Government Failing Victims, Fails Community Safety, and Fails to Deliver Justice

Media Release | 26 August 2025

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Nick Goiran MLC
Shadow Attorney-General

More than five years after the Department of Justice completed a review of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme, the Government has still not acted on its recommendations.

Under questioning in Budget Estimates, Shadow Attorney General Nick Goiran said the Cook Labor Government was continuing to fail to deliver justice for victims of crime and failing to answer basic questions on critical community safety incidents.

“The Cook Labor Government has perfected the art of going around in circles. It was only after persistent questions from me that Attorney General Quigley ordered the Department of Justice in 2019 to review our State’s scheme compensating victims of crime,” Mr Goiran said.

“They produced recommendations tabled in Parliament in 2020. But now five years later, in a performance that would make actors from ‘Yes Minister’ blush, the Government says it has asked that same Department to ‘consider the findings and provide advice’.

“Victims of crime deserve action. Instead, they are left in limbo, while Attorney General Tony Buti orders another round of paper-shuffling.”

In the same hearings, the Government admitted it did not know when the Department’s investigation into last week’s escape of Robert Kevin McCullough from court custody would conclude, offering only vague assurances that it was a “priority”.

“The escape of an accused child sex offender from our central law courts is a shocking failure of the justice system,” Mr Goiran said.

“The public deserves to know how an offender with a reported extensive criminal history could walk free from court custody.

“Yet all the Cook Labor Government can say is that an investigation is a ‘priority’ and won’t commit to reporting the outcomes to Parliament. Western Australians expect answers and accountability, not vague platitudes.”

When pressed on parole decisions for prisoners serving life or indefinite terms, the Government could not even say how many such prisoners were currently in the system.

This comes despite Labor’s stated intention to “reform” the system so that bureaucrats can release these offenders on “parole for life”.
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ENDS

Contact: Graham Mason 0419 194 792

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