Page 4689 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 27 November 2019
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entered into the HR information system after the answer to the question on notice was prepared.
I think it is important to note that ACT corrective services does not support the argument that these resignations relate directly to poor morale. Resignations can be for various reasons, which include, but not are limited to, other opportunities arising, people moving interstate, health reasons and personal reasons, just to name a few. It is also worth noting that 24 of the 94 resignations are of non-custodial ACT corrective services staff. It includes people who work at 2 Constitution Avenue and who perform other functions for ACT corrective services.
These examples underline the fact that in seeking to make the political point she wishes to make, Mrs Jones has misconstrued, misrepresented or at best misinterpreted a range of the facts relating to the business of ACT corrective services. That said, there is much more to the story of the AMC and corrective services more broadly. As members would be aware, I have been quite open in this place and in other public domains in saying that there are challenges in running the AMC and that not everything works as we would wish it to. Things do go wrong on occasion. I think the important part is how one responds to that. Our response is always to take these matters seriously and to seek to improve from the lessons that have been learnt.
The history of the AMC is that it was built too small. It was built with no industries. We have been playing catch-up ever since in trying to overcome some of those issues that relate to the original design and the intentions of the facility. I think the decision not to build industries is an interesting one. I think it was taken for the right reasons. I was not there. But the emphasis was to be on education programs. I think that that is a laudable goal and I think the decisions were taken with the best of intentions.
Mrs Jones made the case—I think this was one of the correct parts of her arguments—that having industries in jail is a really important thing to do. The cohort of people that we are supporting in the corrections environment are not necessarily the ones keenest to sit down with the books and learn new things. But often they do like using their hands and they can often pick up great skills while they are inside. That is why I have during my time as corrections minister sought to build the range of industries available at the AMC.
It is a slow but steady process. We have brought online the bakery. We have brought online the recycling work. We have recently opened a metal shop at the AMC. This is a more recent innovation. It has not had a lot of publicity but that is because we are just quietly getting on with our jobs. We have now got people who are actually on a maintenance team in the AMC undertaking a range of maintenance projects across the facility, which is great for their skill building, for finding meaningful work for them to do and also maintaining the quality of the facilities.
The Inspector of Correctional Services released the first healthy prison review yesterday. It has found that overall the Alexander Maconochie Centre has the ingredients to be a healthy prison. But, as I expected, the report clearly identified that more needs to be done to address key issues across all four pillars of the healthy
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