Media release – Elise Archer, Minister for Corrections and Rehabilitation, 5 May 2022
Next steps for Northern Correctional Facility
The Tasmanian Government remains committed to delivering the Northern Correctional Facility project to provide better rehabilitation and reintegration outcomes for offenders and their families. That’s why we have engaged with the local community regarding the future use of the Ashley Youth Detention Centre (AYDC) site and its suitability as the site for a modern, fit for purpose correctional facility.
The consultation process has provided a comprehensive overview of community attitudes within the Meander Valley, and for a proposal of this nature, there is an encouraging level of community support for the AYDC site to be considered.
As a result, we will now commence due diligence investigations at the AYDC site, which will involve continued engagement with local landholders and the community.
The AYDC site is now the only site we are considering for the Northern Correctional Facility, and therefore we will halt the work currently being conducted at the Crown Land site at Birralee Road.
I thank the residents of the Meander Valley community for their valuable feedback and participation in this extensive consultation process, which included a bulk mail out to more than 6,000 delivery points through Australia Post, direct contact with near neighbours of the site, advertisements in multiple local newspapers, and shop front/drop-in sessions held at several locations at different times throughout the day over a five week period.
A total of 143 people attended these drop-in sessions across Deloraine, Westbury and Elizabeth Town, with 125 written submissions also received, including feedback forms provided at the drop-in sessions, e-submissions and postal submissions.
A copy of the consultation report can be found at: http://www.justice.tas.gov.au/ncf
This important project will ensure the Tasmania Prison Service has modern, fit for purpose, secure facilities that allow for a strong focus on rehabilitation for offenders who are progressing through their sentences and starting to prepare for reintegration into the community.
I look forward to continuing to progress the new correctional facility in the months ahead.
Media release – Westbury Region Against the Prison Inc, 5 May 2022
WRAP Up
For over two and a half years, WRAP has fought tirelessly against the senseless proposal to burden the small rural town of Westbury with the Northern Regional Prison. When our group incorporated to take this fight up to the Government, our campaign’s catch cry was “Save Historic Westbury”.
The decision to move the proposal away from the Westbury region brings an end to WRAP’s campaign. The amenity and character of our town have been preserved, not just through our efforts but because the two sites we campaigned against were bottom of the barrel choices.
This backflip on the prison mirrors the backflip on the Burnie Court. It shows that no good decisions are made in a hurry and without consultation.
This journey has been hard and divisive. But it has also been educational.
Tasmanians have been sold a lie. Prisons do not keep our communities safer. They are a revolving door of misery which eventually spills out into the community.
The more prisons we build the more at risk we become. We have researched this in depth, and we know this.
We have learned that in order to keep us all safer, the focus of the criminal justice system must shift to rehabilitation, and away from punishment. And for this reason, we welcome the new ministerial title conferred upon Elise Archer MP (Minister for Corrections and Rehabilitation). It’s one step towards rectifying this imbalance.
We sincerely hope that any northern ‘correctional’ facility proposed in future will have rehabilitation as its core focus, not punishment. We still doubt that the core needs of inmates and staff can be met by a facility in the middle of a bucolic community, far from essential services.
So, if the proposal for Ashley is for a retrograde “lock ‘em up and throw away the key” facility, and the people of Deloraine and Exton oppose it, many of us here in Westbury will support them.
Rosalie Woodruff MP, Corrections spokesperson, 5 May 2022
Northern Prison and the Power of Protest
Corrections Minister Elise Archer has finally bowed to overwhelming community pressure and announced a new Northern Prison will not be located at Brushy Creek Reserve, Westbury. The Liberal Party were dragged kicking and screaming to this sensible position, forced to recognise communities would never stop in their defence of Brushy Creek’s natural values.
The Minister has reluctantly adopted the Greens’ original proposal – made two years’ ago – to locate any new therapeutic corrections’ facility on the site that currently houses Ashley Youth Detention Centre.
The bungling of this issue by Minister Archer has created enormous distress to residents of Westbury. It demonstrates, again, the power of protest to produce the best result for Tasmania.
The Greens want to pay tribute to the staunch and ongoing resistance shown by the local protest groups that sprung up to protect Westbury’s character and the integrity of the Brushy Rivulet Reserve. It’s another reminder that Tasmanians who love their place will always stand up against injustice and for natural values, no matter what the odds.
We look forward to Minister Archer’s apology to Westbury residents, and especially to all the members of WRAP (Westbury Residents Opposed to the Prison), CROWPS (Concerned Residents Opposed to the Westbury Prison Site) and the Central North Field Naturalists (led by the eminent Sarah Lloyd, OAM) who suffered undue anxiety over this issue for all these years.
The Liberal Government needs to honour the agreement undertaken with the Commonwealth when the block at Brushy Creek was purchased with funds from the National Reserve System Program – it needs to provide legal conservation protection for Brushy Creek.
Brushy Rivulet Reserve is saved, thanks to the power of community protest and persistence.
Jen Butler MP, Labor Member for Lyons, 5 May 2022
Still no decision on northern prison
Successive Liberal Governments brought only chaos and upheaval to northern Tasmanian communities and families with Corrections Minister Elise Archer’s incompetent handling of the northern prison project.
This is an incompetent Minister who has wasted hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on various northern prison proposals with still no decision on when the project might be delivered.
Embattled Minister Archer’s only achievement in the past three years has been to cause enormous distress and division across the community.
Today’s news the Minister has finally seen sense to walk away from the Westbury prison site will be welcome news for the community.
But the announcement of a plan for a plan to consider the Ashley Youth Detention Centre as the preferred site came with no details about a timeframe or whether the government still intends to deliver this project.
This Minister has drawn out and mishandled this project and deeply distressed many across the community with her terrible handling of the northern prison proposal.
This project is the hallmark of a government that fails to deliver because of its own incompetence.
