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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 6 Hansard (15 May) . . Page.. 1650 ..

MR STANHOPE: This is the hoary untruth that you perpetuate. You could not, under any circumstances, have completed construction. You did not even intend to complete construction of the prison for three or four years, even if you had found the money, which I can tell you now you could not have. You would not have completed construction.

Were you going to leave the Belconnen Remand Centre as it was for another four years in the face of advice, which I know you received, that it was simply untenable and unconscionable to do so.? Is that what you were going to do? Were you going to leave that place for another four years without addressing the palpable inefficiencies that are there and the palpable dangers that exist in such a chronically overcrowded, ill-conceived and malconstructed maze of cells and holding places?

The advice we have is that it is not an option. The top line of the advice, the middle line of the advice and the bottom line of the advice that we received is the same as the advice you received: doing nothing is not an option. So we are responding to that. This whole debate has to be conducted in the knowledge that we have to fix the Belconnen Remand Centre, and we are.

The other issue you raise is the number of people who are incarcerated that have a mental condition or a substance abuse issue. They are connected in so many cases. As the Schizophrenia Fellowship will tell you, 80 per cent of people who have a diagnosed clinical mental condition have a substance abuse problem: the classic dual diagnosis issue. This is a figure that the department of health does not dispute-80 per cent of people who have a mental condition that they have to deal with in their daily lives probably abuse a substance. It is interesting. We all know that probably 80 per cent of the people at the Belconnen Remand Centre have a substance abuse problem. So if 80 per cent of the people at the Belconnen Remand Centre have a substance abuse problem, we will not be surprised that the same number have a mental condition that presents in one way or another.

We have known this forever-those of us who have taken an interest in substance abuse and how to deal with it, in mental illness and how to deal with it and in the interface between people with substance abuse problems and mental conditions and the police and the criminal justice system. That is why some of us are determined to pursue progressive drug law reform agendas-we know about these issues. That is why we are determined to do something about them. That is why, after seven years in government, it is the height of hypocrisy for anybody in the Liberal Party to start lecturing us about what we need to do about people with substance abuse problems and people with mental illness.

It is refreshing, with the change of government, to have a government that is prepared to tackle these issues head on. We understand the basis of the issues that lead people with a dual diagnosis to end up in our jails and remand centres and what brings them into contact with the Australian Federal Police.

There is a whole range of things we need to continue to do. We need to ensure that each of the officers of the Australian Federal Police is fully trained in the needs and behaviours of people with mental illnesses, how they present and what the appropriate responses are. I have no doubt that there is a higher level than before of understanding and training in our police force in relation to these issues. I am pleased that the more-

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