on the safe side of things to declare it." In terms of conflict of interest, I have never taken the view that people should just declare things in case some person down the track accuses them of a conflict of interest. In fact, I would suggest that is bad practice because it leads to inconsistency. Conflict of interest should be declared when it is real.

I do not think any reasonable member of the community would think that two adult brothers in this circumstance would have a conflict of interest. If that is to become the new standard used to justify political attacks, it will cause problems for all sorts of people with spouses and siblings who work in related areas. Indeed, Jim Minns is not even said to be directly involved in lobbying. As I understand the reporting, Mr Stewart Little was involved, as expected. It would be quite dangerous for everyone if all of sudden the new standard is that we are expected to declare conflicts of interest in the ordinary course of work. I have a lot of respect for the Hon Susan Carter and Ms Sue Higginson, but I think the idea was ill conceived. I was a bit surprised that Jordan Baker jumped on it in the way that she did. I leave my comments there, but I do not think that the people involved have been fairly portrayed.

It is an important bill that will allow certain prison offences to be proved to the civil standard rather than to the existing and higher criminal standard. The application of the lower standard in internal prison matters is very common and not in and of itself inconsistent with international human rights law or proper minimum standards. The offences that will now be capable of being proved to the lower standard are those stated in section 51A of the Act, namely:

… an act or omission by an inmate, whether or not it is also a criminal offence that—

(a)occurs while the inmate is—

(i)within a correctional centre or correctional complex, or

(ii)taken to be in the custody of the governor of a correctional centre, and

(b)is prescribed by the regulations as a correctional centre offence for this division.

There is a long and wideranging list of offences that are scheduled. It is therefore clear that many criminal offences are and will be dealt with through the system. As I said, there is no single international standard of proof for prison discipline. However, international law, particularly the United Nations rules known as the Nelson Mandela Rules, establish the principle of humane treatment, requiring that disciplinary measures are not arbitrary and that prisoners have access to due process. I focus my contribution on one narrow but important point—that is, the use of findings of guilt in the new system in subsequent proceedings.

It is common in unrelated sentence matters for a record of prison offences to be handed up. Sometimes the conduct in those might be criminal. Courts generally act on them. They can be quite significant. For example, a person in custody for the first time might make an argument that it has changed their life and disposition and had a positive effect on them such that no further imprisonment should be imposed. Those sorts of arguments can be powerfully undercut by a list of prison offences, or even one. For example, a person being sentenced for an offence of violence, might have a record of assaulting a guard or inmate. A person facing drug-related charges or sentencing might claim they are now clean, but the court sees a record of a "syringe found in cell" type of offence.

The sentencing exercise is a discretion. One small matter might be the difference between jail and no jail. It may also significantly determine the length of sentence. When offences were being proved to the criminal standard, it might be thought there was no obvious problem with courts acting on them in subsequent proceedings. I note the content of the Ombudsman's report that said the standard was not being met in the proper way on all occasions, but I think it is true, as a matter of principle, that if offences were proved to the criminal standard, we can understand why courts and the actors in the criminal justice system were willing to act on those quasi-criminal records.

In circumstances where they are to be proved on the balance of probabilities only, that practice might need close examination. In my view, it would risk serious injustice for a system to maintain as a regular routine the use of these records on sentence. Prisons are tough and dangerous places. I have a lot of respect for the work of our prison officers, but they are human. It would be naive to assume that every prison offence proved on balance can be safely used in sentence proceedings where aggravating factors must be proved to the criminal standard, because, as I said, the consequences are serious. I wanted to flag that particular issue. With those remarks, I support the bill.

The Hon. AILEEN MacDONALD (21:45): I contribute to debate on the Crimes (Administration of Sentences) Amendment (Standard of Proof) Bill 2025. The bill seeks to clarify how disciplinary matters are determined within our correctional centres by changing the standard of proof applied by governors from "beyond reasonable doubt" to "on the balance of probabilities". The intent is to bring consistency and certainty to a system that has for too long been mired in confusion and maladministration. The 2024 report of the NSW Ombudsman found systemic failures in the administration of inmate discipline. Findings of guilt were made without sufficient evidence, penalties were imposed unlawfully and review rights were virtually non-existent. Correctional staff and the Public Service Association have asked for clarity and consistency, and the bill is one response to that call.

