Page 4346 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 22 September 2010
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We have seen security breaches. We have seen safety breaches. We have seen assaults and we have seen sexual assaults. From the last information I had, based on a question on notice, we saw over 127 prohibited items found, which included drugs and drug-related implements. We have seen breaches of internet policy. We have seen the damning, unanimous report of the JACS committee and then the minister’s extraordinary attack on that committee, including his own member, Ms Porter, when he said, “It is just a simple sham inquiry to achieve a political end.” It was quite a remarkable thing to say when it included one of his own members.
There has been the maladministration of medications at the Alexander Maconochie Centre, the loss of the RFID bracelets, a death in custody and the falsification of documents relating to that death in custody. There have been allegations of rape and abuse at the AMC that led to warnings from a Supreme Court judge. We know that there has been understaffing. There were real problems with rostering and loss of confidence by corrections officers. That led to a rooftop protest by prisoners that was supported by a number of the corrections officers because they were so exasperated about what was going on.
At that time, and probably subsequently as well, we had the disruption to rehabilitation programs where people who were delivering such programs could not actually access the jail because the prisoners were locked down. We have seen the wrongful release of a prisoner—at least one. We have seen the use of drugs, needles and syringes in the jail. In fact, as you will recall, Mr Assistant Speaker, we had drugs and needles get into the jail almost immediately. Now we hear that the drugs are readily available in the jail and that the government, along with their Greens coalition partners, are considering introducing needles and syringes. I make the point that that is a movement that is opposed absolutely categorically by the corrections officers themselves.
Jon Stanhope talks of the continued availability and access to illicit drugs by inmates at the Alexander Maconochie Centre. But even if I supported a needle and syringe program—and let me make it very clear that I do not; that is on the record—this certainly would not be the government or the minister to introduce such a program. Whilst other jurisdictions have been running jails for literally hundreds of years, this government, which has been running this jail for about a year, thinks that with a track record like that it would be a great thing to introduce a needle and syringe program—because it is doing such a magnificent job here with the Alexander Maconochie Centre.
Aside from the ideological argument, the sheer nonsense that this is a government and a minister who would be capable of introducing that sort of program given their track record is just laughable. And given that Simon Corbell is saying that he is doing everything he can to eradicate drugs from the jail, when we look at that track record, that litany of failure I just outlined, it is pretty clear to me, and I think it is pretty clear to everybody else in the community, that he is actually failing to do so. He is failing to eradicate them and certainly failing to reduce the number of drugs down to the absolute bare minimum.
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