Page 5360 - Week 14 - Thursday, 19 November 2009

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returned or no more prisoners were sent to New South Wales. They closed the doors in September, thinking—as we all did at that stage—that this prison was open. That exacerbated the human rights concerns. If you go to finding 7, it says:

While the ACT’s remand facilities have always given rise to serious human rights concerns, these concerns were exacerbated during the period between the official opening … and the commencement of the transfer …

It is pretty damning stuff. I note from finding 15 that the radio frequency ID system is still not operational. I look forward to the minister letting us know when it is. I hope that it is imminent—in excess of 12 months after the official opening.

There was a finding that when the prison received prisoners there was no uninterrupted power supply for the building management system. I would have thought you would have made sure that a prison that was open had an uninterrupted power supply. The defects remain. Not only have elements of the system not been delivered, but defects remain in the system. There is defect 2.6 about the hierarchy of alarms.

We know that the territory is currently out of pocket some $3.5 million as a consequence of the delays. That is liquidated damages. I understand that there will be a case in the courts, but there is no guarantee that we will get that money back. As a consequence of this mismanagement, as a consequence of the delays, there is every chance that we will be out of pocket to the tune of $3½ million of taxpayers’ money. And it is down to Simon Corbell.

I will leave the best to last—finding 22. I will read it in full:

While there were significant delays in installing the AMC security system not all the delays to the commencement of operations of the AMC were due to the security system as the Attorney-General has contended.

I remember this quite clearly when the Attorney-General was called before the committee. It was not his fault, Madam Assistant Speaker. No; it was Chubb’s. He said no, that he did everything. We have seen that he did not. He blamed Chubb; he blamed the contractors. None of it was his fault! The unanimous finding of the committee members, including his own colleague, found, and I will say it again:

He was saying one thing to the committee, to the inquiry, and they found that that was not true. That is pretty damning stuff.

This is based just on reading the findings. I look forward to reading the whole of the book. It is a very damning report with very damning findings. But largely it confirms what we knew: Simon Corbell mismanaged his portfolio; Simon Corbell botched the AMC; Simon Corbell then had a sham opening, which was an election stunt, on the eve of the last election. To say that he knew nothing—the Sergeant Schultz defence, that it was not his fault and that he did not know what was going on—when there had

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