Page 1566 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 31 March 2009
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have got the hypocrisy to sit here and say that we are not doing it properly. What rank hypocrisy!
The opposition benches called for an independent assessor of the prison. That was always part of the contract. Webb Australia has been involved in the commissioning of around 30 prisons.
Mr Smyth: Do you understand the—
MR HARGREAVES: It was never going to be done in Hume, Mr Smyth. I suggest you stop embarrassing yourself.
Mr Speaker, on 20 March 2009, Bovis Lend Lease, on the instruction of Webb Australia, handed the prison over to the territory. I have to record my appreciation of the officers of Corrective Services for all the work they put in for a very long time. I would like to congratulate the technicians that worked overtime to deliver this safe, start-of-the-art facility, and I thank the people at BRC. I do not thank those opposite who said, “We will never have one in Hume. We will never have one at all.” In fact, it was Mr Smyth who said—
Mr Smyth: Will you guarantee it is secure?
MR HARGREAVES: Mr Hunter was there at the Tuggeranong college when he said it. He said, “I will take the $100 million and put it into health.” He was going to put $100 million worth of capital into a recurrent problem in health. What did we do? We built a prison. Mr Stanhope said, “We will build a prison,” and we built it and it now is occupied. I suggest that the only way you guys are going to get to see it is to take a brick and throw it through somebody’s window. Then you can go in there for a couple of months and have a look at it.
Mr Speaker, we have taken delivery of the facility. The contract is concluded. It is a safe and secure facility. It is a facility which exists. These guys, Mr Seselja and Mr Smyth, should sit there and hang their heads in shame. They were going to put the people in the Belconnen Remand Centre forever.
Mr Hanson: That is not true.
MR HARGREAVES: It is true, as I sit here—longer than you.
Mr Hanson: We were going to have the end of the Belconnen Remand Centre.
MR HARGREAVES: Rubbish!
MR SPEAKER: Order! Ms Burch with a supplementary question.
MS BURCH: Yes, a supplementary. Has the ACT government delivered on its promise to build the Alexander Maconochie Centre?
MR HARGREAVES: When I was preparing this—
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