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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 11 Hansard (28 November) . . Page.. 3292 ..

Mr Wood: Well, he ought to be offended, but I will withdraw it, because I wouldn't want to upset him-and speak up so you can be heard, will you?

MR SPEAKER: It is a bit difficult when you people are interjecting all the time.

MR HUMPHRIES: It is quite difficult when I have to shout over other people, Mr Speaker. I have never been accused before of being too softly spoken.

MR SPEAKER: Indeed.

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Hargreaves made a number of serious mistakes about the fact that there has been a further break-out at the remand centre. First of all, this government has never shied away from the fact that the remand centre is inadequate. But it has also argued, I think convincingly in the community, that the remand centre by itself should not be considered as the priority for the ACT community. There is another very large, very important issue, and that is the question of housing our full-time sentence prisoners as well as our remandees. The fact is that it is appropriate for us to look at those two issues together, at least to some degree.

Further, it is wrong to suggest, as Mr Hargreaves has done, that the government has made no attempt to take action as a result of the earlier break-outs this year-made no response to that fact. Mr Hargreaves is apparently unaware of the fact that the New South Wales Department of Corrective Services was called in to do an assessment of the remand centre, made a number of recommendations and most of those recommendations have already been fully implemented. There is a further recommendation dealing with the perimeters of the building, which is in the process of being implemented, at least in some form. And a further review of that building will be done by New South Wales Corrective Services as a result of the most recent break-out.

I do not pretend for one instant that the BRC is particularly adequate. It clearly is not. But it has taken this government to kick-start the community debate about corrections in the ACT.

Now we are told we are going too slowly. It was only earlier this year that we were being told by Mr Hargreaves that the government was rushing the project-we were taking it too fast. "Slow down," said Mr Hargreaves, "you are taking this faster than the community can digest." Well, which is it today? Are we going too fast or going too slow? Is today a too-slow day?

Mr Moore: Tuesday-too-slow.

MR HUMPHRIES: Tuesday is too-slow. I am sure that by Thursday the government will be rushing these things and should be slowing down and stopping railroading things through the Assembly.

The one thing the government has learnt through the experience of the Bruce Stadium is that we need to make not the quickest possible decision but the right decision.

Mr Stanhope: That one was wrong, was it? Is that all you've learnt from that? That is page 1 of volume 1.

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