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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 13 Hansard (4 December) . . Page.. 4401 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

The paper makes several recommendations. The first recommendation is to close the Belconnen Remand Centre by the year 2000. Frankly, I think this is a necessary decision. The Belconnen Remand Centre is outdated. It is significantly stretched and it is not a desirable place to manage the future needs of detainees and staff. If a new facility is to be established, the paper recommends that it feature a combined remand and sentenced prisoner option. There are obvious merits in this course of action - efficiencies in services, being able to run a facility cost-effectively, and containing the facilities within the one complex. This system seems to work reasonably well in some facilities in other States and I think it is worth consideration.

The paper, which has been prepared by the assistant director of Correctional Services, Ian Fitzgerald, is a carefully considered analysis of the arguments used to deal with the issues which will be raised in the way we manage our prisoner population in the future. Importantly, the paper analyses the future need for a facility. Some analysis is undertaken of the rates of imprisonment imposed by ACT courts. ACT rates are the lowest in the country, at 49 per 100,000 head of population. If our figures were anything like the national average, of 118 per 100,000 head of population, we obviously would expect a substantially higher number of prisoners requiring accommodation. We currently have between 110 and 120 people imprisoned or remanded in custody. If our rate of imprisonment were equal to the national average, that figure would be more like 260 people. The reality is that, in the future, our prison population will rise. Even in the last 12 months the prison and remand population has risen.

At some stage it is appropriate for the ACT to have an informed community debate about the future needs of correctional policy. Mr Speaker, I submit that the time is now. Do we continue to spend nearly $5m on sending sentenced prisoners to New South Wales? That gives us a place to put our prisoners, but no say in the directions and policies used for rehabilitation and program management. Or do we give serious consideration to spending ACT taxpayers' money rehabilitating ACT prisoners in a facility designed to deal with ACT prisoners? That cost may be more than $5m, but the extra benefits, I think, may be worth that money. That is the question we must all ask ourselves. At some stage we have to accept the responsibility of dealing with our own prisoners.

The paper also suggests that the public sector should be encouraged to bid against the private sector for the construction and management of the new facility. I think this is a very good idea. While I have been a supporter of the private sector being involved in this project, this has been on the basis that the private sector has historically, at least in the sense that it has had an historical involvement with corrections in this country, been more cost effective in managing custodial facilities. In fact, Mr Speaker, the private sector's arrival in the sector has also operated to lift standards in the public sector and produce, I think in some cases, more cost-effective outcomes. In Queensland, recently, I had the opportunity to visit the new Woodford Correctional Centre north of Brisbane. I was not visiting anywhere quite as exotic as Great Keppel Island, Mr Speaker, but the Woodford Correctional Centre was certainly worth a visit. This is a facility being constructed and run by the public sector, but, interestingly, the Queensland Corrective Services Commission won a bid against private competitors to construct and run the centre.

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