Page 1643 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 4 May 2010
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the roof of the jail. This has demonstrated a gross loss of confidence by corrections staff and a level of desperation in that they should consider supporting such a protest by prisoners.
This is not the first time that the Assembly has had cause to raise its concerns with Simon Corbell. In fact, the Assembly passed a motion expressing its serious concern with Simon Corbell’s conduct as a minister on 10 February 2009 when, as acting corrections minister, he made potentially prejudicial comments to the media regarding two prisoners who conducted a rooftop protest at the Belconnen Remand Centre. I think that, given what has occurred since February 2009, when the Assembly expressed its serious concerns about Simon Corbell, and since February this year, when the Assembly saw fit to direct that an external review of the jail be conducted, the situation has clearly reached a point where more serious action needs to be taken.
I am not calling on Simon Corbell to be stripped of all of his ministerial responsibilities. I am not calling on him to discontinue his responsibilities as a minister. But I am calling on the Chief Minister to remove all responsibility for ACT corrections from Simon Corbell immediately.
I will go through some of what has occurred in this portfolio under Simon Corbell’s watch, from the delays in the opening of the Alexander Maconochie Centre, which were extensive, and the effect that that had on exacerbating human rights conditions and breaches at the Belconnen Remand Centre. So much of what we saw in the brief period when Mr Hargreaves was the minister responsible was actually as a consequence of the delays in opening the Alexander Maconochie Centre. Mr Corbell flicked Mr Hargreaves a hospital pass and there was an impossible situation with the overcrowding at the Belconnen Remand Centre, because of the delays at the jail. That is something that the human rights commissioner has confirmed; they are her words, that those human rights breaches were exacerbated, and that was confirmed in the JACS report that was tabled in this place some months ago.
We saw a lot of violent events. We saw prison officers being treated in hospital. We saw a lot of problems at the Belconnen Remand Centre. Indeed, much of that, with respect to the problems that Mr Hargreaves had to deal with, led to his stepping down or being removed as a minister. I think it is fair to say that much of the blame for that, much of the impossible situation that Mr Hargreaves inherited, was delivered to him by his great mate Mr Corbell.
We know that the project was not delivered on scope. He did not provide a gym or a chapel, and to lecture the community on the need for busy days and structured activities and then not provide a gym, I think, speaks volumes about this minister’s incompetence. We have seen cost blow-outs. We had the sham opening of the AMC. On the eve of the ACT election, Simon Corbell and the Chief Minister went out to the AMC and said: “This thing’s open. It’s ready to go, ready to receive prisoners.” It was not true. We did not see prisoners go to the Alexander Maconochie Centre for at least six months after that date, and it is clear from what has happened thus far that even that date was too early. So in their desperation to open that project, to open the jail on the eve of the ACT election, they have caused many of the problems that we are experiencing now. Their expediency for a political whim, on the eve of an election,
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