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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 8 Hansard (27 June) . . Page.. 2365 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

This is adhocery. The government are making it up as they go. Much of this is because of the legacy the former spokesman for the Labor Party on corrections left the current minister. We all understand that.

It is time for a reality check if this government is to achieve anything in corrections. We all know that something needs to be done about the remand centre. Work was progressing towards that. There is no indication in the budget documents that serious consideration is being given to a prison. If you want to co-locate the remand centre and the prison, you need to do the work now, not make an ad hoc decision later.

The Rengain report delivered to the government early last year said that the option of building a stand-alone remand centre was an inefficient way to progress because of security concerns and a cost of over $60 million. In the last couple of days we have heard Mr Corbell's lame excuse that he cannot deliver Gungahlin Drive on time and within budget because costings were out of date. The costing last year for a stand-alone remand centre was $60 million. Why this government has ignored that advice and put only $50 million in their budget is beyond me.

Expenses for the design and construction of the remand centre go into 2003-04, so it seems the remand centre will not be constructed until 2004. On Mr Corbell's logic, the 2001 price must go up by 2004, so something like $70 million may be required for a stand-alone remand centre when this government gets around to constructing it. Or if they stick to their $50 million, will they be breaking their election promise that they only build a state-of-the-art corrections facility? That will come at a cost to those incarcerated there and at a cost to society, because we need to be breaking the cycle, not contributing to it.

I move on to tourism, which will not take long to deal with. The only mention of tourism in the budget is a one-line continuation of the national capital education tourism project. This project started in the lead-up to the centenary of federation. It is a worthwhile project, and I applaud the government for making money available to continue this initiative.

But it is not what the tourism industry was looking for. I can remember earlier in the year being at the AIS with the minister when Professor Mules mentioned the possibility of a $10 million increase in tourism funding for destination marketing. The minister has ignored tourism.

A pressing issue for the tourism, hospitality and hotel trade is an upgrade of the Convention Centre. As with so many things this government tackles, all we are going to get is another study. There is $200,000 for a feasibility study of convention facilities.

The minister should read Building Our City, which after much consultation and planning became the third stage of our strategy for Civic, the first two being Our City and Creating Our City. It talks about the city being in four distinct quadrants. The south-east quadrant is anchored on the convention facility. Much of the planning that has gone into the upgrade of Civic is predicated on the upgrade of that facility. Nothing is going to happen, when we know from the PKF report received in March last year that there is a problem. We need to be getting on with it, but yet again there is to be just another study.

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