The Australian Human Rights Commissioner has told Senate estimates more weight would be given to concerns about a lack of air conditioning at a West Australian jail if a national inspection network was fully functioning.
Commissioner Lorraine Finlay made the remarks when asked about living conditions and prisoner welfare at Roebourne Regional Prison (RRP) in the state's north.
Calls for the state government to install air conditioning in all the prison's cells have attracted renewed attention after the town set a new temperature record of 50.5 degrees last month.
Ms Finlay told estimates the issue with cooling at Roebourne jail has been the subject of "considerable recommendations over a considerable period of time and still hasn't been addressed at a state level".
WA Greens Senator Dorinda Cox, who was in Roebourne on the day the new temperature record was set, used yesterday's hearing to raise concerns about the lack of air conditioning and asked the Human Rights Commissioner about the need for a national inspection network for detention facilities.
In 2017 Australia ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT) and started setting up a national network, but Ms Finlay said it was yet to be fully implemented.
"OPCAT in and of itself won't solve those problems [at Roebourne]," she said.
"But what it does do is create oversight of them, it shines a light on them, and hopefully through that it can help encourage every state and territory government, and the national government, to ensure there are those minimum human right protections in places of detention across Australia."
Legal service takes fight to UN
Advocates have been lobbying for improved air conditioning at the jail for years and last week the Aboriginal Legal Service of WA (ALSWA) wrote to the United Nations to ask for support.
In a letter to two special rapporteurs for the UN, the ALSWA raised "serious concerns about inhuman and discriminatory living conditions" at the prison.
"The conditions at RRP pose significant risks to the safety and health of the prisoners and are a flagrant breach of Australia's obligations under international human rights law," chief executive Dennis Eggington wrote.
"It's clear to us the absence of air-conditioning in many of the cells at RRP breaches the [UN's] Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.
"We also consider that the lack of appropriate measures to ensure effective climatic control in light of the soaring temperatures at RRP amounts to cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment or punishment."
Mr Eggington says ALSWA believes the lack of action from the Department of Justice to install more air conditioning is "inherently discriminatory".
"Approximately 80-90 per cent of the prison population at RRP identifies as Aboriginal," he said.
"The Department of Justice has continually failed to remedy the situation and pleas from ALSWA and other organisations to the WA government have fallen on deaf ears."
Mr Eggington has asked the special rapporteurs to call on the state government to take immediate steps to ensure effective climatic control and humane living conditions at Roebourne jail.
The WA government has been contacted for comment.
When asked previously about the issue, a government spokesperson said the Department of Justice had a number of effective controls in place to manage the heat risk and at that there were fans in every Roebourne cell as well as air conditioning in the recreation hall.
"There are a number of air conditioned cells available for prisoners with medical conditions," the spokesperson said.
