Page 587 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 9 March 2011
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date—and it appears that he will not be held to account again today—this is a minister who will continue to persistently and wilfully mislead the Assembly.
Why do we know this? We know it because he has got form. He does it because he knows he will get away with it and, until ministers are held to account by this place on behalf of the people of the ACT, of course they will be loose with the truth; of course they will be sloppy in their answers; and of course they will mislead.
Again today, we have had another conundrum put before the Assembly. Mr Corbell in his answer said that he had modelling from 2003 from Treasury that said by 2030 there will be something like 260 prisoners at minimum to 274 prisoners at maximum in the prison. And yet the answer to the question on notice that Mr Seselja had asked actually shows that that was wrong, because it says in print—this is a question on notice; this is an answer to the Assembly; and I hope Ms Bresnan is listening to this—that for 2014, the projected number of prisoners is 260. Is it 2014 or is it 2030? You cannot have figures that are so stark in their contradiction and not be misled on one of them.
I will read out the question. It is question on notice No 1665 by Mr Seselja to the Attorney General on 27 September 2007:
(2) What is the projected prisoner population per year by (a) category of prisoner and (b) gender;
Mr Corbell’s answer is:
(2) a) ACT Treasury projections of prisoner populations are:
And it runs through them for 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012. For 2014, the figure is 260. Yet we have just heard from Mr Corbell that that is the same projected range for 2030. Is there no growth in prison population between 2014 and 2030? Sixteen years! Somewhere in there, there is a mislead. One of those figures has to be wrong. Yet we have both figures from the minister and he expects us to believe both figures. One figure is incorrect. One figure is therefore a mislead. Again I refer members, in particular Ms Bresnan who is so intent on defending the minister and on defending the government, to the start of this chart.
So much for third-party insurance! “We are going to stand up for the people of the ACT. Vote for us. We are third-party insurance.” It is a third-party insurance policy for the government. That is what it is.
If you go back to 2008, their own projection is that the total projected prisoner population would be 244, one shy of 245. This is not a prison built for 25 years. This is a prison that did not last 25 months before it reached capacity. Indeed, on their own projections on opening day, on false opening day, and even the following year, when it started to take prisoners, when it got to 247, they were already out of capacity. That is why Mr Hanson says in his motion:
(3) that this Assembly censures Simon Corbell MLA for mismanagement of the corrections portfolio …
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