The NSW deaths only came to light after Greens MLC David Shoebridge asked Corrective Services Commissioner Peter Severin at a NSW budget estimates on March 9.
Severin defended authorities’ silence saying that it was “not appropriate” to advise the public of deaths without any detail and “cause a lot of anger, a lot of angst and a lot of grief”.
Karly Warner, spokesperson for the Aboriginal Legal Service NSW/ACT (ALS), called for government accountability. “While identification of people who die in custody must be up to families, the government should be more transparent and timely in the information they share with the public,” she said on March 9.