Page 1537 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 4 May 2016
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In terms of the issues that Mr Wall raised about cost, the amendment I have moved provides useful detail about the actual cost of running corrections services in the ACT, and I believe it provides a more accurate and less hysterical picture than the one that has been suggested by Mr Wall in his motion. Mr Wall’s motion references a cost per day from the 2016 ROGS report, which reported on the 2014-15 financial year. It is a figure that allows him to seek to illustrate his apparent concerns about the cost of running the AMC. My amendment references figures from the last few years to show the decrease we have seen in the daily cost of running the centre. These are all ROGS figures but they measure different costs.
My figures are in regard to real net operating expenditure per prisoner per day. Mr Wall uses a figure which measures total net operating expenditure and capital costs per prisoner per day. As the name implies, this includes capital costs, and these, of course, have recently been temporarily inflated in light of the expenditure on infrastructure we have been making since 2014-15. And I make no bones about that. Every member of this place knows that the government has made a significant investment in increasing capacity, and that necessarily flows through to the figures that Mr Wall has cited—the total net operating expenditure and capital costs per prisoner per day.
The real net figures—real net operating expenditure per prisoner per day—are a more reliable measure of ongoing costs in terms of the actual running of the facility. The key message is that these have been going down consistently, and that is outlined in my amendment. Mr Wall will perhaps have a different interpretation of those figures, but in referencing the operating costs of the AMC—and that goes to staffing, what we spend on prisoners and all of those sorts of things—let us focus on ensuring that we are comparing apples with apples. If we want to have a discussion about the merits of the capital investment, let us have that discussion, but let us not conflate two quite different measures.
Whilst it was not in his motion, Mr Wall referenced the issue of the changes to the visiting arrangements at the AMC. I will take some time to reflect on that, because there has been a change. It has come about in response to the opening of new accommodation units at the AMC and the rise in detainee numbers. From 1 May—the beginning of this week—there is a new visit schedule in place which is designed to ensure more fair and equitable access to visit opportunities for all detainees.
Under the new visit schedule every detainee has at least two visit opportunities each week of up to an hour each visit. Unfortunately, the situation we have had is that some detainees have had no visit access whatsoever. There have been people who have not been able to get a spot in the schedule. I cannot stand by and allow that situation to continue. Mr Wall cited an example of a family who until now have visited their family member for up to nine hours a week, and I commend that family for such a strong level of engagement. But the situation has been that some detainees got no access. That is not fair. That cannot be allowed to continue.
I will be very clear: despite inaccurate views cited by the former Chief Minister, Mr Stanhope, in the Canberra Times, the AMC continues to have the most generous
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