Bass Labor MP Jess Greene has vowed to push for the closure of the Ashley Youth Detention Centre in her maiden speech to Tasmania’s parliament.
The former union organiser said shutting the troubled Deloraine facility was “especially important” to her because someone close to her had been mistreated there.
“I can tell you that that harm doesn’t just disappear,” Greene said. “It lingers and it hurts generations to come.”
Her comments follow the Commission of Inquiry into the Tasmanian Government’s responses to child sexual abuse in institutional settings, which recommended Ashley’s closure after uncovering ongoing abuse at the centre.
“The Commission of Inquiry laid bare harrowing truths… it was a reckoning and it must be a turning point,” Greene said.
Greene brings a decade of experience as a Community and Public Sector Union organiser, where she spent her career backing public sector workers across Tasmania.
“I’ve seen the lengths that workers go to and what it takes to hold a broken system together,” she said, pointing to chronic understaffing and under-resourcing.
Her child protection work includes five years as board chair of Laurel House, which provides sexual assault counselling in northern Tasmania.
“There is nothing more important to me than the health and wellbeing of children and young people,” she told parliament, adding that “every child deserves to grow up safe, supported and protected from harm”.
Raised in Carrick, Greene said her grandfather migrated from Italy in the 1950s to work on the Trevallyn hydro project.
“Migrants to this state brought with them not only their skills and their labour but also cultures, traditions and the values that enrich our community and make it vibrant,” Greene said.
Before entering state politics, Greene spent five years on West Tamar Council, three of them as deputy mayor. She described herself as “a unionist to my core and that will never change”.
She promised to take a collaborative approach to parliament, saying progress comes “from building relationships, finding common ground and never losing sight of the people that you’re fighting for”.
Greene also paid tribute to her husband Nathan and sons Archie and Ted, saying every decision she makes will be “guided by them and the future of every Tasmanian child”.
