Tasmanian prison workers demand increased staffing, fear for impact of COVID spread

Officers in Launceston and at Risdon Prison held a one-hour stop work meeting on Wednesday morning, endorsing a resolution calling on the Tasmania Prison Service to develop a plan by January 14 to increase staffing levels.

Launceston workers told United Workers Union organisers that the centre is only two-thirds staffed, while the inmate levels were 40 per cent above capacity at the moment resulting in two inmates to a single cell.

Inmates on a higher classification - at higher risk - are also being kept at the Launceston centre for several months despite it being for short-term remand purposes, due to overcrowding issues at Risdon.

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UWU organiser Phil Pregnell said there was not enough staff to ensure the "basic needs" of inmates, resulting in further issues.

"On any given day, they are running extremely short to a dangerous level," he said.

"There are incidents every day because you are bringing people in off the street, we're seeing the amount of shootings that are happening, the amount of drugs that are happening especially around the Launceston area.

"What that's doing also is it's bringing people into the prison that have conflict with people that are already housed in that prison."

COVID spread into the prison systems in NSW and Victoria in September and October resulting in lockdowns and staff entering isolation. A 2020 outbreak in Queensland first spread in a youth detention centre.

Mr Pregnell said this was highly likely to occur in Tasmania with the border fully reopening, but he doubted that the system was prepared.

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"We haven't got the staff to then go onto a split COVID roster so that we're not contaminating all staff if that happens," he said.

"[Inmates would] have to be isolated but by isolating them, there is additional work that's going to have to be required to provide their basic needs, to give them medication, to house them, to keep them separated, to allow them still to be able to communicate with their lawyers.

"And with the ventilation system we have there, does it get to other inmates?"

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A statement - again only attributed to a "government spokesperson" - said the union was "playing political games" and the action was "more about politics than substance".

The statement did not respond to claims about safety issues or concerns about COVID entering the system, but did outline 22 new recruits that started training under three week ago to graduate in February, with more recruitment "ongoing" in addressing understaffing. A further 79 were added in 2020.

"Senior members of the Department of Justice and the Tasmania Prison Service have also been meeting regularly with the unions to keep them updated on recruitment and hear their concerns," the statement reads.

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