The Finocchiaro CLP Government will build a new 1,200-bed private prison at Holtze that will cost taxpayers more than $1 billion and will be operated by a private company for profit, with critics labelling the move “reckless” and “a failure of crime prevention and community safety”.

Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro made the announcement at the current Holtze prison at a press conference Monday morning. The 1,200-bed prison is expected to be constructed as part of a public-private partnership, which will be operated by a private firm paid for by taxpayers.

The government also re-announced its plans for a 200-bed women’s facility at the same site in the Holtze correctional precinct. However, that facility will be built and operated by the Department of Corrections and will likely cost more than $300 million alone.

Ms Finocchiaro said both new facilities were needed, adding that “you can’t put a price on community safety”.

But the announcement of the massive new private men’s prison has angered many, including the union representing the Territory’s corrections officers, who said on Sunday night that privatising the new prison will “allow private corporations to profit from incarceration while Territorians carry the risk, the cost and the consequences”.

“Every dollar extracted as profit is a dollar that is not being invested in correctional officers, rehabilitation programs, prisoner education, mental health services or community safety,” United Workers Union NT secretary Erina Early said.

“The government is choosing to direct public money into corporate profits instead of strengthening the public corrections system.

“After years of staffing shortages, escalating workloads and serious operational challenges, the government’s response is not to invest in its workforce but to outsource [corrections officer’s] profession to the private sector.”

Ms Early added the public can expect corners to be cut while pursuing profits in corrections that will ultimately put the public at risk.

“When profit becomes the priority, there is constant pressure to cut corners, reduce staffing costs and deliver services at the lowest possible price,” she said.

“This is fundamentally at odds with the objectives of a correctional system, where safety, rehabilitation and community protection should always come first.”

CLP adds financial incentive to keep people in jail: MLA

Independent MLA Justine Davis said the new 1,200-bed prison would increase the NT’s prison capacity by 40 per cent, which she said “confirms this government has given up on preventing crime”.

“If locking more people up made us safer, the Territory would already be the safest place in Australia,” she said.

“The Territory locks up more people per capita than anywhere else in Australia. Building a massive private prison is not a crime prevention strategy, it is a failure of crime prevention and community safety.”

Ms Davis said the CLP’s plan to build the new private prison contradicts the government’s claims about crime reductions and flies in the face of what corrections systems should be doing.

“A good corrections system should be aiming to put itself out of business – fewer people entering prison, fewer returning, and safer communities,” she said.

“Instead, the CLP is doubling down on imprisonment and handing a private company a financial incentive to keep people behind bars.

“If crime is going down, why does the CLP need 40 per cent more prison beds?”

Lia Finocchiaro and Corrections Commissioner Matthew Varley inspect map of new remand centre. Pic: NT Independent

Ms Finocchiaro said consulting firm Deloitte completed the business case for the new facility over the last 12 months, “looking at trends right across the country”.

“This is what we are building to drive down that recidivism and that repeat offending,” she said. “There will always be an increase in prisoner numbers and we need to have a correction system that does the job it needs to do.

“We know that there will continue to be crime into the future. Unfortunately, there’s never going to be a time where there is zero, but the downward pressure we’re putting on crime is incredibly important. Now, that means more people are in prison…and the modelling has been done to future-proof.”

She added the new facility will act as a remand and “intake centre”.

“So, this is a really critical and strategic piece of that puzzle to make sure we can empty 45 per cent of the Holtze prison into the remand intake centre,” she said.

“We can close Berrimah prison down and make sure that Holtze is actually operating at capacity instead of over-capacity, which it is now.”

But the new facility will not start construction for at least another 12 months and will take four or five years to construct, Ms Finocchiaro said, which will not see prisoners moved in until 2032 at the earliest.

Opposition says focus should be on new hospital before new prison, while total cost remains unknown

Acting Labor Opposition Leader Ed Smelt said on Sunday that Ms Finocchiaro’s priorities appeared confused.

“Territorians deserve safer communities and a health system that is there when they need it,” he said. “Lia Finocchiaro is planning decades ahead for prison beds, but will not make the same commitment to a new hospital and the Territory’s future health needs.

“Building a prison of this scale and cost for private profit assumes the Territory will keep locking up more people instead of properly investing in prevention, rehabilitation and frontline services to reduce crime and stop people reoffending.”

A recent 1,500-bed men’s prison in Queensland that was finished late last year cost nearly $1 billion, which saw cost blowouts for years.

The current Holtze prison that was completed in 2014, and holds roughly 1,300 inmates, cost taxpayers $1.8 billion for construction and operation costs over 30 years that was also built through a public-private partnership. That project was riddled with faults and problems for corrections staff when it was completed, while also being delayed and over-budget.

There are roughly 3,000 people currently incarcerated across the Northern Territory, with numbers consistently rising.

An expression of interest process for the new prison will commence shortly that will take up to a year.

Treasurer Bill Yan said Monday morning the total cost to taxpayers is currently unknown, adding a recent similar-sized prison built interstate cost $1.5 billion. The cost for Territorians will be paid over an as yet unknown number of years.

“Once we see the outcome of the EOIs, and the decision will be made by next year, we’ll have an understanding of what that lease could cost per annum is going to be,” he said.

“And once we know what that cost is, we’ll be able to put that into our budgets into the future. But that cost won’t come onto our books until the facility is complete and we move prisoners into it.”

Mr Yan added he expected the lease length would be greater than 30 years.

Corrections Commissioner Matthew Varley said the new facility would be under his control but acknowledged it would be staffed by private prison guards. He added that private prisons interstate showed the private model works.

“This is not about privatising existing jobs, let me be really clear about that,” he said.

“This is about a new remand centre, [which] is something we do not have. It is something that we need and it’s something that will deliver better system outcomes to allow our corrections officers and our other professionals to get on with the job of sentence rehabilitation.”

The UWU maintained the new private facility was an “insult” to current public corrections officers.

“A prison is not a shopping centre, it is not a hotel, it is not a commercial opportunity,” Ms Early said. “It is one of the most serious responsibilities of government. The deprivation of liberty should never become a profit-making exercise.

“If [the government] believes privatisation will deliver better outcomes, it should release the evidence. If it cannot, Territorians will rightly conclude that this is privatisation for its own sake.”