However, the bill has not been without controversy. The Ombudsman's recommendations were clear that reforms should improve fairness, not weaken the safeguards that protect people in custody. Lowering the standard of proof may make administration simpler, but it also reduces protection for those who already have the least power to defend themselves. I am also concerned that consultation on these amendments was limited. When I contacted the Aboriginal Legal Service and the NSW Coalition of Aboriginal Peak Organisations, they had at that stage not been consulted. That is despite the Government's commitments under the Closing the Gap partnership agreement to share decision-making on policies affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Given the over-representation of Aboriginal people in custody, the potential impact of these changes should have been the subject of careful and respectful dialogue.

We cannot ignore that many of the penalties arising from these proceedings—such as solitary confinement, withdrawal of phone access and restrictions on parole—carry serious human consequences. These are not minor administrative matters. They go to dignity, fairness and, at times, a person's mental wellbeing. While I support the bill for the clarity it brings, I do so with caution. It must be followed by genuine consultation with Aboriginal organisations and by the implementation of the Ombudsman's full suite of reforms, particularly those strengthening training, oversight and independent review. Reform should never be about lowering standards for the sake of convenience; it should be about lifting standards to ensure that justice, fairness and accountability are not optional but foundational.

The Hon. ROD ROBERTS (21:49): I speak in support of the Crimes (Administration of Sentences) Amendment (Standard of Proof) Bill 2025. It provides a clarifying and more immediate response to inmate management and discipline within our correctional system. The Public Service Association supports the changes, and we should support our correctional officers. I have had meetings with Mr Stewart Little and with the Prison Officers Vocational Branch, but I have not had any meetings with Phil Minns.

The Hon. Stephen Lawrence: Jim.

The Hon. ROD ROBERTS: Jim Minns, sorry. There are too many Minnses. Does he have a brother Phil somewhere? We will bring him up on another occasion. Anyway, Jim Minns has not petitioned me, canvassed me or advocated to me for these changes. To suggest that he has his fingerprints all over this is not correct. Members will know that I spent a number of years in the NSW Police Force as a detective. Although I live in Goulburn, I did not really police in Goulburn, other than my time as a senior instructor on the detective training course. But I was in charge of the Goulburn detectives' office for a short period—probably six months or so—in the early '90s. That was before Supermax was built in Goulburn. Goulburn jail back in those days was a zoo. It was an absolute jungle. We were out there nearly every day of the week investigating either murders or shivvings. They happened constantly. Jails are not a nice place, and they are not filled with nice people.

The work that our correctional officers perform is underappreciated. It is a dangerous job, and they deserve to be acknowledged and supported in the work they do. I like to think I am pretty rough and tough. I have a go and have survived some very tough squads in the NSW Police Force, but there is no way I would work in a jail. We need to acknowledge and support the men and women in the corrections field who do an outstanding job, which people like me would never do. Those people do it day in, day out, and they need to be supported in any way, shape or form we can.

That much underappreciated and dangerous job has been made even more difficult by the Ombudsman's finding. In his August 2024 report, Investigation into inmate discipline in NSW correctional centres, he found that correctional centres were using the wrong standard of proof under the current legislation. It was discovered that the Crimes (Administration of Sentences) Act requires a standard of beyond reasonable doubt for all offences. The bill changes the standard of proof to a balance of probabilities for correctional centre offences determined by governors or their delegates. That new standard will be more appropriate for the administrative nature of many of the disciplinary decisions. Those are not judicial proceedings with rules of evidence or the need for legal representation. Turning routine administrative tasks into quasi-judicial functions would be impractical in maintaining everyday discipline inside our prisons.

Prison officers are not trained investigators. Prison officers do not know how to compile a brief of evidence to a standard of beyond reasonable doubt. Not only do they not know how to do it, but it is unnecessary. Offences of a criminal nature inside jails will still be dealt with and referred to the New South Wales police and/or visiting magistrates. We are talking about day-to-day administrative decisions and disciplinary functions inside the jail. The standard of beyond reasonable doubt will be kept for visiting magistrates and for referrals of criminal prosecutions to the NSW Police Force. Those are the offences of a more serious nature inside jail, and of course the standard for those offences should be beyond reasonable doubt. The proposed changes in the bill apply to less serious misconduct matters and will allow them to be processed in a quicker, more informal manner.

We all know that it takes years to get a matter listed before the Local Court in New South Wales. For example, Alan Jones was charged much earlier this year, but the hearing date is not until August 2026. If we tried to use that standard to maintain discipline inside a jail, inside those dangerous places, what would happen? It is impractical. There is provision for governors and their delegates to deal internally with disciplinary matters of a more minor nature. That is what needs to happen. They need to be dealt with quickly to maintain discipline and authority inside those premises.

