Page 3492 - Week 08 - Thursday, 23 August 2012
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the prison here because we want to give prisoners an opportunity to come out, to not reoffend and to be functioning, contributing members of the community. That saves all of us in the community, not only economically but also socially.
DR BOURKE (Ginninderra—Minister for Education and Training, Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Corrections) (10.34): I rise to speak to the corrections aspect of this directorate. I do need to offer some corrections to Mr Hanson in regard to his quote of $422 a day. It is actually $334.76 per day, which is of course the ROGS data as of 31 January 2012, as Mr Hanson would have known. He would also know that there has been a significant reduction in these costs over the last two years. He would know also that the comparison between ACT corrections and other states is compounded by the fact that we have only one prison, with minimum security, medium security and remand prisoners all in the one prison, and we do not have the low-cost, minimum security prisons which other states have, which reduce their overall costs per prisoner.
He made some statements about education which are completely incorrect. As he would know, the level of education that ACT detainees at the AMC receive is nearly three times the national average. And I rise also to rebut his claim about female detainees being disadvantaged. There is actually no evidence that that is the case.
With regard to accommodation pressures, I note that on 2 August this year there were 272 detainees and 332 beds, which would seem to add some number there to go before the place would be full. So I do not see where Mr Hanson is coming from there.
With regard to the NSP, we all know that this is government policy, but I do not see that Mr Hanson really appreciates the fact that blood-borne viruses actually maim and kill and that we really do want to do something about not increasing the level of infection in the community when detainees are released, which they inevitably are, into our community, living down the street or around the corner or next door to us. We want to reduce that level of infection. So an NSP is one of the tools that we would use in the community to do that, and this is what our policy is about.
With regard to having a drug-free prison, Mr Hanson would know that there is no prison in the world which is actually drug free. Indeed, we actually take considerable steps to reduce demand for drugs in the prison, with a very active drug and alcohol rehabilitation program. I had the privilege to go out to the AMC recently to see the Solaris program’s 13th graduation—and it was a very moving ceremony—where a 24-year-old man got up and talked about his four months of drug and alcohol rehabilitation program and how he had learnt more in that time than in the previous 20 years.
I note Ms Bresnan’s concern about services for female detainees, but I say that there is actually no evidence to support those claims of limited services for female detainees at the AMC.
This budget provides approximately $46 million for ACT Corrective Services, and this includes an investment in Corrective Services infrastructure and the ongoing improvement of Corrective Services in the ACT. The budget has allocated an
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