Page 4354 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 22 September 2010
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sell out the prison guards. That is what we have got today from the Chief Minister, the Labor Party and the Greens. They are going to sell out the prison guards. No matter how he tries to squirm around it, that is what they are doing. He has prepped the ground in the media and he has confirmed it again today.
We read in the Canberra Times the comments from Mr Stanhope, and it is worth reflecting on those comments. He said that drugs are readily available. Effectively, what he is saying is that there is nothing we can do; that the war to keep the drugs out, the efforts to keep the drugs out, have failed. In this losing battle, this government is prepared to throw up its hands and say, “We can’t stop them, so let’s have a needle exchange.”
It is worth reflecting on the exact words used by the Chief Minister. He says he is now more inclined to believe that a needle exchange “as a minimum” is something that he would accept. So how much further is this government planning to go? What other harm minimisation measures does this government have planned for the prison? If it is going to go beyond the needle exchange, if he has already prepped the ground for the needle exchange, what else is in the pipeline? Perhaps the Chief Minister could be given leave to speak again so that he can tell us what other things, over and above a needle exchange, this government will now do.
It has thrown its hands up and has again sold out the prison guards. It has sold out their concerns and disregarded their very legitimate concerns about safety and, in the words of the union representing prison guards, the concerns they have about drug-affected prisoners wielding syringes. This government has said to those prison guards, “Bad luck; we’ve made our decision.” That is the ground that has been prepped. It was clearer in the chamber just then from Mr Stanhope’s speech than it was even in his comments in the media—he is prepping the ground.
Canberrans would be asking themselves: is the government really fair dinkum about keeping drugs out of the prison? You would have to conclude that the answer is no. You can see that from Mr Corbell’s obfuscation today with the media where he will not actually reveal the true extent and detail of how many random drug tests are actually taking place in the prison. How fair dinkum are they? We go to their record. Mr Hanson has talked about their record in managing the centre, and there is no doubt that it has been a debacle from start to finish. Just reading the list of dot points on failures since they opened this prison would take the rest of my speech. It is unfortunate that we do not have longer to go through them, but I think they are well known. It is well known how badly this prison has been managed by this government.
Now they are saying effectively to us, “Because we’ve managed it so badly, the only way to go is a needle exchange program. That’s where we’re left. We didn’t get the opening right. We haven’t been able to manage the prison population. We haven’t had the resourcing right. We’ve been all over the place in so many areas, to the extent that contraband has been able to readily find its way into the prison.” This government have done such a bad job they say, “The only answer now is to have a needle exchange program.” What they are saying to the workers in the prison is: “Your rights don’t count. We are not concerned any more about your very legitimate concerns.”
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