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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 04 Hansard (Tuesday, 30 March 2004) . . Page.. 1277 ..

That is what he said only a couple of months ago, yet yesterday he came out and said that it is going to be at the prison. But how are they going to pay for it at the prison? They have said, “We’ll just take the money out of the prison budget.” I am sorry; all that money is for building a prison; it is not for building a forensic care facility, let alone the national forensic health principles which recommend that specialist inpatient forensic mental health services should be located beyond the geographic boundary of a prison and run independently of correctional services. That is national best practice, but Mr Smyth just wants to make it part of the prison. There we have it: national best practice for mental health directly contradicts the opposition’s policy.

Mr Smyth: The flush is rising.

MR CORBELL: I know that Mr Smyth is uncomfortable about it, but there is more, Mr Smyth. Let’s go to the recurrent cost and capital cost of such a facility. The capital required for an eight-bed forensic facility is uncosted in the opposition’s policy. There is no costing whatsoever. Let’s look at the most recent experience in Australia and try to work it out from there. The most recent experience in Australia is to be drawn from Tasmania, where a 35-bed facility cost the state government $15 million in capital alone to build. Where are your costings, Mr Smyth? Also, the recurrent cost of running a similar facility in the ACT, based on the Tasmanian experience, would be somewhere between $6.5 million and $7 million per year. Already, we are up around $50 million.

Finally, the opposition has promised a time-out facility at an estimated cost of $2 million, but they did not put any money in their policy to staff it. It is just like the new medium-security facility of Brian Hennessy; it is that all over again. You should not make promises that you cannot deliver on.

MR SPEAKER: Order! The minister’s time has expired. Do you have a supplementary question, Mr Hargreaves?

MR HARGREAVES: Yes, thank you, Mr Speaker. There was a bit of noise and I wonder whether the minister can confirm for me whether he said that three of the opposition’s policies were for $100 million but funding of only $20 million was announced. Also, could the minister indicate how the opposition’s approach compares with the Stanhope government’s funding of its commitments to mental health?

MR SPEAKER: Order! The minister is not responsible for the opposition’s policy.

MR CORBELL: The government has undertaken a very significant reform of mental health services since coming to office. Of course, it is worth repeating in this place, although Mr Smyth likes to avoid it, that when we came to office the level of expenditure in the ACT stood at $67 per head of population.

Mr Smyth: Say that again.

MR CORBELL: It was $67. We have close to doubled that—to $117 per head of population. We are having to catch up on the failure of the Liberal Party to properly fund mental health resources. It is interesting, Mr Speaker, that Mr Smyth thinks that we need some mental health nursing scholarships. We agree with him, which is why we funded

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