Page 856 - Week 03 - Thursday, 30 March 2006
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prison—this is about dollars. This is the classic economic rationalist approach to the delivery of any social service. We will deal just with the dollars.
Of the $20 million perhaps ultimate cost—that has not yet been finalised—half of it is currently being paid to New South Wales; to officers of the New South Wales government living in Junee and Goulburn, outside Long Bay and Parramatta, and at Gosford. The Liberal Party in this place is obviously quite content with $10 million of salary being paid to New South Wales government officials to care for ACT prisoners. They are quite happy for that $10 million in salary to support businesses in Junee, Goulburn, Gosford, Sydney and Parramatta. I find it strange—listening to some of the presentation we have had, even today, from the shadow Treasurer—that the ACT opposition is happy to support New South Wales employees; happy to support the towns of Junee, Gosford and Goulburn. That is the first half of the $20 million.
In the context of the second half of the $20 million, the majority is currently paid to maintain the Belconnen Remand Centre and Symonston. It needs to be understood that Hume will also incorporate our remand facility. At the moment we have a most inefficient remand capacity. It is split between two campuses; two-thirds of it being in the middle of Belconnen, in a facility that does not meet bare minimum standards for the housing of prisoners or detainees. You need to consider that as well.
In this debate around Hume and the Alexander Maconochie Centre there needs to be some attention paid to the fact that we have, in the Belconnen Remand Centre, a facility that is simply not suited to the purpose. It is substandard and it is not a facility which this community can bear to turn its back on and pretend is appropriate. You need to address that issue when you talk about Alexander Maconochie—and you talk it down.
Talk about the $10 million that is spent in New South Wales and why you support that. Justify why the Belconnen Remand Centre is satisfactory in its services, its fit-out and its capacity. It is the most unsatisfactory of any government facility in the ACT. It is of the worst standard and it is the least acceptable of any government facility in operation in Canberra. It cannot be allowed to exist.
You would remember that the initial driver for development of our own prison was that we could not persist with the Belconnen Remand Centre any longer. That was the position that Michael Moore and Gary Humphries took seven or eight years ago: it was unconscionable that we persist with the Belconnen Remand Centre.
MR STEFANIAK: Mr Speaker, I have a supplementary question. Chief Minister, is the functional review hogtied from the start in not being able to interfere in your personal hobbyhorses?
MR STANHOPE: I am particularly grateful for the supplementary. I was concerned for a second that there would not be one. I did not get to Symonston. At Belconnen, we have a facility that is substandard and which the Liberal Party, in government, highlighted perhaps as the first order facility that needed to be not so much upgraded but closed down and replaced. As we took the reins of government and realised the appalling state of Belconnen Remand Centre. We developed and enhanced facilities at Symonston for the overflow of remandees. We now operate this incredibly inefficient remand arrangement of two campuses: one at Belconnen, one at Symonston.
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