Get us out of this prison mess, public meeting tells council
Despite the weather and the unheated venue, the public meeting was well attended by concerned residents of the municipality and beyond. Photos supplied.
Colin Shepherd, the Justice Department’s prison project manager, represented the state government at the public meeting.
Sharon Webb
A public meeting about the prison proposed for the Birralee reserve site has asked Meander Valley Council to revoke all support to the project and do its own socioeconomic study on the benefits of a prison at Westbury.
Anti-prison campaigner Linda Poulton put the motion, overwhelmingly supported by the majority of around 250 people attending.
Following fellow WRAP member Anne Marie Loader’s account of the history of the prison site choice involving former general manager Martin Gill, Ms Poulton said council was obliged to do the study.
‘The council is partly responsible for bringing this project to Westbury,’ she said.
The public meeting received 87 written submissions on the prison. Only two were in favour.
Meander Valley Council will consider the motion and the submissions at its September meeting, without being obliged to adopt them. But ratepayers may be hostile if they are disregarded.
Colin Shepherd, the prison project manager appointed by the Justice Department, attempted to put a positive spin on the prison.
After constant lock downs at Risdon prison, when asked about the new prison’s rehabilitation function by Deloraine resident Lisa Yeates, he replied, ‘I am confident the prison we’re expecting to deliver will do all the things we expect it to do.’
He timelined the recently announced $1m tender for architectural drawings and a tender for consultants to supply currently non-existing electricity, water and sewerage to the site.
Mr Shepherd said the government aims to submit the prison planning application to Meander Valley Council in the first quarter of 2022, at the same time as the referral of the reserve site to environment minister Sussan Ley.
But political questions by residents on issues such as public transport to Westbury, why the prison was not being colocated with the Ashley Detention Centre, and whether a new northern prison would replace Risdon Prison went unanswered.
Justice Minister Elise Archer may have been reluctant to show up after her disastrous performance at the prison public meeting in December 2019.
The meeting was held at 6pm on a cold wet evening in August. The basketball court at the Deloraine Community Complex had no heating and some people left the meeting early because of their discomfort.
The mayor Cllr Wayne Johnston said disruptive behaviour would not be tolerated. Anyone being unruly would be warned then asked to leave.
No-one was, and the three uniformed police attending, strangely sitting with their backs to the audience, were not needed.
Cllr Johnston said that because of the planning process, councillors needed to keep an open mind and not form a view on the prison too soon.
‘Just because we’re guarded in what we say, it doesn’t mean we’re not listening,’ he said.
All councillors attended and did a lot of listening at the meeting. None spoke, fulfilling anti-prison group fears they would be gagged on their opinion of the prison.
The night’s most passionate speech was made by WRAP secretary Anne Marie Loader.
‘We find ourselves here tonight because we’ve been fed a bunch of lies,’ she said.
‘The reserve would have to be the dumbest site for a prison. Electricity, water and sewerage all need to be supplied.
‘It’s a bushfire prone area and evacuating people will be an impossible task.
‘Birralee Road will remain dangerous.’
Ms Loader said that gaoling was failing. Prisons didn’t make economic sense and generated crime.
‘There is chronic under- resourcing of Risdon Prison, which is plagued by understaffing. And people come out of there worse than when they went in.
‘Shiny new walls won’t make a fig of difference.
‘How can the government afford to run two prisons? They won’t. Risdon Prison will close and Meander Valley Prison will be Tasmania’s only prison.’
Finally, Ms Loader aimed squarely at Meander Valley Council, ‘Our council got us into this mess and they need to get us out.’
Birralee conservationist Sarah Lloyd also spoke, as did prison supporters Grace Rock, Leigh Watts and Berris Atkins. Their points involved increased jobs, businesses, cars, roads, services and facilities that would come with a prison.
Grace Rock said, ‘More drugs cause an increase in crime. Risdon is not big enough to hold all those criminals and the only way to fix it is to build another prison.
‘To be fair to prisoners’ family members it should be in the centre of the north, which happens to be Westbury.’
