Wednesday, 31 July 2024

 Wendy LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (17:13): I rise to speak on the Department of Justice and Community Safety annual report 2022–23 that was tabled on 1 November 2023. This report states that $2.1 million was spent on completed capital projects at the Dhurringile Prison: $800,000 for domestic hot water uplifts, $400,000 for main generator uplift and $900,000 for a security system uplift. That is $2.1 million spent on a prison that the government was planning to close. These maintenance and repair works created the impression that the government was invested in the continued operation of the prison. That is the impression that some of my constituents had when they left other jobs to take up employment at the prison, some as recently as this year, looking forward to a long and stable career serving the community as a prison officer. That is the impression prison staff had when they took out mortgages on homes and entrenched their families in the Goulburn Valley, where their children attend schools and partners have careers.

But prison staff were left completely shocked on Wednesday 26 June, when staff were gathered together and told the prison would be closing in just eight weeks and they had just four weeks to decide whether to take a redundancy package or completely uproot their families and move across the state to work at a different prison. I have heard from staff that the online redundancy package calculator returned inaccurate results and there was no clear advice available on whether super would be paid on the redundancy packages, nor was there any clear advice about whether relocation expenses would be paid if they decided to transfer to another prison – no clear advice, yet these government employees were being forced to make a life-changing decision in just four weeks.

The government’s handling of the closure has been appalling. There was no consultation undertaken with staff, the community, the City of Greater Shepparton or local members of Parliament. Local MPs were not briefed, and we were given no information. This made it extremely difficult to assist the staff who were contacting my office and the partners or mothers of staff who contacted me, concerned about their loved ones’ mental health. I had to telephone the minister and his staff to get the limited information that they were prepared to share with us.

The closure of the prison will have significant impacts on our local economy. Not only is it at least 160 highly paid prison jobs – which the staff tell me are FTE and that the closure will actually affect around 250 individual employees; that is 250 jobs lost in our local area – the closure will also affect many local businesses that supply goods and services to the prison, so there are possible further job losses in those businesses. We will also lose the valuable community service work that the prisoners did as part of their reintegration into community life. This included gardening and lawn mowing for elderly residents and participating in vital landcare activities, and during the floods the prisoners were invaluable in filling thousands of sandbags. The government is also throwing away an enormous amount of goodwill for a prison in a community. When you try to establish a new facility like Dhurringile there is usually enormous pushback and fear of the unknown, but in Greater Shepparton the community was extremely supportive, and the government has just thrown that away.

It would be very interesting to know the real reason for the closure and also the timeline for decision-making about the closure, not only to understand the real reason for the closure and why staff were given such short notice that their jobs were ending and the tight timelines for deciding their future. It would also help us to understand why the government has made this decision and has no idea what it is going to do with the facility. I have carried out my own survey, which asked people: would they support the facility being used as a prison farm and school for nonviolent youth offenders? More than 85 per cent of respondents so far have supported the use of the facility for this purpose. There were a few others who did not oppose the use of the facility for this purpose but who thought it could be better used another way or were concerned about violent offenders being housed there. Some of the other suggestions have been a refuge for women and children escaping domestic violence, housing for the homeless, a trade school, a drug and alcohol rehab facility, and the list goes on, including tourism. I have not closed my survey yet, but when I do I will present the information to the government for their consideration.

The decision to close Dhurringile Prison is shortsighted and will have a significant detrimental effect on the Greater Shepparton community. It is appalling that the government made this decision without any consultation with our community.