Page 91 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 9 February 2010
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that we had at the Belconnen Remand Centre. That is a matter of record. I do not see why that can be a politically motivated or a less than objective finding. The committee also made the following statement:
At the time of the official opening, the Minister for Corrective Services was not well briefed on delays in completing the AMC and the impact that this would have on the transfer of prisoners.
I remember that in the committee that was a concern—that the minister may not have been as well briefed as he should have been. That is an objective finding. My assessment of that is that he failed in his responsibility as the minister to make sure that he was properly briefed. But the committee do not actually say that. They just identify, based on the evidence—and I remember listening to that evidence—that he was not, indeed, properly briefed.
The report states that the minister decided to proceed with the official opening despite at least eight changes over the previous six months. That is true. He was the one that made his decision to proceed; he was the one that had seen and experienced eight delays in the lead-up. The assessment from that is this: if there were serious delays leading up to it, he should have made sure he was correctly briefed—made sure that, on the eve of an election, he fully understood the implications of what he was doing.
I would suggest that the implications have been quite damaging to the government. If they had delayed the opening of the prison, I think people would have understood that that is something that can occur through the course of any major project. For them to try and say that we were going to have an opening on the eve of an election despite the fact that there had been a series of delays—that is the heart of the matter.
The report states that the RFID system was not fully functional. That is a correct statement. The government is in denial about all of this. It is saying, “Oh well, it is not critical to the operations.” The fact is that it was meant to be delivered; it was meant to be there at the opening of the jail and—
Mr Corbell: It was not. It was never going to be commissioned until the jail commenced operation.
MR HANSON: No, it was not, minister. The point is that it was meant to be part of the opening. It was delayed throughout the process, and the decision was made, subsequent to the contract being signed, that it would be delivered by a separate contractor later in the process. You know that as well as I do.
The report mentions the fact that there was no uninterrupted power supply and that there were problems with the security system. I can go on and on, Mr Assistant Speaker, but the point is that the report is objective. It highlights a lot of the errors. Rather than accepting the report from the committee for what it is and saying, “Yes, this is something that we did not get right; there were mistakes made; there is no question that there were mistakes made,” there is a government denial—a government that is spinning and then attacking.
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