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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
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Adelaide Remand Centre

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (14:17): My question is to the Minister for Correctional Services. Can the minister guarantee that the current prisoner to staff ratios at the Adelaide Remand Centre will not change as a result of Serco's appointment to manage the centre?

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD (Gibson—Minister for Police, Emergency Services and Correctional Services, Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing) (14:17): I thank the member for the question, and I do remind him that any contracts entered into are commercial-in-confidence, so I'm not going to go into the detail of the contract. What I can say—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: What I can say is—

The Hon. S.S. Marshall: Don't worry; it'll be over soon.

The SPEAKER: Premier!

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: —that the new contractor has signed on to run the ARC as part of our Better Prisons program, and that is because of the mess that you left our state in. That's fine, and we have to deal with that—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: We have to deal with that, and the outsourcing of—the management of the Remand Centre is step 1 in what we have to do to fix the problem that you have left us with. The other part—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The Premier is called to order.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: —is actually putting more beds in at the Northfield site, so we are investing in that as well. That's 310 more beds at the Northfield site, 270 at Yatala—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The minister has the call. Members on my left, be quiet!

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: —and 40 into the Women's Prison.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Lee is warned.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: This is a very big project to get better prisons in South Australia because of the problem, again, that you left us with.

Mr Malinauskas: What are the staffing ratios? Just answer the question!

The SPEAKER: The Leader of the Opposition is warned.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: I did answer the question. I told you very clearly that that is commercial-in-confidence within the contract and that's not to be discussed in this place, but we need to look at—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Elizabeth is warned.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: We need to look at the solution and what we're delivering here. We are delivering better prisons. We're outsourcing the ARC and we're having a private contractor come in to run the operations. Serco was the bidder—

Mr Malinauskas: What's happening with the staffing ratios?

The SPEAKER: Leader!

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: —and they were the successful bidder and they will be delivering that project for us. Having said that—

Mr Hughes interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Giles!

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: —at the Northfield site we're growing beds there and investing heavily in that to put the extra 310 beds in because, as I've pointed out many times in this place before—and it's probably been overlooked a lot, I think, by people on the other side—we were in a position where, by 2020, we would have more prisoners than prison beds. That's the situation you left us with.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Point of order, sir.

The SPEAKER: There's a point of order. Minister, please be seated for one moment. The member for West Torrens on a point of order.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: The question was about staffing ratios, Mr Speaker.

The SPEAKER: Yes. What is the point of order?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Debate, sir.

The SPEAKER: Debate: it's about whether he can guarantee a staffing ratio at the ARC. I have the question. I have the point of order. I am listening carefully. Please stop interjecting and I will hear the answer. Thank you.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: I did outline that that was a part of the contract that is commercial-in-confidence, so I won't be divulging that here, but I was going on to outline our Better Prisons program, which is the bigger picture of what we are delivering here for South Australia—and again I stress the point—because of the mess we were left in by those on the other side. They wanted to put up the 'no vacancy' sign. They wanted to rack 'em, stack 'em and pack 'em. That is what they wanted to do within our prison system, but we knew that we had to put a better prison system program in place.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: What we are doing is we are outsourcing the management of the Remand Centre. We have signed that contract and we are moving forward with that. We are very excited about getting Serco in place and they will be running that by the end of the year. August, I think, is the time line that was set for that. Then we are going to build more beds at Yatala Labour Prison and the Women's Prison, as I have outlined: 310 more beds going into the system, so that we can have places to put people—

Mr Malinauskas: Can you please just answer one question.

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: —because you didn't put it in place. You didn't deliver.

The SPEAKER: Please direct your remarks through the Chair.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: We are delivering. It's a real shame. I understand the Leader of the Opposition is getting upset because he left such a mess and we are fixing the mess.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Point of order: how is this not debate?

The SPEAKER: Yes, I uphold the point of order. Is the minister finished?

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: Yes. To answer the question, it's commercial-in-confidence.

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