Page 588 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 9 March 2011
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
This is mismanagement. The minister gets up and says, “I was talking about bed capacity. I am only talking about beds.” We know what James Ryan, the head of the department at that stage, believed. He made it quite clear in an annual reports hearing on 19 November last year when he said:
Going back to the first part of your question about what our operational capacity is, it is in the order of 240 or 250 …
So 240 or 250 beds is the operational capacity. That is the capacity of the Alexander Maconochie Centre. But what does Mr Corbell say? Mr Corbell says in a strong litany in a number of places over a long period of time that it is 300. He constantly uses the 300 number. And whom did he tell it was 300? He never said bed capacity. He said capacity. And anyone hearing that would assume that capacity meant the number of people you could put in there. Where did he say it? He said it at estimates hearing. Mr Hanson asked this question:
You planned on a prisoner population of up to 300, because that is how many beds you have got.
Mr Corbell said:
Indeed.
Three hundred prisoners! Three hundred beds! I do not see the word “operational” and I do not see the words “bed capacity” there. At a Christians for an Ethical Society meeting he said, “It is built to accommodate up to 300 prisoners.” But we know that is not true. It cannot accommodate 300 prisoners. Mr Ryan contradicts his former minister when he says, “The operational capacity is 245.” What is not clear about that?
In a media release Mr Stanhope said that, on commissioning, the capacity was for 190 sentenced prisoners and 110 remandees. There is another contradiction, potentially another mislead. The Chief Minister said that, on commissioning, the prison had capacity for 190 sentenced prisoners and 110 remandees. On commissioning, it could not have, because we know the operational capacity is only 245 and, by their own numbers in 2008, they knew that they had already reached that number. So it goes on.
But the corker in all this is when Mr Corbell says:
The government chose to reduce the scale of the project, and in doing so ensured that the budgeted amount would still deliver a functional, world-class prison facility that will meet the needs of our prison population well into the future. Yes, it is less than originally anticipated, but it still provides us with significant capacity into the future. The advice I have is that it gives us that capacity—certainly for the next 20 to 25 years.
Even if you add 25 years onto 2010, that is 2035. Call it 2033. He has already missed out because he has just said that in 2030 it will be 260. But we also know from his other document that in 2014 it will be 260. No wonder he is not the Treasurer! He is no good with his numbers, he is no good with capacity and he is no good with
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video