Page 3885 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 4 December 2007
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I do not agree with your assertion that any promise has been broken.
He stood here in the Assembly and said he would absolutely ensure that they would not exceed their budget of $128 million. Now they are going to exceed their budget by $2.5 million, after having reduced the scope significantly. Yet he sat there and on the record in the estimates hearing said:
I do not agree with your assertion that any promise has been broken.
I do not know what part of this equation the minister does not understand. First, he told us that, no, it really was not a budget blow-out, even though we were getting a lot less for our money. Now he tells us it is really not a budget blow-out when, after having got less for our money, we are also going to be spending more money than we said we would spend. I do not quite understand what part of that the Attorney-General does not understand. He sat here in this place and made a promise. It has been breached, and he needs to acknowledge that. And he needs to apologise for making promises he simply cannot keep. He has shown himself to be unable to keep his promises.
Then we saw him today, when I asked him about his statement of 11 May 2006, in his non-answer, even though the budget blow-out contradicts what he said, say, “It is only a small blow-out. We have seen an increase in costs.” Then Mr Mulcahy asked him about the cost per bed and he took it on notice. This is a question he has had put to him before. He claimed recently in the estimates hearing:
We do not cost this prison on that basis, Mr Seselja. I think you are the only person who does. No other jurisdiction and no other government in the country cost prisons on that basis.
Yet we get, in answer to a question on notice in relation to the costs, when we asked him, “What was the projected cost per bed when it was first costed?” his answer: “When first costed in 2003 the projected cost per bed was $303,000.” Having told the Assembly that we do not cost it that way, apparently back in 2003 that is exactly what they did, and they costed it at $303,000 per bed. Now when we ask him what is the projected cost per bed, the current projected cost is $374,000. We have seen that blow out again.
Then, you, Mr Deputy Speaker, asked the minister for a comparison with other jurisdictions in relation to cost per bed.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: In a deep voice, Mr Seselja.
MR SESELJA: In fact, in a deep voice. The Attorney-General once again was unable to answer the question and took it on notice. I think the reality here is that it is probably not that he is unable to answer the question; it is more that he is embarrassed about the answer. And the answer is this: “The cost per bed of this facility must be the most expensive in the country.” I have asked the minister—and he can correct this if I am wrong—to point out an example around the country of a prison facility that is being built or has recently been built where the cost per bed is higher than what we
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