Adelaide Remand Centre

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (15:12): My question is to the Minister for Correctional Services. Why is the minister privatising the Adelaide Remand Centre?

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD (Gibson—Minister for Police, Emergency Services and Correctional Services, Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing) (15:12): I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question, and I am extremely interested that he is keen on our reform because this is a really important thing.

The Premier talked about being left with a mess and, as a former minister in Correctional Services, he would know. When I came into this job, the thing that astounded me most when I was given the briefing documents was the graph that showed the number of prison beds we had and the expected growth of prisoners. There was a real alarm bell at around 2020 because in 2020 we were going to have more prisoners than prison beds. I said to the department, 'What plan did the previous government have in place?' They said, 'Well, nothing.' They were just going to put up a No Vacancy sign.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: No vacancies—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, members on my right!

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: —at the prisons going forward.

Ms Hildyard: No-one believes it.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: The member for Reynell yells out, 'No-one believes it,' but it's fact. It's fact in documents that were given to the previous government there are—

Ms Hildyard interjecting:

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: Speaking of going on and on, the member for Reynell can't stop.

The SPEAKER: I'm writing them down.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: Just to clarify—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr Picton: The chips are down.

The SPEAKER: The member for Kaurna is warned.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The minister will be heard in silence.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: Thank you, Mr Speaker. We are talking about a mess—the mess left by those on the other side. At that 2020 mark, there were going to be more prisoners than there were beds with what they have left us. Their plan was just to put up a No Vacancy sign, maybe just shuffle people back out into the community: 'There you go. Don't worry. Don't come to prison. You can just go back out onto the streets. That's absolutely fine.'

The Hon. T.J. Whetstone: Rack 'em, pack 'em and stack 'em.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: That was their policy. The Minister for Agriculture says, 'Rack 'em, pack 'em and stack 'em.' That was their policy on the other side. Well, they filled the prisons.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: They filled the prisons, and we had to do something about it, so we put a reform agenda in place. We have an agenda to have the best prisons in the world.

Mr Malinauskas interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The leader will not interject and he is warned.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: We looked at the different prisons and we noted that at the Remand Centre the cost per person per bed per day is $314. The average cost across the system is $209, and in Mount Gambier Prison I think it's around $150-odd per day. So what we had to do was find some money to be able to expand our prison system.

I mentioned the 2020 situation, where we are going to have more prisoners than beds, and so we need to expand our prison system. What we are going to do is get an outsourced operator to run the Remand Centre. In fact, I went down to the Remand Centre last night and spoke to the workers there. I made it abundantly clear that all their jobs were safe, and they will find places in the expansion that we are doing.

This is the good bit: the Leader of the Opposition asked why we are getting in a private provider to run the Remand Centre. That will enable us to then expand the prison centre at Yatala and also at the Women's Prison: 310 more beds are going into the prison system in the public sector. They are high-security prison beds—the beds we need, the beds that weren't put online by the opposition when they were in government.

We are delivering jobs for people in South Australia in the prison system. We are guaranteeing the jobs of the people at the Remand Centre, moving into this expansion, and we are keeping people in South Australia safe by growing the number of beds. That is why we are doing what we are doing—because we were left with the mess and we are cleaning it up.

The SPEAKER: Before I call the Leader of the Opposition, I call to order the members for Elizabeth and Reynell and the Ministers for Child Protection and Primary Industries, and I warn the member for Playford. The Leader of the Opposition has the call.