Tuesday, 13 May 2025

Corrections system

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (12:30): (898) My question is for the Minister for Corrections. Minister, how can you justify spending $727 million on Victoria’s prison system when the net result is 200 fewer adult prison beds? Is this just a cover-up – a spin? Why?

Enver ERDOGAN (Northern Metropolitan – Minister for Casino, Gaming and Liquor Regulation, Minister for Corrections, Minister for Youth Justice) (12:31): I thank Mr Davis for his question. I must add that I do reject the premise of that question. If you listened carefully to my announcement this morning, joined by the Premier and Minister for Police at our newest correctional facility, the Western Plains correctional facility out in Lara, in Victoria’s west, in Melbourne’s west, you would have heard that 1000 additional beds will be part of the system. That is on top of the announcements I made last year to improvements and additional beds. We were planning to have 600 beds open at Western Plains when I made that announcement, but we will now have over 1000. There will be additional beds across the system.

I know those opposite have been out of government for a long time, so you may not be familiar with the current state of the corrections system, but I might update the chamber and take this opportunity to update you that as a government we have made significant investments in the physical infrastructure, and now this announcement will allow us to build up the capacity, to scale up, as required. It means more frontline staff. It means better programs, targeted programs and doing it in a safe way to make sure we can meet the needs of those that go in. It means better support for staff. It means we do that in a structured way, and from the middle of this year we will have Western Plains operational. We will be opening up additional units across the system. I am glad that the Premier and Treasurer have backed me in on this, because we said community safety comes first, and that is why we are backing in our corrections system. We have already seen our bail laws come into effect and we are seeing an increase in the remand population, but we need to make sure we do that in a safe and structured way. That is what responsible government does, Mr Davis.

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (12:33): Minister, with a 22 per cent rise in the adult remand population and your government yet to implement bail law reforms, how can you possibly defend any reduction whatsoever in prison capacity when demand for beds is only going up?

Enver ERDOGAN (Northern Metropolitan – Minister for Casino, Gaming and Liquor Regulation, Minister for Corrections, Minister for Youth Justice) (12:33): Thank you, Mr Davis, for that question and your interest in the prison system. If you listened carefully to my answer to the substantive, we are increasing the amount of beds available in the system. We are in the process of opening up our Western Plains prison – our largest maximum security prison – that will be able to accommodate up to 1300 prisoners. Part of today’s announcement was about making sure we have the frontline staff. As the government we have done amazing work in investing in the infrastructure across our corrections system, and now we are investing in the staff to make sure we have frontline staff that are ready to go, because that is paramount and foundational to have a successful and secure system. That is what today’s announcement was about. It is about more frontline staff. It is about more programs to make sure when people leave the system that they do not commit offences and the community is made safer. I am proud of the investments we have made, because many of them – in employment programs, in health programs – are in programs that are protective factors to ensure people do not recommit offences when they are back out on our streets. So we are doing that work – (Time expired)