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

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 12 Hansard (7 December) . . Page.. 3894 ..

MR HARGREAVES (continuing):

One of the things which impressed the committee was the professionalism with which the state public sectors provide services in corrections. In the request for tender for the next stage - that is, the awarding of a contract to build a prison and to manage it - the government has said that the public sector means other state governments. That is not the public sector. The public sector is something which is paid for out of ACT coffers, and the government has said it will not allow the public sector in the ACT to submit a bid to run our prison. They have said that we do not have the expertise to manage it or to monitor it. I was first told that by the government three years ago. Three years ought to be plenty of time in which to go and find the expertise.

South Australia's thinking on restorative justice is particularly advanced. This government has had plenty of time to do some headhunting in South Australia and to create a bureaucracy which could not only oversight the process but also physically manage the programs which should go on in our prison, but it has sat on its hands for three years and allowed the project to wallow. We have two years to go before the building opens. That should be plenty of time for this government to get the expertise to do the analysis. I reject the view that ACT corrective services cannot have the expertise to do it. I cannot accept that for the life of me.

I also reject the view that we ought to put the prison in private hands because the private sector are the only people who can do it. In the last two years almost every private prison in Australia has had significant problems and deaths in custody and has been subject to scrutiny. So it is not as obvious as it was when we embarked on this investigation three years ago.

Members of the committee would remember that I have been constantly in favour of public ownership but have been prepared to be convinced about the private or public management of it. The trip around the country convinced me that if we have to go with private management at the end of a five - year term, then it will be a rather nasty indictment of the government's inaction in respect of its own bureaucracy. It could have taken that time to create one that did work. It could have done some headhunting. There are some excellent people around the country. We met Roger Holding, the fellow running a private prison in Mount Gambier. Steve Green got a human rights award for his work at Lotus Glen in Queensland, a public prison. If, as I suspect to be the case, the government is rather enamoured of the South Australian system, it could have done wholesale poaching in that state rather than paying profits to that state in asking them to run our system on contract, of course with a profit imperative.

I hope I speak for the committee when I say that the committee has no determined position on private or public management at this point. It believes that the best management must be provided. A tender process may - and I reiterate "may" - show who is best placed to manage our prison. But it is a shame that the government has not done anything in the past three years to allow the ACT public sector to compete and as a result keep the profits here in the ACT.

I express appreciation to Fiona Clapin, our committee secretary, who did an incredible amount of work in compiling the report and stitching together the thoughts of myself and Mr Kaine on the trip. (Extension of time granted.) I also express appreciation to Matt Gamble, who deputised for Fiona when we went to Western Australia. He did an excellent job for us.

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