For hardened criminals, many of whom have been institutionalised within the prison system, the disciplinary loss of privileges is many times more effective in modifying bad behaviour than additional judicial penalties. Let me give a practical example for those who have never been inside a jail but profess to know all about it. If somebody is inside Goulburn jail doing life for whatever the offence is—one would assume it is probably murder—and does something against the rules of the prison, like spitting on a prison officer, what is the point in threatening that offender with more time in jail? He has already got life. What are you going to do with him? He is already there. If he gets another six months, he will say, "Do your best, champion." We need disciplinary measures imposed inside the jail such as the removing of privileges.

The Hon. John Ruddick: How is it going to change this?

The Hon. ROD ROBERTS: Because administrative matters will be dealt with not beyond reasonable doubt but on the balance of probabilities. That is what the bill allows prison officers to do. I am not entering into discussing interjections, because they are unparliamentary. One must think about the practical implications. What is the point of threatening someone with further imprisonment when they are already in jail for life? That is what we are talking about. The changes will align the legal standard of proof with most other jurisdictions in Australia and, most importantly, the current practices within the New South Wales system. They merely correct in law what was previously assumed in practice. Therefore, any opposition to the amendments within the bill is surprising. The bill will fix the legislative mistake and fix it quickly.

I commend the Government for introducing the amendments in the bill, noting that in one of my first speeches in this place back in 2019, I supported a suite of measures to better manage inmate behaviour and, importantly, give correctional officers greater clarity and certainty in disciplinary actions. I note that quite a few members in the Chamber tonight were here in 2019. They would remember the Hamzy matter that was brought by the then Liberal-Nationals Government. It was on a similar basis regarding alleged double jeopardy: Can you charge someone criminally and still have internal disciplinary processes inside the jail? The use of mobile phones and drug possession are scourges within the prison system. Both are central to organised crime conducting their criminal enterprises, both within and outside of prisons. The fact that the bill focuses on both is a positive step in restricting criminal activity in New South Wales.

Any delay in passing the bill will further hamstring officers in the management of our prison population, many members of which represent the very worst of humanity and have been found guilty of the most heinous crimes. That was tragically reaffirmed by the violent and unprovoked assault of four officers at Cessnock Correctional Complex in February, of which the public has only just seen the footage. It was an unprovoked attack on a number of unarmed, defenceless prison officers. Two of those victims will not return to work in the prison system. The inadequate sentence given to the perpetrator forced thousands of correctional officers and administration staff to walk off the job in protest. The incident highlights the need to maintain discipline and for us to do more to protect officers inside prisons. I also agree with the retrospective nature of the amendments in order to maintain the system and protect past decisions made by governors. I support the bill. It urgently needs assent to correct a legislative oversight and help maintain the safety of correctional officers and prisoners.

The Hon. JOHN RUDDICK (21:58): The Libertarian Party stridently opposes the Crimes (Administration of Sentences) Amendment (Standard of Proof) Bill 2025. It is an unnecessary and cruel bill. The standard of proof in criminal matters is a threshold that has been around for two millennia. The Roman emperor Trajan said in around 100 AD, "If in doubt, acquit." That has been the cornerstone of English-speaking and civilised countries ever since. I know every member in this Chamber agrees with what I have said so far. Where we differ is when it comes to prisoners. Gandhi said, "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." I would add prisoners to that. Domesticated animals and prisoners have overlap; they have no voice. Prisoners have lost most of their rights, but they are still people, and they must have preserved some rights, including the right to be not found guilty of a crime while in jail unless the evidence is beyond reasonable doubt.

If a prisoner is accused of a crime and they are to be found guilty merely on the balance of probabilities, the prisoner will already start with a perception that they are a baddie because they are already serving time. It will not be a question of being 50-50 guilty. They will only need to be 40 per cent guilty because they are going to say, "Well, they're a criminal. They probably did it." I cannot understand why this is necessary. There is a ton of 24/7 cameras in prison. I know not all parts of the prison are covered by the cameras, but almost all of them are. Why do we need to do this? I was told it is a favour for trade union buddies. That is what it is all about. It is inhumane.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Ms Abigail Boyd): According to standing order, it being 10.00 p.m. proceedings are interrupted.