Goulburn has been “let down” by the state government’s rejection of a second prison, says its proponent.
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Southern Infrastructure Pty Ltd managing director Paul Watson was responding to Corrections Minister David Elliot’s dismissal of another local facility on Friday.
“There is no operational requirement for a second prison in Goulburn,” Mr Elliot said in a statement.
“The NSW Government is committed to opening new facilities in Wellington, Cessnock and Grafton.”
Asked why Goulburn had been ruled out, a spokesman for Mr Elliot said there would be no further comment.
However Mr Watson received a letter from the Department of Premier and Cabinet last month advising him that the State didn’t want the prison two hours from Sydney due to the difficulties of transporting prisoners to Sydney courts.
Nevertheless, he was still hoping to lobby politicians on the 5000-bed privately funded proposal planned for 263ha off Mountain Ash Road.
The Minister’s statement has baffled Mr Watson, whose company lodged an unsolicited bid for the jail to the government.
“If someone had told us before that it didn’t have a chance, we would have gone away rather than getting Goulburn’s hopes up and spending all this time and money,” he said.
He told The Post his company had spent about $900,000 over a year putting the bid together with a host of “tier one” partners.
Mr Watson said the State’s recently appointed Regional Infrastructure Coordinator Ken Gillespie and his chief executive Don Murray had encouraged him to lodge the unsolicited bid to Premier and Cabinet, to which they were attached.
“The whole idea of unsolicited bids is to encourage the private sector to propose solutions to infrastructure problems,” he said.
Mr Watson said Mr Murray also attended the closed session of Goulburn Mulwaree Council’s June 27 meeting at which councillors gave “unanimous” in principle support to the idea.
He was not blaming Mr Gillespie or Mr Murray but questioned whether government departments, such as Corrections, were on the same page with a stated goal to encourage regional development.
“We accept the government has a right to make decisions but I think in this era of transparency, there should be greater explanation of why it was rejected,” Mr Watson said.
He referred to a 2016 report by then acting Auditor-General, Tony Whitfield.
“Unsolicited proposals warrant more disclosure as they pose a greater risk to value for money than procurements done through open, competitive and transparent processes,” Mr Whitfield said.
“This could include aggregate information about why proposals are declined...”
From 2012 to 2016, NSW Premier and Cabinet had received 117 unsolicited bids but only three had been accepted.
Mr Watson said despite requests, nobody in government had responded to his request for a fuller explanation on why the bid was declined.
However Goulburn MP Pru Goward last week said she had asked the Department to debrief Mr Watson. This followed a meeting between the pair two weeks ago.
Mr Watson said he was surprised at this meeting that Ms Goward was unaware of the proposal. He suspects elements within Corrective Services also didn’t know.
“We feel let down by the system and that the people of Goulburn have also been let down a bit,” he told The Post.
However, Corrective Services referred last week to plans underway to create 7000 new prison plans as part of a $3.8 billion infrastructure investment. This was on top of the previously announced expansion of Parklea Correctional Centre by 650 beds, and the new 1700-bed Grafton prison.
But Mr Watson doubts the government will reach the 7000-bed goal. A 2015 Justice Department found that “the existing prison infrastructure and resources are inadequate to support the correctional population.”
He said the Picton community had rejected a 5000-bed jail and Goulburn was the best alternative given the city’s existing supporting infrastructure and services.
“We haven’t thrown in the towel. We just want an opportunity to to understand where we erred,” he said.