Page 3094 - Week 08 - Thursday, 25 June 2009
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On CCTV cameras, the Greens welcome the funding of CCTV cameras in Civic, Manuka and Kingston. The Greens are very concerned about personal safety for people in these key entertainment parts of Canberra. We probably all saw the reports in the Canberra Times at the weekend about alcohol-fuelled violence and the fears of young people, particularly, heading out to these parts of town at the weekend. It is a real issue that all of us in this place need to pick up and take very seriously. I remain very concerned that areas of Civic, particularly, are not safe, but there also appear to be fewer and fewer people frequenting these areas at night time, with a loss of public surveillance. We need to explore what measures can be taken to encourage people back into the heart of the city to make the city safer for everybody.
I would like to speak about recommendation 104 relating to the Government Solicitor. The estimates committee recommends that the government review its policy in relation to the criteria for seeking the advice of the Government Solicitor on contracts with the territory. Given the interesting discussion we had in estimates, I think that this is a very good recommendation. I am glad to see the government has agreed.
The additional resources delivered to the Government Solicitor’s Office to deal with infrastructure projects seem prudent. Whilst this is an iterative process, it became clear during estimates that the decision making is devolved to either Procurement Solutions or individual agencies when it comes to deciding whether to engage the Government Solicitor’s Office or not. With this devolved process, having a whole-of-government approach seems rather sensible in order to ensure some consistency and manage the territory’s risks as effectively as possible. I think that grey zone needs to be hardened up a little bit.
Mrs Dunne spoke about magistrates but I did note the discussion in estimates about the vacancies for magistrates. It essential that we have timely appointments and that this does not get dragged out. We are facing significant challenges with our court systems at the moment as the government seeks to, I think rightly, finetune the system. Being short of magistrates is one problem that I think we can foreseeably avoid, which will ensure that we place less strain on the system.
I would now like to speak briefly about corrections, as I said, on behalf of Ms Bresnan, in order to fit us within the time limit. The ACT Greens recognise and support the significant levels of funding that the ACT government has appropriated to the development of the Alexander Maconochie Centre. We applaud efforts by the government to ensure that our remandees and sentenced prisoners are detained in an environment that meets human rights requirements.
But the road over the last year has not been smooth, as Mr Hanson touched on; there have certainly been some bumps along the way. For example, the government’s unwise decision to formally open the AMC just before caretaker began is one that with hindsight a few people would probably do differently. The department probably knew that the AMC was not ready to open; whether or not ministers and their staff knew we will probably never really know.
The financial cost to the ACT government from the construction delay is still not known publicly. We note that the answer to Ms Bresnan’s question about this is yet to
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