Page 1963 - Week 05 - Thursday, 5 May 2011
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I can speak on behalf of the Greens here, for medical research not to be cut in the federal budget. I think it behoves you, as the health minister of the ACT, to go to her in the strongest terms to make sure that that is not cut. I am willing to offer any support to you that you need to make sure that that does not eventuate. I would like to hear from you on what you will be doing to make sure that those outrageous cuts that have been rumoured do not occur.
Moving to corrections, we have seen in recent times the shocking Burnet and Hamburger reports and it is quite clear from those that there has been a failure in management. We now know what the cost of that mismanagement is from Simon Corbell. It is additional funding of $5.1 million over the next four years allocated to address the issues that have been identified in the Hamburger report. That is just the Hamburger report, not the Burnet report.
Also in the budget there is scoping funding to address the issue that the jail is already full, after only two years of being open. Not only did this jail cost $130 million, not only was it delivered with 75 fewer beds than it should have had and without a gym, without a chapel, without an outer perimeter fence, but we now know that there is money in this budget to cover for the fact that it was delivered underscoped by a minister who told the community and this Assembly that it had capacity in its current configuration for the next 25 years. That was not true.
We now know that it is costing $422 a day for a prisoner at the Alexander Maconochie Centre. That is $160 a day more than when they were sent to New South
Wales. Based on current prisoner numbers, that is $14 million a year to ACT taxpayers.
There is not a secure adult mental health facility. Where are your priorities? I will tell you where they are: they are an arboretum; they are a big new building. They are not where they should be. Though the prison has got lovely artwork—they spent $100,000 on that—there is no gym, no chapel. In fact, that has now been deleted. It is in the budget that they have scrapped that. They promised it, but they have scrapped it—another broken promise from a minister in this portfolio area.
No wonder the Canberra Times described this jail as a shambolic disappointment. And that is the work of one Simon Corbell. Meanwhile, he and their Green colleagues are obsessed by a needle and syringe program. They are not worried about the $40 million a year extra it is costing and they are not worried about the litany of problems identified by Hamburger and Burnet. They are not worried about the broken promises about prison beds and about chapels. No, they are not worried about that.
They want to have an NSP. But they are not going to get it because the union will not let them. You saw the press release and you saw the media yesterday. It is quite clear that it is never going to happen. It is a big white elephant: “Let us talk about an NSP to cover up the fact that this jail is a fiasco.” And this budget confirms it—broken promises, cost blow-outs, a fiasco.
Moving to police, there is nothing in this budget for police from this government, other than the rollout of a random roadside drug testing program. That is the only
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