Mr NAIRN (9:02 PM) —Today the Chief Minister of the ACT, Jon Stanhope, announced that the ACT government would be appointing a consultant to assess the Hume site for the ACT jail. This was a site that they chose a month or so ago to build an ACT jail. It happens to be a site right on the doorstep of the residential area of Jerrabomberra, which is not in the ACT but in New South Wales. It is very convenient for the ACT Chief Minister to put a jail near New South Wales residents rather than ACT residents. In actual fact, the background to this is that a site near Narrabundah was originally chosen as the ideal site for the prison. That was chosen after an extensive inquiry by an ACT assembly committee, and that was where it was going to go. But then the residents of Narrabundah jumped up and down so, in the election campaign before the last ACT election, the Labor Party said, `No, we won't build the jail near Narrabundah residents; we'll look for another site.'

They have looked for another site and they have decided on Hume. They said that they chose Hume because they could not get the Commonwealth to agree to sell them land near the airport. That is not true. What the Commonwealth have said is that we do not want the integrity of the airport compromised. We want to see what is required for the next 20, 30, 40 or 50 years and then see whether there is some land available. I believe there probably will be land available when that work is done. But, no, the ACT Chief Minister has got no runs on the board since he was elected and is therefore desperately trying to get this project going. He has said, `We'll stick it out at Hume. New South Wales residents are the ones that will be affected. They don't vote in the ACT, so they don't matter.' Well, we are not going to let that happen. I can assure him of that. This appointment of a consultant, who is now going to take six months to assess the site, just seems bizarre because, well within that period of time, the work that is being done at the airport will be completed and it is highly likely that there will be some land available there for them to build it.

It is incredible. I wrote to the ACT Chief Minister many weeks ago including a list of the many hundreds of people from Jerrabomberra who had filled out a form and sent it back to me saying that they did not want the jail on their doorstep. He has not even bothered to respond to that letter. I then wrote another letter to him and actually co-signed it with the state Labor member for Monaro, Steve Whan, and he got his other minister, Katie Gallagher, to write back to us. She finally wrote back to me saying, `Thank you for your letter to the Attorney-General.' I did not write to the Attorney-General; I wrote to the Chief Minister. The Chief Minister might be the Attorney-General as well, but I wrote to him in his capacity as Chief Minister. She wrote back saying, `Thanks for your letter, but this is what we're going to do.'

He has not bothered to respond to the first letter or to the many hundreds of residents affected. He is effectively now doing a backflip on this, because he has appointed a consultant to do an assessment and he says that that consultant will consult with the community. It is a bit late. The consultation should have happened in the first place, before he even made such a silly announce-ment. There was no consultation with the Queanbeyan City Council; no consultation with Jerrabomberra residents; no consultation with HMAS Harman, which is right next door; and no consultation with the Snowy Hydro SouthCare helicopter service, which is on the other side of them. There was no consultation with anybody. The ACT government just made an announcement.

I will be going to the National Capital Authority if the Chief Minister is going to pursue this, because I am sure the last thing the National Capital Authority would want to have on a major access route into the city is a jail. From a planning point of view, it is the most stupid decision that I have ever seen. It is an absolutely ludicrous decision. There are many places where the jail could go in the ACT away from residents and appropriately located, but he has to put it out there near New South Wales residents. I will not allow this to happen and the Jerrabomberra residents will not allow this to happen. In fact, I think the ACT government ought to reconsider whether they should be putting $100-odd million into a prison in the first place. They would be far better off putting that money into a decent convention centre, which is certainly needed, rather than only the $20 million or $30 million that they propose. (Time expired)