Tuesday, 18 February 2020

Chisholm Road prison project community advisory group

Mr EREN (Lara) (19:02): (1864) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Corrections. The action I seek from the minister is to meet with the Chisholm Road prison project community advisory group. As the minister would know, the Andrews government has invested more than $1.8 billion to ensure our prisons remain safe and secure and are able to keep pace with demand. Part of this record investment in community safety includes the new maximum-security prison at Chisholm Road, which will have 1248 beds, with the prison operational in 2022. The building of the new maximum-security prison will support hundreds of jobs across the steel, manufacturing, construction, engineering and other sectors. The build of the new prison is anticipated to create up to 900 jobs during peak construction periods and more than 650 ongoing jobs after construction.

The Chisholm Road prison project is enhancing community safety while creating hundreds of local jobs, with apprentices, trainees and engineering cadets comprising 10 per cent of all new workers during the construction phase. This is a very important project in my electorate, and I was very pleased to have the minister in Geelong to turn the first sod on Thursday, which was great.

The Chisholm Road prison project community advisory group did a tremendous job leading up to that day. It was established in October 2018 to help guide the development of this new prison and ensure the local community is informed and engaged as the project progresses. Of course it would be great if the minister came and visited and had a meeting with this very important group. Again, the action I seek from the minister is to meet with the Chisholm Road prison project community advisory group.