Ms MARTIN - 1997-05-01
Costs at the Alice Springs Correctional Centre blew out by 25% in this past year. Costs at the Darwin Correctional Centre blew out by a staggering 46%. Overall, the Correctional Services budget blew out by 26% and this is before a full year of mandatory sentencing. Will the minister admit that he has failed the working families of the Territory by forcing more and more of their hard-earned taxpayers' dollars into a correctional services system that is both inefficient and ineffective?
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, we have nothing to apologise for. We have a very good correctional system, and it has improved even more in the last 12 months since we changed the senior administration of the department.
Ms Martin interjecting.
Mr HATTON: You know the bloke. He is your mate.
What the member for Fannie Bay did not mention is that prisoner numbers rose by 20% to 25% in the same period.
Ms Martin: You predicted that a number of years ago.
Mr HATTON: The increase was not predicted, despite what the member for Fannie Bay may say. She does not know what she is talking about. I urge her to wait for the budget debate, when we can deal with the matter properly, rather than raising it in Question Time. I urge her to talk also to the member for Arafura who jumped in and got himself badly burnt.
There was a significant and rapid rise in prisoner numbers, admittedly as a consequence of matters such as mandatory sentencing. There were also, certainly, the one-off costs associated with the opening of the Alice Springs facility and the relocation of prisoners. I would have thought, however, that the member for Fannie Bay should be congratulating us on ensuring that the recurrent funding base of Correctional Services has been fully assessed and properly based, which is what she asked us to do last year.
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ANSWER
Mr Speaker, we have nothing to apologise for. We have a very good correctional system, and it has improved even more in the last 12 months since we changed the senior administration of the department.
Ms Martin interjecting.
Mr HATTON: You know the bloke. He is your mate.
What the member for Fannie Bay did not mention is that prisoner numbers rose by 20% to 25% in the same period.
Ms Martin: You predicted that a number of years ago.
Mr HATTON: The increase was not predicted, despite what the member for Fannie Bay may say. She does not know what she is talking about. I urge her to wait for the budget debate, when we can deal with the matter properly, rather than raising it in Question Time. I urge her to talk also to the member for Arafura who jumped in and got himself badly burnt.
There was a significant and rapid rise in prisoner numbers, admittedly as a consequence of matters such as mandatory sentencing. There were also, certainly, the one-off costs associated with the opening of the Alice Springs facility and the relocation of prisoners. I would have thought, however, that the member for Fannie Bay should be congratulating us on ensuring that the recurrent funding base of Correctional Services has been fully assessed and properly based, which is what she asked us to do last year.
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Last updated: 09 Aug 2016