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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 12 Hansard (14 November) . . Page.. 3637 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

annum to spend on schools, hospitals and other facilities and community needs. It also delivers better outcomes on the ground in terms of the urban design that people will have to live with for the next 30 to 40 years.

MR HUMPHRIES: I ask a supplementary question. Have you reassessed, or will you reassess, the risks of this land development plan of yours in light of the warning from Standard and Poor's? And do you seriously believe that, by admonishing and warning the particular public servants in this agency that they must do better and by treating it differently in the budget papers, you are actually going to produce a better result than an organisation with the resources available to the Commonwealth government?

MR CORBELL: Yes, I do.

Temporary remand centre

MR HARGREAVES: My question is directed to the Minister for Police, Emergency Services and Corrections. Minister, you announced today that the temporary remand centre has commenced full operations. Can you inform the Assembly of how and when the temporary remand centre will be used, and the current remand numbers?

MR QUINLAN: Thank you, Mr Hargreaves. I think it is appropriate that we report to the Assembly that the temporary remand centre is now operational, and it is actually appropriate that it is operational this quickly, because the number of remandees has reached 90. I reported yesterday to this place, through question time, the fact that there had been an increase in property crime and an appropriate reaction had been taken by the police-a significant number of arrests and a significant number of charges laid.

We now have that remand centre in operation. I think some quite deliberate misinformation has been peddled in relation to the type of people that will be held at the remand centre. We now have in place a detainee review committee to ensure that we domicile the appropriate prisoners at the annex to the remand centre. That committee includes the deputy superintendent; a mental health nurse; the case manager, education; a doctor who attends the prison; a registered nurse; two mental health workers; the head of mental health services, corrections health; a welfare officer; a drug and alcohol worker; a clinical nurse; and an Indigenous liaison officer.

This government is quite serious about addressing the problem. It is a great irony, I suppose, that the opposition has taken the line of least resistance in trying to criticise the government one year into its term by saying, "It has been lazy and ineffectual."Well, in the space of one year we have now addressed in large part a major problem that was left on our hands about which nothing had been done. And while we were addressing it, I have to say, we had misinformation peddled in relation to the prisoners that would be there by no less a figure than the Leader of the Opposition, and that misinformation was even included in his so-called report card on our broken promises. The temporary remand centre is open, our commitment to which we publicly announced before the election.

Mr Humphries: All the high-risk prisoners you deliver.

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