'Wrong' to build Northern prison: former premier Lara Giddings

Her comments come after Corrections Minister Elise Archer addressed a heated public meeting on Monday evening at Westbury, where the state government has proposed to build the $270 million prison.

Ms Giddings, who served as premier from 2011-14 and retired from politics in 2017, was also formerly Tasmania's justice minister and Attorney-General.

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She is currently the chief executive of the Australian Medical Association in Tasmania; however, she spoke to The Examiner solely in her capacity as a former premier.

"I think a whole prison, a brand new prison, is wrong," Ms Giddings said.

"It is a total waste of taxpayers' money to be investing $270 million into capital works infrastructure up there, and then having the ongoing costs, which would have to be in the vicinity of around $20 million, you would expect, every year for the recurrent costs and all the overheads.

"When you look at what will actually make for a safer community, you don't invest in more prison beds, you actually invest in community rehabilitation, you invest in housing, you invest in health, you invest in drug and alcohol counselling and support services, you invest in the health system."

Ms Giddings' comments echo those of Grant Herring of criminal justice advocacy group JusTas, who said in September that a new prison would require "a huge cost both in establishment and operation" and that building prisons didn't solve crime problems but, rather, tended "to create them".

The Labor Opposition took a policy to the 2018 state election to spend $40 million on upgrading the Launceston Reception Prison.

Ms Giddings holds to the view that the remand centre should be upgraded or replaced, allowing for more inmates to be housed there.

Labor corrections spokeswoman Ella Haddad reiterated her party's support for a Northern prison, as well as its position that Westbury was the wrong place for it.

A government spokesperson, meanwhile, said Ms Giddings and Labor had "failed to adequately address Tasmania's ageing prison infrastructure for years or even plan for a growing prison population".