Page 947 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 21 April 2021
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other aspects of the ACT. Hospitals, roads, public housing, emergency services, police numbers and community services providers are all co-victims of this Labor-Greens coalition, with constant underfunding in favour of their own pet projects.
One exception to the government’s dismal track record on underspending is the almost $7 million it has paid out in overtime to hardworking corrections officers. To give a more specific example of underfunding, back in 2001, when the AMC was still in the design phase, the government received a report by Rengain that predicted that, by 2021, inmate numbers would reach 445. They received alternative forecasted prison population numbers from Mr John Walker, who predicted a high of 348 detainees by 2021, and from Treasury, which forecasted detainee numbers at 242 by 2021. Acting on this advice, the government wrote a functional brief in 2005 for the AMC that stated that the prison would have 175 beds for sentenced prisoners, 139 beds for remandees to be kept in separate facilities, and a 60-bed transitional release centre. That is a total of 374 beds. Guess how many beds the AMC had when it opened in 2008? It had 300. The transitional release centre was not even built. It has since been completed, and guess how many beds it has out of the 60 originally planned? It has 15.
As the directorate itself has acknowledged, the government has made it so difficult and confusing for detainees to access the transitional release centre that only 12 of them were able to use it last financial year. I guess that is one way of dealing with an intentional shortage of beds. So, right from the outset, the Labor government determined to underfund the construction of the prison, and this has led to many of the problems we see so frequently highlighted in the media. In that light, it should not be surprising that the reintegration centre has been put on hold.
If the minister is not planning to build the reintegration centre, I suggest he consider that the money go towards the construction of a separate women’s facility. In a 2005 functional brief, the accommodation needs of women at the prison were quite clearly outlined. The women’s area of the prison was designed with these considerations in mind. Aspects such as a hairdressing facility, cottage-style living, a quiet space, an adjacent children’s playground, an outdoor hardcourt, a walking track, reading rooms, a videoconferencing suite, a small kitchen, gardens and a cafe were all included.
What do they have instead? For their living arrangements they have secure cells instead of bedrooms. For a walking track they get a fenced-in path where they are subject to catcalls and verbal abuse from nearby male detainees. This is unacceptable. When the women were first moved there it was said that they would have better access to health programs, education, employment and recreation, yet the consistent message I have received from stakeholders is that this is not the case. (Second speaking period taken.) The government claimed that these things would better in 2017. With the exception of the bakery, things do not seem to have got better for them, as can be seen in the 2018 and 2019 inspector reviews.
To the detriment of the women, things improved somewhat for certain groups of male detainees, who found themselves moved into the much more welcoming and comfortable cottages originally intended for the women. They have tennis courts,
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