Page 1298 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 5 April 2011
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I repeat:
That until such time as the AMC’s operating model … is functioning effectively there will be a raised level of potential risk to the safety of staff and detainees within the AMC.
It is no surprise, I think, that the minister did not highlight that particular finding, the fact that there are ongoing risks to staff and detainees because of this government’s mismanagement of the prison. What we heard from the minister, and the tenor of what the minister had to say, was effectively, “We should just be grateful that the place has not burnt down.” That is effectively the message we are getting from the minister. Yes, there are lots and lots of problems, and we have seen from the Burnet report just how significant those problems of leadership and management are within this prison.
But what we get in this detailed report which we are going through is the concern—and this concern has been expressed, and it is often dismissed by this government—over staff safety. And the fact that the minister has attempted to skim over that or not mention that or does not deem that worthy of discussion, and all he can lean on is the fact that the place has not quite burnt down yet, is not good enough.
This is a facility which we paid far more for than virtually any other jurisdiction pay for their prisons. We paid over $130 million in capital expenses, well over $400,000 per bed delivered—one of the most expensive prisons ever delivered in this country. I think the only prison that is more expensive per bed is in a remote part of northern Western Australia. At the time this was built, that was the only prison that we could find that was more expensive on a per bed basis. So this government delivered the most expensive, or close to the most expensive, prison in the country; yet what we are seeing delivered is a shambles.
What we were promised was a first-class prison where rehabilitation would be able to occur successfully because of the investment in resources. The taxpayers have invested heavily in this facility. They have invested well over $130 million for a facility that apparently is already full, that after only a year of operation, having spent $130 million, the government is spending far more per annum on a recurrent basis than we used to spend on corrections, when we were told that would not be the case. But taxpayers, having shelled out so much, would expect that they would have a prison that was operating effectively. Finding 20 on page 77 is just another example of how this prison is not functioning properly.
Mr Smyth and Mr Hanson have touched on the fact that this is a prison that is now already full. And yet we were told that, even when it was reduced from around 370 beds to 300 beds, that would not matter because it would do the people of the ACT for many years to come. Many years to come, we were told. That was wrong, that was flat out wrong. Not only did it not last for 20 or 25 years, it has not managed to last for two or three years without now needing to look at expanding the capacity.
What will be the cost to taxpayers and what will be the outcomes? So far we have got a culture in the prison, we are told, in which we see methadone being pushed onto
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