Full disclosure of planned private operation of secure prison at Wooroloo begins

5/3/99
In a world-leading move, the State Government today began a program of full disclosure relating to the planned private operation of the major secure prison to be built at Wooroloo South.
Justice Minister Peter Foss said that all Members of Parliament had been invited to inspect the proposal for which Corrections Corporation of Australia was selected to negotiate with the Government for a contract to operate the prison, which will be the State's biggest.
"Nowhere else in the world has a Government chosen to be as open," he said.
"It is a tribute to the community spirit of CCA that they have enthusiastically joined the Government in disclosing information normally regarded as commercially confidential."
Mr Foss said that giving MPs access to the CCA submission - with Government and CCA experts present to answer questions - was only the first stage in the disclosure program.
"Ultimately, I intend to table the documents in Parliament so that they are completely public," he said.
"The only material that will remain confidential at this stage are the financial and commercial details of the CCA proposal. This has to be so because they are subject to change as a result of the contract negotiations currently being held and in any event we have to preserve the position should we need to go to other tenders.
"However, CCA have indicated that they are even prepared to have this information disclosed when the figures are finalised.
"It has been the Government's hope all along that such unprecedented transparency would be possible.
"I started the ball rolling when I made public the Request for Proposal drawn up to inform qualified private groups about the standards the Government required them to meet in their submissions to design, build, finance, operate and maintain the new prison," Mr Foss said.
"When CCA were selected as the Preferred Respondent from this competitive process, we began talking about wider disclosure. Although a great deal of CCA's submission is proprietary material, they are willing to make it public.
"This is a breakthrough of profound significance. CCA's co-operation - particularly in agreeing to disclosure before they have the security of a contract - has enabled the Government to take a major step forward in its reshaping of the prison system to cut the rate of reoffending.
"The new prison is central to this program and the changes it will make possible are far-reaching."
"The justice system is extremely important to the community so it is vital that people are able to assess and support the changes confident that they know the facts."
Mr Foss said two further avenues of openness were planned. He intended to make public the contract to operate the prison by tabling it in Parliament and he would ask that a parliamentary committee be appointed to monitor and report on the operations of the prison for the first few years to ensure that the public, through representatives of non-Government as well as Government parties, had open access to the performance of the contracted operator.
"Both of these proposals also break new ground," the Minister said.
"The Government recognises that although privately operated prisons are well accepted and successful in other parts of the world, they are a new and unfamiliar concept to Western Australians.
"We believe that as long as factual information is freely available, the community will come to view a mixed prison system in the same light as our existing mixed education and health systems, where the private sector is noted for the quality of its service."
Media contact: Chris Morris 9321 2222