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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 8 Hansard (9 August) . . Page.. 2655 ..

MR HARGREAVES (continuing):

community be given an opportunity for representation, but when we are talking about an ongoing role something considerably smaller, more effective and with a bit more specifically related expertise may be appropriate.

It is also important that the panel be involved in the design and tendering stage. One of the successes of the Lanyon youth centre was the Lanyon skateboard park, and I know a couple of other initiatives by this government have involved the community at the contemplative stage. We have had that involvement. We need to make sure that that involvement continues in the design stage. That will generate community ownership of that facility, I would hope, as it has with the other facilities I have just mentioned. Had the Symonston community had ownership of that thing in their area, they might not have stridently opposed it.

Because the committee ran out of time, it suggested that the government commission an independent evaluation of the financial costings contained in the Rengain report and that the evaluation closely examined the validity of the assumptions. The Rengain report itself and the people who briefed our committee said that the numbers were scary. The $110 million frightened the living daylights out of our committee chair. As soon as he saw that, he thought, "Whoa, Jackson. I am not going to go down that track." The report did indicate that these figures were indicative. They were based on comparisons with other institutions that were being built or had recently been built in the country.

The report said that once tenders were called they expected that number to be lower. However, I suggest that if you say to somebody, "The price for my house is between $130,000 and $135,000," you can pretty near bet what the range of bids is going to be. I have some reservations about that.

If we have it independently evaluated, we may get a better idea, particularly given the underlying assumptions-for example, the incarceration growth rate. I am not so convinced that the incarceration growth rate will explode as it has in other jurisdictions or at the rate suggested in Mr Walker's report. I do not think that in four years we will get to the numbers that the report suggests.

I know there will be a very large increase because of the hard stance on crime that has been taken lately, because of the propensity of magistrates and the judiciary to fill up an empty jail and because of many other things. But I do not think it is going to explode. I would like to have those assumptions tested, because the result will have a bearing on when we reach the break-even point, when we reach the point when it becomes cheaper for us to have a prison in the ACT.

According to the Rengain report, about four years down the track we might as well have it here because will be paying the same to New South Wales as it would cost us to run it here. The difference will be that we will have the prison here. I suggest that it is more likely to be five or six years, but I would like that looked at.

We have come a very long way. I can recall the early days of the committee's considerations, when some members of the committee were totally convinced that the privately owned, privately built, privately financed, privately operated model was probably the best one because of the reputation of the private sector. Then we started to hear stories about the Port Phillip prison and metropolitan women's prisons and then in

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