Page 2329 - Week 06 - Friday, 27 June 2008
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Most people I speak to are far more concerned with what decisions come out of the Supreme Court and usually have a great whinge about that—often, in my view, very justifiably—rather than what type of building they are in. And that, to me, is a far more important consideration than the building.
However, there are ways in which you probably could do a new building. It has been suggested in the past—and it was certainly something that you and I had in mind, attorney—by the former registrar of the court, who had quite a good concept, that basically you could build a new building which, in 2001 figures, I think would cost about $40 million. You would move in the DPP; you would move in JACS; you would have barristers chambers there. The rent you would get from that, this was in 2001 figures, was about $2 million a year.
After about probably 25 years, you have paid for the cost of the building. You are not paying dead rent; you actually own the building; and you are saving that in rent. With inflation and everything, the $2 million then is probably about $3 million now in terms of rent costs, with the way things have gone up in that part of the market. If JACS, the DPP and other areas in the justice department are saving $3 million a year in rent, that may well justify a new building being built.
Apart from that, unless you can justify it in that way so that effectively the territory ultimately is now in pocket and we might even ultimately save a bit of money, is there a real need for it? It is not something the general public actually wants. I suppose, to the government’s credit, to an extent all they have done is a feasibility study or put $200,000 towards it. Normally, when you do want a project to go ahead, as I mentioned in this debate yesterday in relation to the second phase of the Belconnen arts centre, you would hope there would be extra money. That is a good, sensible project which I think everyone wants and there is a real need.
But in this case perhaps the feasibility study does not commit the government to anything. Again, it is hardly an issue which people are terribly keen to actually see occur, except for vested interests. However, if there are opportunities to save money, if there are opportunities to have a building which would house not just a court but all sorts of other government agencies—and that occurs in Sydney; there is the Supreme Court building and several other courts which are in other buildings; I am not sure who owns them, but it is a good utilisation of space—then maybe it is not a bad idea to go down that track, if indeed we can have a new building and save money.
If the government can do something like that, I do not think I would have too much of a problem. But at the end of the day, if the government is thinking of forking out $50 million or $60 million for a new building, without getting that money back, just to house our Supreme Court, that is hardly a good use of funds which I think would be desperately needed in other areas where the public would think they would be better utilised, such as health, education and areas such as that which cause people in our community real concern.
I will close on that. I will let my colleague Mr Smyth talk about policing. Mr Pratt, of course, will do emergency services where there are some significant ongoing problems. Mr Seselja will probably want to say a few words about corrections.
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