Page 2816 - Week 08 - Thursday, 11 August 2016
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will provide a more academic analysis of that. I certainly look forward to the delivery of that review because I think that will give us even stronger guidance going forward of how we might continue to deliver these things.
I conclude my remarks on Corrective Services by simply saying that I reject the assertion that the prison system is in absolute disarray, as Mr Wall suggested last night. He spoke about the escape attempt at Symonston. The cold, hard reality there was that, yes, some detainees punched a hole in some plasterboard. Far from escaping, they then had a significant brick wall in front of them, which they had not made any sort of significant impact on. In fact, I am not even sure if there was any impact on the wall at all. But if it is a near miss escape and you have still got a large brick wall to punch a hole through, I think it is somewhat of an exaggeration on Mr Wall’s part.
Yes, we do have a situation where some drugs and other forms of contraband get inside the AMC, just as is the case in every other Australian jail and, frankly, any prison around the world. We continue to work very hard to exclude contraband from the jail. There has been a range of successful interceptions. There is a range of new security measures being put in place all the time to keep up with the changing technologies, with the changing techniques that people put in place to get contraband into the prison. Far from being porous, far from being something that the ACT Corrective Services team does not care about, there is a very significant security effort.
I note, of course, that the supermax jail at Goulburn—just one hour up the road—has been reported to have significant numbers of mobile phones, drugs and other issues inside that supermax jail. The most hard core prison in New South Wales with the highest levels of security measures has the same, if not worse, problems as the AMC. I think we need to be realistic about this. If Mr Wall wants to say that, I think he needs to ring up his New South Wales corrective services colleagues as well. I can give him the phone number for the New South Wales Liberal minister for prisons.
Mr Wall: Got it.
MR RATTENBURY: Good, I am glad you have got it, because you should ring him up and ask him about this. Ring him up and ask him if there is any prison in New South Wales that has no contraband. I will tell you what he will say. He will say, “Of course not,” because he is an honest fellow, as best I can tell from conversations I have had with him. He is very realistic about what these situations are. He will say that it is impossible to keep contraband out of prison. That does not mean that we should not continue to strive to keep contraband out of the jail. We will continue to make interceptions and we will continue to do the best we can. But we have to be realistic about these things.
I conclude my remarks by thanking the staff of Corrective Services. I know it is not an easy job. They have done a lot of work in the past year or so. There is the expansion of the jail, the work that has gone on to build a common purpose on the needle and syringe program, the constant improvement to systems across the jail to ensure that we have the best programs in place: the best security systems, the best rehabilitative opportunities for our detainees and improved visit systems. They have been doing a lot of work in this past year.
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