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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 4 Hansard (29 March) . . Page.. 1203 ..
MR HARGREAVES (continuing):
This is something that I am sure some members will be interested in. Of the people who are incarcerated in New South Wales, we have maximum, medium and low security prisoners. I am sure that we have all sorts of dire intentions for people in maximum security and they can just stay there, but I think it is reasonable for the community to expect that people in the low security and other lesser classifications may have some opportunity for rehabilitation.
I know from the figures given to me by the department or the corrective services section that at last count 17 people were in work farms in New South Wales. There is no provision in this budget for anything to do with work farms for these people. I know also that people who are 17, 18 and 19 go to work farms. There are no funds provided for that. So this government is going to make sure that when these people come back to the ACT they will go up in their security classification, and that will mean a lessening of the likelihood of successful rehabilitation for these people. There should have been some funds in there for a work farm, particularly when the chosen site is next to a farm which will have to be resumed in order to stick the prison next to it. Doesn't it make sense that negotiations on compensation or whatever start with the people at Callum Brae to see whether they would be interested in providing prison farm services, because it is there and we would not have to build one?
I have to make mention of the charade that appeared there with some of the new initiatives. I do not regard giving statutory office holders a pay rise because the Remuneration Tribunal said so as a new initiative. It is something that ought to be paid out of base budget. It is nothing new. There is nothing congratulatory about that at all. Statutory office holders got $180,000. The surrogacy inquiry got $50,000. They were merely salary increases, not new initiatives.
A most significant initiative, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, one that I think has wider ramifications, has popped up. I know you are going to be stunned to hear this. Do you know that there were significant funds allocated for new initiatives in the previous financial year, many, many millions of dollars, and they all came into being on 1 July. If they did not kick off on 1 July but kicked off in September, we have saved 25 per cent. The point needs to be made that not one of these initiatives in the previous year was started on 1 July, not one. I would like to know how much money was not spent in total in one hit, and the information is not forthcoming from the government. I have asked the question and I have got the answer in some cases. Of the initiatives which belong to the group called justice and community safety-I am not suggesting that this is the case in every other program-not one started on 1 July, and yet the funds were provided. I think this is a three card trick to generate a surplus. If it applies through other programs as it did in this justice and community safety program it is no wonder that we have got a very significant surplus. It was a three card trick devised by the government before the year even started.
I also have to express concern about the omission of a capital works funding allocation to address the crisis at Belconnen Remand Centre. We know that the average there is about 60 people in a building built to cope with 51. If you look at the statistics issued just the other day, the profile figures show that that centre is in need of significant refurbishment, or else some better work has to be done at the Periodic Detention Centre. The minister responsible for corrective services and I have had swordfights in the media over what to do about the crisis at Belconnen Remand Centre and the PDC, but I am a little
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