Page 1421 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 6 April 2011
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Mr Seselja: He wanted the name of the journalist.
MR STANHOPE: I know the name of the journalist, and I know he would be today incredibly embarrassed by his rush to judgement, by his, I must say, silly and tabloid approach to this particular issue. If the basis or the justification for the Liberal Party’s censure motion is an editorial in the Canberra Times, then I think it does reflect the nature and the political purpose of the motion today.
But we must reflect on what the Liberal Party would have done. Mr Hanson across the chamber makes the boast, “Wait till we get into government; we will make it work.” Before we constructed the Alexander Maconochie Centre, the Liberal Party insisted there was no need for the ACT to develop its own prison. They campaigned publicly against it. The Belconnen Remand Centre had been condemned by the Human Rights Commissioner as simply not fit for the incarceration of prisoners or remandees, and the Liberal Party stood by and defended it and said “this will do”. That reflects of course their attitude to prisoners, their attitude to corrections, their attitude to rehabilitation. They opposed the Human Rights Act. Is it not just so ironic that the great champions now of human rights at the Alexander Maconochie Centre are the Liberal Party? They opposed the act and still oppose it.
At the last election, they again promised to abolish it if they were elected. At the last election, when the Leader of the Opposition was challenged to actually identify the savings that the Liberal Party would make to pay for their election promises, which area of corrections did he focus on as a saving that the Liberal Party would initiate in government? They would cut nursing staff to the health centre within the Alexander Maconochie Centre. It is there in black and white in Mr Seselja’s identified savings. The Liberal Party’s identified savings in the last election campaign to fund their other election promises included cutting nurses from the health unit within the Alexander Maconochie Centre.
We have this confected nonsense today, this beating the breast, these crocodile tears, about the quality of health services at Alexander Maconochie. What was their attitude? Their attitude was to cut them. But now, of course, as Mr Hanson proudly claims, we should wait for them. Well, what can we expect? Can we expect you to carry through with your promise to cut health services? Can we expect you to carry through with your promise to abolish the Human Rights Act? Can we expect you actually to return to your essential position in relation to this, which is that we should continue to transport our prisoners to New South Wales—a system with which you were comfortable? That is the Liberal Party’s philosophical position on these issues—no need for a prison, no need for a Human Rights Act, no need for nursing staff at the Alexander Maconochie Centre. It is all on the record, and yet we still have this confected nonsense today.
We have in the words of the reviewer, Mr Hamburger, a very strong endorsement of the policies, of the practices, of the philosophy of the Alexander Maconochie Centre as a prison that reflects best practice. As the minister said in rejecting this motion in the way that he did, absolutely and categorically, the motion is arrant nonsense. We the Labor Party, the ACT government, are proud of what we are seeking to achieve
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