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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2008-10-29 Daily Xml
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The Hon. R.D. LAWSON (14:44): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! The Hon. Mr Lawson has the floor. The Hon. Mr Lucas is well down the list today.

The Hon. R.D. LAWSON: —the Minister for Correctional Services a question about prison accommodation.

Leave granted.

The Hon. R.D. LAWSON: The latest figures released by the Department for Correctional Services indicate that approximately one-third of the prisoners in our gaols are awaiting sentence and are therefore termed 'remandee prisoners' and that that figure has been rising steadily over recent years. The same figures reveal that the average expected time to serve in prisons, for sentenced prisoners, was 74.1 months as at 30 June last year. In spite of the government's rhetoric, this was a reduction of about two months from the 76 month average expected time to serve over the previous year. Over the Past 10 years the number of months has been steadily increasing. My questions are:

1. What is the minister's explanation for the reduction in the length of the expected time to serve for sentenced prisoners within our gaols?

2. What are the forward projections over the next three years for the average expected time to serve? Has this factor been included in the projections presented to those preparing the bids for the PPP for the Mobilong Prison?

3. Given that the Adelaide Remand Centre is our only purpose-built facility for remandees and is already overcrowded, are special accommodation arrangements being planned within the new Mobilong Prison to accommodate remandee prisoners and, if so, what number of beds is to be devoted to that purpose?

The Hon. CARMEL ZOLLO (Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Road Safety, Minister for Gambling, Minister Assisting the Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (14:46): I thank the honourable member for his important question. South Australia is certainly not an orphan in relation to remandee numbers. All of Australia, I think, is facing the same situation. I should not have to tell someone like the Hon. Robert Lawson how the courts decide to deal with people, whether to put them on remand or whether to give them intensive bail supervision—and we are the only state in Australia that actually does that—or whether to even give them bail. It is not something that the Department for Correctional Services can influence.

Yes, we do have a lot of remandees in the state, like every other state of Australia, and we have remandees not just at the Adelaide Remand Centre but also at Yatala and some at Port Augusta. Clearly, we have a duty to ensure that prisoners are accommodated in a safe, secure and humane way, and we certainly undertake to do that. Again, I cannot speak for the judiciary in the way that they sentence people—indeed, for the length of time they sentence people.

When the new prison complex is open at Mobilong—and I have had some discussion in relation to the Adelaide Remand Centre—it will certainly be the intention to use it almost like a transition centre, so they are the plans we have for the future. As I said, at this time, we have a duty to ensure that people are accommodated in a safe and secure manner. We have a strategy in place. We have provided $35 million for the next three to four years to ensure that we have sufficient bed capacity in our state. I have already placed on record on a number of occasions now that we will see nearly 100 beds just before Christmas and, yes, most of them will be double-up. We have been quite open and honest about that. Also, it includes those 12 beds at Port Augusta for the traditional Aboriginal men. Clearly, projections are undertaken to ensure that we have sufficient bed capacity, and the $35 million in the last budget was in consideration of that.

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