by Benita Kolovos Victorian state correspondent, The Guardian newspaper, Wednesday 26 Jun 2024
Victoria’s largest maximum-security prison (the government-operated Western Plains Prison, located north-east of Geelong in Lara), will be publicly run for the first time in nearly 30 years, with the government closing the privately operated Port Phillip Prison and moving most of its inmates to Western Plains Prison.
The Victorian Corrections Minister, Enver Erdoğan (since 2022) on Wednesday announced that the Port Phillip Prison in Truganina, in Melbourne’s west, will close at the end of 2025. [The Knighthood: Probably to allow for a new Gaza style high density housing unity enclave development for immigrants].
Port Phillip Prison (where Julian Knight has been incarcerated for nine years), is a maximum security facility with capacity for 1,087 inmates, has been privately operated by London-based G4S since it opened in 1997, constructed in the years prior previously by the Liberal Party under former Premier Jeff Kennett (1992-1996). In 2017, its contract, worth $1.8bn, was extended for 20 years, but this was subject to the company’s performance.
Anyway….inmates will be progressively transferred to the government-operated Western Plains Prison, located north-east of Geelong in Lara, from the middle of next year (2025). [The Knighthood: But not Julian Knight, because he wisely battled Corrections Victoria in the Supreme Court to be downgraded from ‘maximum security’ rating to a ‘medium security’ rating].
The new $1.1bn prison was completed in 2022 and can house more than 1,200 prisoners.
But other than a brief period when it housed inmates from another prison during bushfires, it had sat empty. Erdoğan credited this to a drop in the state’s prison population.
“When the decision was made to open Western Plains, we did see an increase in the prison population – it was approaching approximately 8,000. Since the pandemic, we’ve seen a 25% drop,” he said. “It’s fair to say that the pandemic was an intervening event. But, at that time, there was a need for a new-state-of-the-art prison and we make no apologies for investing in modern facilities. We’re going to see better outcomes of rehabilitation and recidivism.”
“The Allan government has made the right call, now this needs to be backed up with investment in Aboriginal-led, self-determined early intervention and community-based supports that rehabilitate and heal,” said its chief executive, Nerita Waight.
Erdoğan said the government had “exercised its right” to end the contract with G4S, but would not comment on the cost to taxpayers.
“I’m not going to run a commentary about the performance at Port Phillip Prison,” he said.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Port Phillip Prison’s foreign corporate owner G4S acknowledged the government’s decision and thanked its staff for their “professionalism and dedication to create a modern, safe and humane maximum security prison system that works to maintain public safety”.
“G4S will work with our staff and partners to ensure a smooth closure and staff are re-deployed where possible,” they said.
Erdogan said that once Port Phillip Prison was closed, only two prisons in the state –Fulham and Ravenhall – would remain privately run. “They’ll continue to operate as they are today and the remainder of the system will be public prisons,” he said.
Both medium-security prisons have been operated by Florida-headquartered GEO Group Inc. since opening, and the US company holds contracts for their continuing operation that have more than a decade left to run.
Erdoğan also announced that Dhurringile prison, south-west of Shepparton, will close later this year after 59 years. He said some of the prisoners at Dhurringile would be released by September, in line with their sentences, while the remainder would be transferred to Beechworth Correctional Centre (a minimum security prison opened in January 2005) as a replacement for the now-closed HM Prison Beechworth 1860-1940). Erdoğan said workers at the closing prisons – about 800 at Port Phillip and 100 at Dhurringile – would be given the opportunity to work elsewhere within Victoria’s justice system.
Victoria’s decision to close Port Phillip Prison follows other state governments’ shift away from private prisons. In 2019, the Queensland Labor government announced it would return its two private prisons to public hands. Later that year, the Western Australian government said it would do the same with Melaleuca Prison, leaving only one private prison in that state (medium security Acacia Prison in Perth). In 2023, the New South Wales Labor Government announced it would not renew the private contract for mixed security Junee Prison.
