Page 4684 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 27 November 2019

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That this Assembly:

(1) notes:

(a) the current mismanagement of the Alexander Maconochie Centre (AMC) by the Minister for Corrections and Justice Health; and

(b) this mismanagement is causing great distress to staff, inmates and families of both, undermining the mandate of the facility, which was supposed to make rehabilitation of inmates better because they were closer to family;

(2) further notes that, under the minister’s watch, the AMC has been plagued with:

(a) deaths in custody;

(b) multiple escapes from custody;

(d) a state of emergency declaration after a hole in the perimeter fence was found;

(e) the accidental release of a prisoner;

(f) high rates of illicit drug use;

(g) high methadone use without a methadone exit program;

(h) low staff morale, with 93 resignations in three years; and

(i) that these failures undermine the mandate of the AMC and are causing great distress to prison staff, inmates and their families;

(3) calls on the Minister for Corrections and Justice Health to resign; and

(4) calls on the Chief Minister to appoint a new Minister for Corrections and Justice Health to return the morale of staff, the morale of inmates and a restoration of some level of confidence to families that their loved ones are being supported in their rehabilitation.

Since becoming the corrections minister in 2012 Minister Rattenbury has failed to manage and secure the Alexander Maconochie Centre to a satisfactory level. His lack of appropriate leadership and interest in running the facility properly has led to mistake after mistake and a prison system that lurches from crisis to crisis. Let’s take a look at the record.

Tragically, there have been two deaths in custody. In May 2016 Mr Steven Freeman died two days after going onto the methadone program. He did not need methadone; he needed to see a dentist and was in pain. Another tragic event was the death of Mr Mark O’Connor, whose toxicology report revealed a mixture of methamphetamine and buprenorphine as the likely cause of death.

There have been multiple escapes. In April 2016 a prisoner escaped from the Canberra Hospital’s mental health unit. Just five months later, in September, two prisoners escaped from the AMC grounds using construction materials to scale three fences. I have spoken with many corrections officers who are concerned about how easy it is to scale the fences at the AMC, the internal fences between compounds in particular. Two more inmates escaped from custody from the Canberra Hospital, one

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