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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-10-15 Daily Xml
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PRISONER WORK PROGRAM

Ms CICCARELLO (Norwood) (14:49): My question is to the Minister for Correctional Services. Can the minister inform the house about the prisoner work program run with BHP Billiton?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Gambling, Minister for Youth, Minister for Volunteers, Minister Assisting the Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (14:49): I thank the honourable member for her question, and, yes, I can inform the house about this important development. I would also like to thank the member for Giles, who came with me to Roxby Downs and Andamooka station to look at this program, and her local community should be very proud of it.

I am sure members would agree that a project that provides prisoners with the opportunity to develop skills and improve their chances of securing employment upon release is an extremely positive initiative, and I am pleased to inform the house that Port Augusta Prison and BHP Billiton at Olympic Dam have come together as partners to develop such a project.

There are compelling arguments for encouraging prisoners to engage with education and training, work experience and linking them to employment opportunities. The social benefits of reducing reoffending are obvious: fewer victims of crime, the breaking of generational criminal norms and fewer families dislocated by the loss of family members to prison. For some of the people whom I met up there crime was a generational habit and so was prison. One young man there told me and the member for Giles that his grandfather, his father and he had been in prison, and he did not want the same future for his son.

Prisoners with newly acquired vocational skills are also more likely to be able to assist in the development of their communities. It is particularly important for indigenous prisoners returning to communities (some remote) where employment options are limited. The participants in the program will be sourced from Port Augusta Prison with a minimum of 50 per cent indigenous prisoner participation.

This partnership project involves selected low security prisoners to undertake a range of duties, including work associated with the clean-up, renovation and maintenance of the Andamooka, Roxby Downs and Purple Downs stations and to undertake work experience on BHP Billiton-owned pastoral stations at Olympic Dam. To qualify for this program, prisoners must have had no citations from correctional officers, they must have had clean urine samples in drug tests, they must have behaved well and they must be low security prisoners.

Community consultation was held with the Roxby Downs Community Board in 2009 to finalise the preparation of the program. The consultation process provided an opportunity to discuss the history of the Mobile Outback Work Camp program and the benefits to remote communities, which cannot afford to do the work on their own. The presentation was well received by the Roxby Downs Community Board.

This initiative provides prisoners with the opportunity to gain work experience at Olympic Dam, on-site training and development and an identifiable pathway to employment opportunities at Olympic Dam. It will encourage industry-related vocational education and training at Port Augusta Prison and strengthen community capacity and resilience. The program will consist of approximately six work camps for a period of two weeks conducted this financial year. The first work camp commenced at Andamooka Station on 4 August 2009 and was completed on 17 August 2009. Before the camp commenced, prisoners were trained at Port Augusta Prison.

It is important to note that the remoteness of these locations and the type of work involved means that, if it were not for these programs, it would be very difficult to find people who would carry out this type of work. BHP subcontractors and representatives were so satisfied with the progress of the program that they were keen for it to be expanded, and a second camp operated from 29 September to 12 October. I was pleased to visit the participants at Roxby Downs and officially sign a memorandum of understanding between the correctional services office and BHP last Tuesday, 6 October.

South Australia's Aboriginal incarceration rate sits at 20 per cent, which is 4 per cent lower than the national average, and I think most members would agree that this rate is far too high. The government aims to further reduce the number of Aboriginal people who are in gaol every year and to further reduce reoffending.

In August this year, I had the pleasure of opening South Australia's first prison unit specially designed to accommodate Aboriginal offenders. The new unit, located at Port Augusta, which was designed in consultation with Aboriginal prisoners and their elders and staff, gives offenders a chance to reform their lives in a culturally appropriate environment. The Rann government has invested heavily in rehabilitation, with a focus on reducing Aboriginal imprisonment.

Within the prison system, several rehabilitation programs are tailored to Aboriginal offenders, including programs where Aboriginal elders are brought in to be active role models and spend time with prisoners. In addition, 11 Aboriginal liaison officers have been employed across our prisons to assist prisoners in dealing with departmental procedures.

We are committed to taking violent repeat offenders off the streets and strengthening prisoner education and rehabilitation and thereby reducing reoffending. Not only will this government continue to be tough on law and order but we will also continue to identify and support initiatives such as the BHP partnership, and provide training and employment for prisoners so that they can be on the front foot in turning their lives around. An example is that one of the people on these camps recently became eligible for release for home detention while on the camp. Rather than go to home release, he asked to stay on at the camp and complete his training. That is an indication of the level of commitment that these prisoners are showing.

In fact, in some of the anecdotal evidence from the trainers, they were saying that literacy and numeracy is a very large problem for some of these prisoners and a lot of these prisoners found it very difficult to get along while they were in prison, but, while they were on these camps, all of a sudden, mentors sprang up amongst the prisoners, helping other prisoners with their application forms and their written assessment part of the work.

Some of the works that were completed in the initial camp include:

cleaning of interiors and surrounding garden areas of two homesteads;

transportation of rubbish to the landfill area on the property;

pruning and removal of non-native trees;

clearing of rubbish from the blacksmiths shop and the woolshed;

cleaning of carport areas and shearing sheds;

removal of a chicken yard; and

the clearing of rubbish from hillside surrounding homestead.

While they were doing all this—of course without realising—they were being accredited with using front-end loaders, forklifts, welding, painting, repairing architraves, doorjambs and windows. BHP was so impressed with the work that the camp did at this Andamooka station that they will use this station for BHP board meetings in the future. It is a great example of this government giving Aboriginal offenders a bit of hope.

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