Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 4 Hansard (20 April) . . Page.. 965 ..

MR HARGREAVES (continuing):

of "Keep on coming". Quite frankly, Mr Speaker, there is nothing wrong with the Government giving the committee part of the information, for example, the costings, and they have failed to do so.

So the question has been: "What have they got to hide?". They were forced to come up with the costings in the capital works program for this year. They were dragged kicking and screaming to the altar, Mr Speaker. The problem that we face here is that they did not want to. A close examination of the capital works program reveals exactly why the Government did not want to do it. What they did here, Mr Speaker, was very clever. I nearly missed it myself. In fact, I congratulate the Government for its skulduggery. I refer those reading this glorious green report to paragraphs 3.14 and 3.15 on page 9. Mr Humphries' staff, if they are watching, should read paragraphs 3.14 and 3.15 on page 9.

The report talks about the term "BOOT", which means build, own, operate and transfer. I do not know who made that up, but I congratulate them because they are indeed giving the prison the boot. This term refers to the way in which we finance and operate a prison and who owns it in the long term. But, as paragraph 3.15 says, sometimes the transfer function is omitted, making it a "BOO" project. Somebody could have thought up something better than that, surely.

Since this inquiry into the prison started, Mr Speaker, people have argued the toss on whether it should be privately run or publicly run. They have argued the toss on what sorts of programs and what sorts of issues should be addressed. Shall we have a rural facility? Shall we have a maximum security prison? Shall we have a medium prison? Shall we have one at all? The one consistent thing we have in the prison submissions is that, like the responsibility for the justice system, it is a community issue and it should be a community owned prison.

Now, for the first time, we have revealed in paragraph 3.15 that it is the Government's intention never to own the prison. In the committees, we have always been operating on the perspective that the Government will own it at one stage or another, either up front or over a period of 20 years. We have argued the toss on how we would finance such a thing, and we have kept our arguments into how it will be managed. Neither this standing committee, the public, nor this Assembly, has ever been given the Government's preferred option, and I quote in relation to the prison that it is a BOO-type project. Well, Mr Speaker, I say boo to that. It is essential that such a facility be in public hands and be publicly owned.

It is disgusting, Mr Speaker, that you have to look through the capital works programs to find something as significant as this. This is the biggest project this community has faced for many a long time, since self-government. There has been an enormous amount of public concern. Our standing committee has received 33 submissions on this issue. The people are talking about it out there in the streets. And what happens? The Government has such a significant preferred option as this and it tries to sneak it through the capital works program. They should be ashamed of themselves.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .