Page 2785 - Week 08 - Thursday, 24 August 2006
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faced with some real challenges for one small jurisdiction with one relatively small prison to deal with them.
How we separate gang members and those sorts of issues obviously are able to be taken into account by larger jurisdictions, such as New South Wales. I am looking forward to hearing from the minister as to how that will be done. The Acacia prison services agreement points to some of the challenges we might have. I understand that staffing has been a major problem there in Western Australia and that the prison has found it difficult to attract administrative and specialist staff. The minister does need to say in the context of the skills crisis that we have, in the context of the difficulty we find in all sorts of areas to recruit people, how we are going to be able to recruit sufficiently qualified prison guards and corrective services officials to do the job and do it in a manner that ensures the safety of both the prisoners and the staff in this facility.
Mr Speaker, we do have significant concerns. I am particularly sceptical that the figure of $20 million a year for recurrent expenditure will be able to be achieved. I expect that it will be much more. I expect that that will be borne out in the coming years. New South Wales has programs for drug-addicted prisoners, for female prisoners, for indigenous prisoners, for all sorts of variables. The ACT might have only a handful of female prisoners, a handful of indigenous prisoners or a handful of those other groups that need to be catered for. How much will it cost to service those kinds of programs, or will those kinds of programs simply not be provided and, if so, what would that mean for the prison population?
We need also to look at the issue of recidivism. That, obviously, will be the key. If we are to believe what the government is saying about having the most human rights friendly prison in the country, we would expect the rates of recidivism amongst ACT prisoners to go down significantly. I was concerned to find during the estimates process when we had a look at the new youth detention facility that the targets for recidivism will not change at all after the new facility is built, so I do have to question whether the government is going to put in place programs that will see fewer offenders coming out and reoffending in the community. Obviously, that is going to be a key component of what the community would expect as a result of having this prison.
During the estimates process there was significant confusion about the number of prisoners that actually come from the ACT and the number of ACT-sentenced prisoners that come from other jurisdictions. We had dispute over the figures that had previously been used by the ACT government in its submission to the grants commission where it said that 45 per cent of the prisoners came from outside the ACT. I received an answer to a question on notice which said that those figures were wrong and that we are dealing with only about 16 or 15 per cent.
I do not know which figures are right. I can only take it that the figures we are now provided with are correct, but you do have to cast some doubt on them as only a couple of years ago there was a submission from the ACT government to the grants commission which apparently was so wrong and so far out. It would be interesting if the minister, when he gets up, could explain that anomaly. That is important because it does go to the case for a prison if 45 per cent of our sentenced prisoners are coming from outside the ACT or if it is a high proportion. Why should we be building a prison for significant numbers of non-ACT residents who are committing offences in the ACT?
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