Page 3220 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 18 October 2006
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MR CORBELL: I was very pleased earlier this week to announce that the ACT government had selected a successful tenderer to move to the $113 million construction stage of the Alexander Maconochie Centre. That tender has been awarded to Bovis Lend Lease, a national and international construction firm. They have now entered into that contract following a tender process which finished on 20 July this year.
This contract is the third contract to be awarded to date for this project and is for the single largest part of the construction of the prison. Previous projects included early site works. A contract to the value of $2.4 million was awarded to Canberra Contractors, a local firm, for the development of the early site works, including access roads to the site, traffic lights, road lighting and connection to the various utilities.
Bulk earthworks commenced on the site on 28 February this year and have now been completed. That contract was to the value of $2.6 million and was awarded to a firm called BMD. That was a very important step in preparing the site for the main construction package which has now been tendered.
The real issue here, now that the contract has been awarded, is whether the Liberal Party will be continuing to state that they will use money from the prison project to fund their various pre-election commitments. Will they be indicating that they will be breaching a contractual undertaking between the territory and a major national and international construction company simply to meet the mess that is their policy position on so many matters at the moment?
That is the challenge for Mr Stefaniak. Will you do that, Mr Stefaniak? Will you repudiate this contract? Will you walk away from a legally binding commitment made by the territory to construct the prison? Will you continue to assert that you will use the prison money for other projects? That is the challenge for Mr Stefaniak and for Mr Mulcahy as shadow Treasurer, because this contract has been let. Construction work is to start in four weeks and we anticipate that it will be completed by 2008.
As I indicated in my answer to Mr Seselja earlier today, we have revised the overall scope of the prison project, due to the significant increase in construction costs since the project was first appropriated. That has meant that we will now cater to up to 300 prisoners, still a very sufficient and significant capacity and, as I have indicated based on Treasury projections, one that could accommodate prisoners until 2042.
A range of other measures are also being put in place for this prison. For example, we continue to focus on environmentally sustainable development objectives. The prison will achieve a green four-star rating. So, in terms of energy and water consumption in particular, it will be achieving significant operational efficiencies, which will be, of course, of benefit to the taxpayer as well as to the broader community.
Another specific design innovation which is worth mentioning is the planned installation of a radio frequency identification tracking system within the centre to be able to track the movements of both prisoners and staff within the centre. That will be a very significant measure which will provide for improved safety for both prisoners and staff and will be the first for an Australian prison.
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