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

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 11 Hansard (21 October) . . Page.. 3486 ..

MR HARGREAVES (continuing):

We have to provide a remand facility and a mainstream facility and we have to have a detoxification centre in it. We have to cater for ethnic separations and females. For example, we have to have facilities for an inmate to bear a child in prison. We will have prison industries relating to the workforce of the ACT. We will have all of that in the context of only 300 beds or 400 beds. The imagination of the prison's architect is going to be stretched to the limit, I would suggest.

The report expresses disappointment that we were not able to receive the comparative data to make a recommendation on the public versus private models. I am not terribly disappointed that we were not able to make that recommendation. I do not share the disappointment of the chairman because I have been an advocate for taking this concept just a little bit more slowly. I think we can concentrate on the programs and worry about this bit later. But I have to express disappointment that the Government has not yet been able to give the comparative financial data. We have been considering the prison issue for almost 18 months - no doubt, it has been a consideration of part of the bureaucracy for a lot longer than that - but the comparative data has not been forthcoming.

The comparative data relating to English prisons was not regarded by me as being terribly relevant and I am sure that other members of the committee were of the same view. But it was interesting that the Government was not able to provide it for the reason that the information was commercial-in-confidence and it could not get hold of it. I would have thought that, government to government, it could have got hold of the public information. That would have been, I would have thought, a piece of cake. Certainly, I have not seen any evidence that this Government has even tried to obtain the information from the private contractors, noting some of the difficulties that people in Victoria have been having in getting hold of information.

But the Melbourne Age did not have so much trouble in its freedom of information tack. In fact, probably 50 per cent of the information that we would need as a committee was published in the Melbourne Age. Those figures have been reprinted in the report. I find the reason given to the committee by the Government that it cannot get the information for the committee because it is commercial-in-confidence to be spurious in the extreme. I do not accept that for one minute. Either incompetence is running rampant here or there is something to hide. I might mention that Professor Biles, the criminologist, said in evidence to the committee that the cost differences are pretty marginal. The Victorian Auditor-General said in a report of his that evidence has not been produced to show that the projected savings have been realised. There is a considerable amount of doubt out there about whether that is true.

Mr Osborne mentioned that we have delayed our thinking on ownership while waiting for the Government to give us more information. I have no difficulty with that. I firmly believe that the institution ought to be in public hands. How it comes to be in public hands is really a matter for financial considerations, in my view. I think we probably have the money in the kitty to buy the thing outright. Who manages it depends on who is best at providing the programs. We could buy it from a consortium of a building construction company and a private management company. We could just buy it on hire-purchase, borrowing the money on our AAA credit rating. But this Government has not been able to say to us how it is going to be cheaper to do it through the private sector, giving it to them lock, stock and barrel.

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