Why Did Two Prisoners Spend 24 Hours on a Roof to Speak With Tracy Grimshaw?

Late yesterday, two inmates at Brisbane's Woodford Correctional Centre climbed onto the roof and staged a heartfelt protest that lasted over 24 hours. The duo made two simple demands: that they gain access to a drug rehabilitation program, and be given an interview with the host of A Current Affair, Tracy Grimshaw.

The protesters were reportedly able to cut through a chain fence on the prison oval using toenail scissors. They then clambered onto the roof and displayed a homemade sign designed to catch the attention of the lauded Channel Nine presenter, whose long TV career has included stints on National Nine News, Today, before she became the face and soul of ACA.

The Suboxone treatment program that the prisoners were demanding is available in Australian correctional facilities outside of Queensland. Their efforts to obtain funding for substance abuse programs at the Brisbane correctional facility are self-explanatory, but the Grimshaw element is more puzzling.

Why was she the TV journalist who sprung to mind? What led the prisoners to favour A Current Affair over, say, Sunrise? Do Australian prison televisions only air programming from Channel Nine? And if so, does that constitute an abuse of human rights?

Grimshaw responded negatively to the prisoners' demands, coldly declining to speak with them. Speaking on the Today Show, she was quick to point out that an interview on A Current Affair is a privilege, not a right. She also made it clear that prisoners are inherently bad and undeserving of airtime on one of Channel Nine's most consistently high rating shows.

"[Woodford Correctional Centre] is a high security prison. You don't get in there by being a nice human. I don't think we should be too stressed about what these guys want," she said.

"I have been a journalist for a long, long time and I have covered these sorts of stories and the last thing that goes to people who climb on roofs and demand things is what they are demanding."

"It is not going to happen. I am quite sure that if the authorities wanted me to speak to them they would have called me and they certainly haven't called me."

The prisoners have peacefully ended their protest as of this morning. Whether Queensland Correctional Services will provide drug addiction services at the Woodford facility remains to be seen.

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