Page 4692 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 27 November 2019
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that were raised with me and I have personally directed that a range of changes be made.
I will be returning to the jail shortly to follow up on whether those changes have been made. I will look at what we need to do next, as well as continuing to work closely with our oversight agencies and the coalface service providers who regularly are there and who are able to keep me updated, as well as the views I get from corrective services.
Let me conclude by simply saying this: there is a range of short-term projects that we need to keep working on but I also am not losing sight of the bigger picture goal of our building communities, not prisons agenda, because the best thing I can do for people touching the justice system is to make sure that we have the right supports in place that mean they actually do not end up in jail.
We have two prongs of our work here: one is to make the jail the best we can. The second is to minimise the number of people who have to go into custody, because that is better for them; it is better for the bottom line of this territory; and it makes our community safer, because if we break that cycle of offending we make our whole community safer. I will not lose sight of that big picture goal whilst working on that day-to-day job of improving the AMC.
MR BARR (Kurrajong—Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Social Inclusion and Equality, Minister for Tertiary Education, Minister for Tourism and Special Events and Minister for Trade, Industry and Investment) (5.55): I will speak very briefly to indicate my full support, and that of the government, for the Minister for Corrections and Justice Health. He enjoys the full support of his colleagues. Perhaps the same cannot be said of the Leader of the Opposition at the moment. We will not be supporting the motion.
MRS JONES (Murrumbidgee) (5.56), in reply: That was possibly the least enthusiastic defence of a minister that this place has ever seen. I have never seen such a weak defence of a minister. I suppose the Chief Minister feels that he has little choice but to go on with this minister in place. It does not surprise me that the government would back a useless minister in a job that he is not achieving in.
The minister admits here today that this facility has very significant problems. He says the problem is that we are not talking about the good news stories. Actually, we have talked about the good news stories; I have made a point of that ever since coming here. But the level of bad news stories that are coming to this place, that are coming into the public domain and that are coming to me privately leaves me gravely concerned about this facility and gravely concerned about what might happen even over the next 12 months.
People come to me and I say to them, “I am not the minister. I cannot fix this problem until the people of the ACT decide that the Liberals should be in government.” They say to me, “But to wait until October next year could be too long.” It is a tinderbox and there will be greater and worse things occurring.
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