Westbury prison grows
Government must listen to expert advise
abandon Westbury for the northern prison
Opposition to the Liberal
Government’s flawed maximum security prison proposal in Westbury is growing by
the day.
The highly respected former
Secretary of Justice who oversaw the major expansion of Risdon Prison, Peter
Hoult, has said the Hodgman Government’s plan to build a maximum security
prison at Westbury is “verging on insanity”.
“To
believe a service infrastructure can be maintained to properly support a
maximum and medium inmate prison in a rural setting 30 kilometres out of
Launceston is verging on insanity.” – Peter Hoult, The Mercury, November
13
Shadow Corrections Minister,
Ella Haddad, said its time the Liberal Government listened to the advice of
experts and local community members and abandoned its plans to build a maximum
security prison at Westbury.
“Opposition to the Liberal
Government’s flawed maximum security prison proposal in Westbury is
overwhelming,” Ms Haddad said.
“Mr Hoult’s comments have
made it clear that the Department of Justice has already done a lot of work to
assess suitable sites for a northern prison.
“The Liberals must come
clean on whether they disregarded departmental advice when they decided
Westbury was best place to put a maximum security prison.
“People in the Westbury community are distressed and they deserve a
Government that will genuinely listen to them and not waste
hundreds of thousands of dollars on tokenistic consultation gestures, conduct
dodgy telephone surveys, and ignore the advice of experts.
“The Hodgman Government must
release all departmental advice received so that the public can understand if
the decision was based on solid evidence.
“It’s time the Liberal Government abandoned its plans to build a maximum security prison at Westbury.”
Ella Haddad MP
Shadow Corrections Minister
