Josh Willie and Labor seem to be living in an alternate reality if they think they have a strong track record of keeping Tasmanians safe.
Mr Willie clearly isn’t across his shadow portfolio - the Hodgman Majority Liberal Government has not made cuts to our Corrections system.
As the Minister for Corrections, I will not be lectured to by Mr Willie and Labor when last year they voted against tougher sentences for child sex offenders and tougher sentences for assaults on frontline workers, which included our hardworking correctional officers.
Labor sacked 108 police officers when last in Government.
Labor has supported union action to withhold DNA testing results from Tasmania Police.
And they’ve failed to commit to one single extra correctional officer, while the Government has recruited an additional 78 since mid-2016, build a 270-bed Northern Prison, in addition to a new Southern Remand Centre at the Risdon Prison Complex.
It took a Hodgman Majority Liberal Government to take action and commission a KPMG Audit, after incorrect prison releases occurred under the former Labor-Green Government in 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013.
And it is our Government which is investing $16 million-plus in improved ICT to safeguard against future problems which will result in the sharing of information from the courts to the prison in real time.
The Department is also investigating a new Prison Management Governance Committee to better support reviews and improvements of operating procedures and significant incident management.
While Labor continue to snipe from the sidelines and offer no alternative solutions or policies, it’s the Hodgman Majority Liberal Government getting on with the job of keeping Tasmanians safe.