Page 2773 - Week 08 - Thursday, 24 August 2006
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of the ACT and the Master Builders Association. This project is supported because of business capacity to broaden the base to provide employment.
It is remarkable in the extreme that the Liberal Party would think it appropriate not to attract into the ACT the employment inherent in running our own prison. It is remarkable that on this particular proposal the Liberal Party ignore the state and the status of the remand centre. The remand centre is simply not fit for its purpose. It simply cannot be maintained. If we did not build the prison, we would, at least, have to build a new remand centre.
We are building a new juvenile detention facility at a cost of around $40 million. A new remand centre, for the 100 or so remandees that we have at any one time, would have cost half of the cost of the prison. What do you propose to do about the remand centre after you withdraw funding for the prison? What did you intend to do on the remand centre? The remand centre cannot continue. Have you visited it recently? Have you seen it? It is a disgrace. It cannot be allowed to persist or continue.
To replace it, for at least the 100 remandees that we have at any one time, would cost a minimum, I am sure, on the basis of the cost of the prison and the basis of the cost of the juvenile detention facility, of somewhere between, we know, $40 million and $60 million. On the basis of a juvenile detention facility and its current cost of $40 million, a remand centre would cost $60 million plus. We cannot possibly continue to utilise the Belconnen Remand Centre. It is unconscionable. What do you propose to do about the Belconnen Remand Centre and its replacement? Ignore it? You do not think it is necessary for us to replace that obsolete, dangerous facility?
There is the first half of the cost of the prison. It must be replaced. You said it in government 10 years ago. We are now doing it. There is the first half. And there is the first half of your recurrent cost. Half of the recurrent cost of corrections is in the staffing and management of the remand centre—moneys we already pay. The second half of the cost of the staffing and management of the prison is incorporated in the payments we make to New South Wales to manage the 150 or so prisoners of ours that are housed in New South Wales. This is a capital project. The recurrent costs are already met in the wages bill for the remand centre and for payments to New South Wales.
Our cash position is solid. You might say whatever you wish to say about other aspects, but our cash position is solid. It builds over the next three years to over $300 million. To suggest that there is a scarcity of capital or cash is simply to misunderstand the entire budgetary position of the territory, which is obviously what you do. You simply do not understand what you are talking about.
This amendment for the funding for the prison to be removed is nothing but a stunt. It is an odious stunt because it is a reflection by you of your attitude to prisons, convicted people and remandees. It is part of the painting by people of your ilk of people who are incarcerated as subhuman.
Mrs Dunne: Who, someone who does not agree with you?
MR STANHOPE: No, this is part of that scarifying of a group of people within society that you regard as not worthy of participation in the life of the community at any stage. It
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