Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this matter in order to bring some balance and some factual material to this debate. Let me say from the outset that, while the member for Mayo talks about mismanagement by the current state Labor government in South Australia, I would like to point out to him a fact that he pretty much acknowledged himself towards the end of his contribution, that it was a state Labor government that brought the state finances to a point where the state today has a AAA credit rating, a rating that it has been able to maintain for several years now. You cannot, on one hand, be saying that you have mismanaged the state finances yet still maintain a AAA credit rating for your state. The two arguments simply are in contradiction to each other. This is a serious matter.

This is a very serious matter. So much so, that it is a matter that has been ongoing in South Australia for almost three decades. If time permits I will talk a little about its history. But I would say this in an attempt to highlight the seriousness of this matter: if you talk to our police, if you talk to our court officials, if you talk to the correctional services department, or if you talk to Monsignor David Cappo, the Commissioner for Social Inclusion in South Australia, they will all admit that it is a very complex matter to deal with. That is why it is a matter that still needs to be resolved the government of the day.

It is a complex matter because we are dealing with young lives and there are no simple fixes to the problems and situations that they often find themselves in. It is not an issue that you can find a simple fix to when you are dealing with criminal acts of people, regardless of age. The truth of the matter is that it goes back about three decades. It was in the early 1980s that the Labor government of the day began the process of rebuilding a new youth detention facility at Cavan, at Jonal Drive, and that facility still exists. It has, I think, space for about 36 young offenders.

Subsequently—I say subsequently—the Liberal government of the day did look to relocate the Magill facility to a site at Cavan, close to but not adjacent to the Jonal Drive site. They purchased that site in the nineties. I am well aware of that; I was involved in the negotiations. That was in 1999. In fact the decision was made before that. They left office in 2002, three years later. So to say that the Labor government then reneged on completing a commitment made by the previous Liberal government fails to take account of the fact that the Liberals had three years to follow through on it. The truth is that they too walked away from the decision to rebuild the Magill centre at Cavan and left it in limbo. The state Labor government did come to power and continued the negotiations as to where the best location for that facility ought to be. The decision was not made lightly, because there are a lot of factors that you need to take into account when you build a detention facility of any kind—factors relating to access to it and access to family members of those people who are in custody.

That said, the decision was then made to continue and rebuild the new facility at Cavan. It was linked to the extensions to the adult facility at Mobilong, extensions which were packaged up as a $600 million investment in additional correctional facilities in South Australia. It is because of the $600 million figure that the state government had to revisit its commitment, not because of the $60 million that the member for Mayo would have you believe was the be-all and end-all of this decision. Ultimately the minister of the day has committed the $67 million to a new 60-bed facility at Goldsborough Road, at the original site where the land was set aside for this facility. The Jonal Drive facility, which as I said currently has room for 36 offenders, will be used to house the younger offenders in youth detention. I understand that $4 million will immediately be spent to provide a level of improvement to both the Magill facility and the Jonal Drive facility. This is a government that is responding to the needs of the community and is responsive to the obligations of government, and that is why it is making these investments. (Time expired)

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