A heavily redacted RTI request relating to the government’s proposed northern prison has been returned to the Westbury community, revealing more secrecy from the Liberals.
Labor Member for Lyons, Jen Butler, said the Liberals cannot be trusted on matters of transparency.
“The Liberals are continuing to sit on a social and economic impact report on the northern prison location,” Ms Butler said.
“Now RTI documents obtained by the Westbury community indicate that the report has been titled the Northern Regional Prison Social and Economic Benefit Study and almost everything except the logo is redacted.
“This has raised concerns from Westbury residents that the study is narrowly focussed on the benefits of the proposal and has cast doubt about the scope and accuracy of the report.
“The Premier promised the Westbury community during a visit in February that he would release this report, which will ‘feed into decision-making’ on whether the government will push ahead with Westbury as the site.
“The Premier now has that report and he needs to waste no time in informing the Westbury community of its details.
“Peter Gutwein has two simple tasks: release the report as promised, and tell the Westbury community how much longer his government will prolong their distress.
“Minister Barnett, Minister Shelton and John Tucker should be standing up for the Westbury community – they know the damage the government’s secrecy has caused and yet they are refusing to do anything about it.
“The government must commit to a fair and transparent process for the next proposed location, with detailed community consultation, so this doesn’t happen again.”
Jen Butler
Labor Member for Lyons
