Page 3884 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 4 December 2007
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circumstances. Of course that has been proven to be wrong, but one of the reasons is that we are seeing an unprecedented property boom and increased GST revenue as well as the increases in taxes, which this government refuse to review in light of their improved budgetary position.
There are a couple of areas in relation to corrections. We have seen the minister—and I will get to the Attorney-General’s non-answers to some of the questions in question time today about his broken promise on the prison costs—give an absolute commitment to the Assembly and the community that the prison project would be delivered within the budget allocated. This is what he said:
The bottom line is that the project will not cost more than the budget provision. That is the requirement the government has put in place, and that will be the way it is delivered.
He said that to the Assembly. We have seen that promise go the way of their school closures promise before the last election. They went to the last election promising not to close any schools, and they closed 23 schools. Here we have the minister in the Assembly saying that they would not exceed their budget, giving an absolute guarantee. Now we see extra money being appropriated for this project.
The prison is not only receiving an extra $2.5 million in funding; it should also be noted that there has already been significant cutbacks in the scope of the project. We saw the cutting back of 74 beds to achieve a saving, we are told, of $11.846 million; the government decision to abandon the quiet area to save $430,000; and the loss of the gymnasium facility, to realise a saving of $1.346 million. We do not know how much inmates might be paid to build the facility should the minister want to actually push ahead with that. We have seen also the throwing out of the dog squad facilities, for a saving of $430,000.
We saw the reduction in the scope of the project and we said to the Attorney-General, “You started off with $128 million for a 374-bed facility and now you have only got a 300-bed facility. You are scaling back other parts of the project. Clearly you have exceeded your budget. Clearly on a per bed basis you have significantly exceeded your budget.” He said, “No, no, no, we have not blown our budget. We will not blow our budget. We are bringing it down in order to stay within our budget. That is what we are doing.”
We saw, at the beginning of the project, $128 million for 374 beds. We got to a point where it was going to be $128 million for 300 beds. He said, “We have not blown our budget and we are not going to blow our budget.” Now we see that not only has he reduced the scope to try to stay within the budget but he has also then gone ahead and blown the budget. And this is a minister who has simply failed to manage the delivery of this project. He fails to acknowledge it. We saw, as I said, some of his non-answers in the Assembly today but, of course, we saw him in the recent PAC hearings. I said to him:
When did you become aware that that promise not to breach your $128 million budget was going to be broken?
He said:
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