Family First National Director and NSW Legislative Council candidate Lyle Shelton is calling on Premier Chris Minns to immediately keep his promise that biological males identifying as women will not be housed in New South Wales women’s prisons, saying the latest revelations suggest the Premier has lost control of a corrections system being run by woke bureaucrats thumbing their noses at his publicly stated positions.
Mr Shelton said the scandal also exposed a much bigger problem: the Minns Government’s farcical gender self-identification laws undermine the right of all NSW women and girls to safe, female-only spaces — not just women in prison.
Chris Minns told the people of New South Wales that changing your documents would not allow a biological male to move from a men’s prison to a women’s prison,” Mr Shelton said.
Yet we now know that under his Government that is exactly what has happened.
Premier, keep your promise. Put it into law: no biological male identifying as a woman should ever be housed in a women’s prison. Better still, abolish your stupid laws that say a man can become a woman.
And explain how your corrections bureaucracy was apparently able to disregard the position you publicly gave to the people of New South Wales.
Either Chris Minns is in charge of his Government or the woke bureaucrats are.”
The Daily Telegraph reported today that the male-born inmate at the centre of Thursday’s revelations was granted bail 24 hours after Corrective Services Deputy Commissioner Jennifer Galouzis told Budget Estimates that one of the state’s 47 transgender inmates was “housed according to their identified sex”, and hours after the paper sent questions to Corrective Services, Corrections Minister Anoulack Chanthivong and Premier Chris Minns.
The paper reports it is understood Corrective Services and the Government were told of the successful bail application only after the story was published.
The man faces charges of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, wilful and obscene exposure, and using offensive language in or near a school.
A man charged with wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm was in a women’s prison on Monday and out of it on Tuesday,” Mr Shelton said.
Nobody should be asked to accept that timing without an explanation.”
Mr Shelton said bail was properly a decision for a court, but the circumstances surrounding the case demanded answers from the Government.
Who applied and when, did the Crown oppose it, who was consulted, and is it true that the Commissioner who approved the transfer learned of the release after the fact are all questions the Premier must answer,” Mr Shelton said.
Women’s Minister Jodie Harrison told Budget Estimates on Thursday that she had not been advised of the transfer, did not know where the inmate was being housed, and did not know whether he had been “sharing accommodation, showers or changerooms with female inmates”.
In May, asked to define the word “woman”, Ms Harrison declined, saying instead that women and girls should be safe and feel safe “in all settings, including schools, hospitals, changerooms and sporting environments”.
The Minister for Women says women and girls should be safe in every setting, yet she cannot tell you what a woman is,” Mr Shelton said.
You cannot protect a category you refuse to define.
And this is why what has happened in the prison system matters to every woman and girl in New South Wales.
If biological sex can be displaced by gender identity, the same principle threatens female-only spaces everywhere — prisons, hospital wards, refuges, changerooms, sporting competitions and other facilities where women and girls have a legitimate expectation of privacy, dignity and safety.”
In May the Premier said a male who changes his certificates cannot change prisons, and that biological differences “needs to be reflected in the law”.
Three months on, not a line of New South Wales law has changed.
Since 1 July 2025 an adult can change the sex recorded on a birth certificate with a statutory declaration and a supporting statement from somebody who has known them for twelve months.
The Corrective Services policy governing the placement of transgender inmates has been off the public portal for 13 months. Forty-six of 47 transgender inmates are housed according to biological sex, while one is not, apparently as a result of the Commissioner’s discretion.
A policy that ultimately rests on one official’s discretion is not protection for women,” Mr Shelton said.
The Premier told NSW that biological sex matters in prisons. His bureaucrats appear to have done something different. Now he needs to decide whether he runs the Government or they do.”
Family First is calling on Premier Chris Minns to put his Government’s position into law rather than leave it to press conferences and bureaucratic discretion:
- Legislate that no biological male is held in a women’s correctional centre, regardless of a change of certificate or surgery.
- Apply a clear biological definition of woman across New South Wales law, including corrections, anti-discrimination, health, sport, schools and public facilities.
- Restore biological sex as the basis of birth certificates and publish the withdrawn Corrective Services policy, along with relevant ministerial directions governing inmate placement.
- Explain fully and publicly the sequence of events surrounding this inmate’s placement and subsequent release on bail.
Family First again backs Opposition Corrections spokesman Anthony Roberts’s call for an inquiry.
Mr Shelton said that if elected to the Legislative Council in March 2027 he would move to repeal the gender self-identification laws.
This scandal is about far more than one prisoner,” Mr Shelton said.
Gender self-ID erases the legal boundary women and girls rely upon when they need female-only spaces.
Women in prison are among the most vulnerable women in our community, but they are not the only ones entitled to privacy, dignity and safety.
Every girl changing for sport, every woman in a hospital ward, every domestic violence survivor seeking refuge and every woman using a female-only facility has a right to expect that ‘female-only’ actually means female.
Chris Minns acknowledged that biological differences matter. Now he needs to make the law reflect that reality and keep the promise he made to the women of New South Wales.”
KEY FACTS:
- A male-born inmate transferred into a NSW women’s prison was granted bail after Budget Estimates evidence that one inmate was “housed according to their identified sex”, and hours after The Daily Telegraph sent questions to Corrective Services, the Corrections Minister and the Premier. The charges include wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, wilful and obscene exposure, and using offensive language in or near a school (The Daily Telegraph, 28 August 2026).
- Deputy Commissioner Jennifer Galouzis told Budget Estimates there are 47 transgender inmates in custody and 46 are accommodated according to their biological sex. Women’s Minister Jodie Harrison said she had not been advised of the transfer and did not know whether the inmate had been “sharing accommodation, showers or changerooms with female inmates” (The Daily Telegraph, 28 August 2026).
- Premier Chris Minns said in May 2026 that changing government certificates “will not mean that you can change from a male prison to a female prison” and that biological differences “needs to be reflected in the law”. In the same month Ms Harrison declined to define the word “woman”, saying women and girls should be safe “in all settings, including schools, hospitals, changerooms and sporting environments” (The Daily Telegraph, May 2026).
- Since 1 July 2025 no medical procedure is required to change the sex recorded on a NSW birth certificate (NSW Government). The Corrective Services policy on transgender inmates came off its public portal in July 2025 and has not been replaced 13 months later (The Daily Telegraph, 27 August 2026).
