Page 4205 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 21 September 2010
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MR BARR: The policy that I put in place in response to the particular incident at Canberra high school last year is the policy that is in place now.
MR COE: A supplementary question, Mr Speaker?
MR SPEAKER: Yes, Mr Coe.
MR COE: Minister, what action have you taken to counsel Ms Burch for the breach of protocol?
MR BARR: I have written to all members of the Assembly and I counsel you, too, Mr Coe, that you also should abide by the protocols. You were in breach of those protocols by being in a school in the first instance without seeking my permission. That applies to all members of the Assembly.
Mr Seselja: It is not your personal plaything, Andrew. Did the Labor Party get permission from you to show up?
MR BARR: No. I have written to all members of the Assembly advising them of the protocol in relation to their attendance at ACT government schools. The simple requirement is to advise my office of your attendance at an ACT public school. That applies to every member, be it a minister, a leader of a political party or a backbencher in the opposition. All must meet that requirement. I have written to you all indicating that, and I expect you all to abide by that.
Alexander Maconochie Centre—drugs
MR HANSON: My question is to the Attorney-General. Attorney-General, the Chief Minister was recently reported as stating that drugs were readily available in the Alexander Maconochie Centre. Minister, what are the types of drugs readily available within the facility and how frequently are the drugs detected?
MR CORBELL: I thank Mr Hanson for the question. I note that he has a motion on the notice paper, which will be published tomorrow, where he is seeking a range of information in relation to this matter. I will provide a more complete answer in that debate tomorrow.
But for the purposes of his question today, the fact of the matter is that contraband gets into prisons. The ACT prison is not unique in that respect. Contraband gets into prisons. The ACT has more measures in place to prevent contraband getting into our prison than do many other prisons in Australia. The ACT’s prison currently has sniffer detector dogs who conduct routine tests, for lack of a better word, on both visitors and prisoners—people visiting the facility. Those sniffer detector dogs are trained to detect drugs in particular, amongst other types of contraband. We also have ion scanning of prisoners to detect the presence of contraband. Unlike any other prison in the country, we have X-ray scanning equipment also available to scan prisoners.
Mr Smyth: Well, it hasn’t stopped it.
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