Page 1608 - Week 06 - Thursday, 7 June 2007
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budget before it even got off the ground. Originally to house 374, it will now house 300. That is a 25 per cent reduction, and we still do not know where these beds will be lost. According to the government’s own website, the centre will include a new 139-bed remand centre, a 175-bed facility for sentenced prisoners and a 60-bed transitional release centre for low risk prisoners. That still equals 374, but we are assured it is now 300. The reality is that, with that change, the capital cost of each prison bed has gone from $342,000 to $426,000.
Mrs Dunne: That is more than a house.
MR SESELJA: That is an increase of around $85,000 per bed and, as Mrs Dunne rightly points out, about the cost of a house in the territory, and we still do not know where the cutback in beds will come from. Which area will suffer under the government’s financial mismanagement? The government does not seem to know. Will the prison have a needle exchange? The government’s answer is that they do not know. Will the prison have a tracking system for prisoners? The government do not know. How much will be spent running the prison annually? The government’s answer is: “We are not quite sure.”
In the Canberra Times the government told us that razor wire fencing has been done away with to create a less fearsome and more open feel in the 75 hectare site. Natural barriers are used instead, such as the fall and rise of the ground. That sounds wonderful, but the truth is that two Fortress 358 fences are being erected around the prison. They certainly do not sound very natural to me. This prison project that will cost ACT taxpayers $128 million will be an economic noose around our necks now and into the future. The youth detention centre has blown its budget and received a further $2.5 million in this budget. Just how many times will the Deputy Chief Minister come with an open palm to the cabinet room asking for more?
I want to turn now to hospital pay parking. Last year, in his budget speech, the Chief Minister said:
The truth is not always comfortable. We have been living beyond our means.
The speech was all about a government making the tough decisions and facing the reality that Canberra had apparently had it too easy for too long. One disgraceful outcome of this new creed was the implementation of pay parking at the hospitals, not pay as you leave, but voucher parking that required patients, family members and visitors to run out of the ward and top up the machine. What a disgrace! What bright spark in the government came up with this idea?
After generating $1.2 million and untold grief to the people of the ACT, Stanhope Labor managed to lose $600,000. This is unbelievable! Who loses money on pay parking? I have never heard of a government anywhere else losing money on pay parking. Let it be known in the community that this government cannot run a car park. How can you run a health system if you cannot run a car park? They lost $600,000 on pay parking. My goodness, it is unbelievable. If it were not true, if we had not heard it from the minister herself, I would not believe it. If you cannot run a pay parking system, how can you run a health system?
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