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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 9 Hansard (4 September) . . Page.. 2908 ..

MR HIRD (continuing):

I agree with that. Mr Wood made similar comments but went even further by suggesting Hume as a possible site for an ACT prison. Hume is one site. Mr Speaker, if it can be demonstrated that my comments as reported in the Canberra Times are any different from those uttered by my colleagues Mr Osborne and Mr Wood and reported in the Chronicle, then I stand guilty as charged. In closing, I believe that the committee worked very well, and I would like to put it on record that I appreciate the efforts made by the chairman of the committee, Mr Osborne, by Mr Wood and by those many people who made submissions to our committee in respect of our inquiries into this issue. I would also like to pay a tribute to the secretary of the committee, Beth Irvin.

MR WOOD: Mr Speaker, I seek leave to make a short statement.

Leave granted.

MR WOOD: It is a short statement in relation to a statement, and that is not a common event in the work of committees. The committee operated in this case with the general reference of attending to the matters the committee is charged with. There was no specific reference to us about a prison, but we believed amongst ourselves that we needed to investigate these matters to familiarise ourselves with the issues and to make some comment back to the Assembly. It is not a report we are giving; it is a statement. To my knowledge, it is the second time this has happened. I think the Economic Development Committee went and examined economic development in Christchurch and came back and also submitted a statement. I found it a useful way for this committee to work. One other thing we did, at the end of it, just ahead of this statement today, was to speak to the Minister. He, the committee and his senior officers sat around a table, and we relayed our views to the Minister, and of course he is attending again today. We found that very useful, and I think it is a good thing for a committee to do.

It is quite clear that we need a prison urgently. The main reasons have been given. We have to detain our prisoners appropriately. They are people, and they have to be treated as such. Belconnen Remand Centre is clearly unsuited, and it is no credit to anybody who has been in this Assembly over nearly nine years that we have not attended to it earlier. We send prisoners into New South Wales - one-half to two-thirds to Goulburn, which is clearly a totally unsatisfactory place. There is another reason to attend to the need for a prison, and that is the economic side of it. We would make very significant savings in the cost of holding prisoners if we were to operate our own modern prison which can be run much more economically than the old high walls, guard towers and closed-in place that Goulburn is, for example.

It is not a political issue anymore. I indicated that the Assembly and all governments in the past have declined to deal with it. I think earlier it was considered something of an electorally unpopular issue, but that has gone. I think the work of the committee and the views now indicate that it is not a political issue, and there is no hindrance to anybody, perhaps in the next parliament, taking action to develop this prison. There is probably only one difficulty left, and that is the siting. It has to be a well-sited place. It has to be as close to the courts and to families as possible; yet we know that it should not be, and the community would react if it were, too close to any particular community. There may be difficulties in finding a site. I have had my say on that. That is the next step.

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