PRISON CAPACITY

The Hon. T.J. STEPHENS (14:48): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Communities and Social Inclusion, representing the Minister for Correctional Services, questions about prison capacity in South Australia.

Leave granted.

The Hon. T.J. STEPHENS: I refer the minister to an article in The Advertiser on 22 August in which outgoing Correctional Services chief executive Mr Peter Severin indicated his concern that South Australia's prison system will be bursting at the seams by 2016 and that the building of new prisons and cells is inevitable. The current prisoner growth rate is 3 per cent annually, and the number of sex offenders entering prison has tripled since a decade ago. Mr Severin went on to say that increased capacity can be achieved through either 'a stand-alone facility or through the expansion of a prison like Mobilong'. My questions are:

1. Why did the government scrap the proposed Murray Bridge prison when it is obviously necessary in the opinion of the former chief executive?

2. Considering he had been the chief executive for nine years, why did the government ignore his expert opinion?

3. If there were budgetary constraints then, how does the minister expect the government to be able to maintain adequate capacity beyond 2016 given the current levels of debt and that the projected incomes from the Olympic Dam expansion are nonexistent?

4. As there are currently 80 spare beds across the jurisdiction and only 33 in high security facilities, how does the government expect to keep capacity under 100 per cent given its rhetoric about bikie gangs?

5. If the government is serious about law and order in this state why will it not commit to increasing capacity before the next election in 2014 rather than doing nothing until it is too late?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Communities and Social Inclusion, Minister for Social Housing, Minister for Disabilities, Minister for Youth, Minister for Volunteers) (14:50): I thank the honourable member for his most important questions about the capacity of South Australian prisons. I undertake to take those five questions to the Minister for Correctional Services in the other place and seek a response on his behalf.