Page 1290 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 5 April 2011
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
Maconochie Centre; Mr Jeremy Boland, the Official Visitor to the AMC; Mr Fred Monaghan, an elected member of the ACT Indigenous Elected Body with responsibility for Justice and Correctional Service issues; and Mr Simon Rosenberg of Northside Community Service.
The task force will in the first instance advise the government on the report’s recommendations. It will also oversee the implementation of those recommendations accepted by the government. As some will take longer than others to address, I have requested my department to support the task force in developing a prioritised implementation program, planning how both the short-term and longer term matters will be addressed. Once advice has been received from the task force, I expect to bring the government’s response to the report to the Assembly in June this year. Thereafter, it is my intention to report back to the Assembly on a six monthly basis on progress against the areas identified for improvement and other issues arising from the report.
Corrective Services is a highly complex, inherently difficult, often controversial and always sensitive area of community safety. Alongside the positive areas and those requiring attention identified by Knowledge Consulting, I am pleased to see in the report the statement by reviewers that, overall, staff can be proud of their efforts in what has been a very difficult environment.
Mr Speaker, as mentioned in the report, a number of prisons commissioned in Australia over the period 1992 to 2005 have had significant problems in the immediate period post commissioning, involving multiple deaths in custody, riots, fires and major structural failure. I am pleased to say that none of this has occurred in relation to the AMC.
I would now like to turn to the second report I have tabled today. This report is the review of ACT Corrective Services governance, including in relation to drug testing at the AMC. Members will recall that I commissioned this report following advice being given to me that I had been provided incorrect information by Corrective Services in relation to urinalysis on admission procedures at the AMC.
While the government welcomes this report, it also confirms that I and the government were totally misinformed on this matter and that there were significant organisational governance failings that allowed this to happen, albeit without any staff member having deliberately set out to provide incorrect information. This report provides the government with an independent and unbiased account of what went wrong in relation to this matter and what needs to be done to set things right. In order to address this, I have tasked the AMC task force to advise the government on an appropriate response for this report as well.
In conclusion, Mr Hamburger’s report concludes that the establishment of the AMC has been a unique challenge because the ACT is a one correctional centre jurisdiction, having to accommodate all classifications of detainees within a single facility. Despite these challenges, it is encouraging that the review has concluded that a number of significant outcomes have been achieved and that these provide a foundation to enable the AMC to reach its potential as a world-class facility for the rehabilitation of
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video