Page 4346 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 27 November 2013
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(2) condemns the ACT Labor Government for:
(a) misleading the community about the true capacity requirements of the AMC; and
(b) building a jail that they knew was too small.
Madam Deputy Speaker, we kick off where we left off with the last motion, because when it comes to the AMC—
Mr Coe: There seems to be a trend developing here.
MR HANSON: Yes, there is a trend. There is no question—and I will explain it as I go through, point out the evidence as I did in the last motion—that the government have been deliberately deceitful about the prison’s planning. They have tried to obscure what is going on by using phrases like “maximum capacity”, “actual bed numbers”, “prisoner numbers”, “operational capacity”, “actual daily numbers” and “raw accommodation numbers”. They are all different quotes. And there is “capacity” as well. It has been a monumental distortion of the normal usage of the English language, and it is deliberately designed to mislead.
There is no doubt that confusion has reigned around the planning. I do not think that we have been told the truth. We have been misled. The truth has been lost in this case. I have litigated this case a bit before, as you would be aware, through questions and so on. But what is the consequence of this? I think it is worth looking at what this all means. People will say, “Oh, yeah; we’ve just got to build more accommodation.” Or they will say: “So what? So what if we were lied to about the bed capacity at the jail? So what?”
Let me tell you so what, and why this is an important issue. On 13 November, the Official Visitor to the jail appeared before the JACS committee. We talked about the issue of the overcrowding at the AMC. I want to go through that, because the case that the government lied, the government misled, the government delivered a jail that is too small, is probably already—
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Hanson, I would like you to watch your phraseology with regard to the government. It is quite unparliamentary to say the government lied. I would like you to withdraw that and to rephrase it.
MR HANSON: Sure. The government fabricated data—can I say that? The government did not provide all the information? The government said things that were untrue.
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: In your opinion. Perhaps you would like to phrase it as being in your opinion.
MR HANSON: Sure. I will endeavour to do so, Madam Deputy Speaker.
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you very much.
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