Stateline Western Australia

28/11/2008

W-A's Overcrowded Prisons

This week, the new Corrective Services Minister described the state of Western Australia's prisons as dire.

The problem of overcrowding is chronic. There are about 650 more prisoners in the system than the maximum capacity allows.

If the problem is chronic now, it will soon be unbearable with the Government predicting a significant increase in prisoner numbers due to promised changes to truth in sentencing laws.

With the new prison years away, the Government is now turning its attention to short-term solutions including ways to deal with the high rate of Aboriginal incarceration. Leonie Harris reports.

Crisis Forces Tourism Re-think

The global financial crisis is forcing WA's tourism industry to rethink its approach.

The industry's fears of a significant downturn were confirmed this week in a report commissioned by Tourism WA. The report's author didn't paint a pretty picture, describing it as the most down-beat analysis of the industry he's done in 25 years with a slump in spending predicted across the board.

Tourism WA is now reassessing its approach, pulling its resources out of the UK market and into markets closer to home like Singapore and Malaysia. I spoke with the Chairwoman of Tourism WA, Kate Lamont.

Training On A Shoestring

The State's TAFE colleges have been in the spotlight recently for all the wrong reasons. A report by the Auditor-General found the student drop-out rate to be disturbingly high. The colleges' resources have also been under scrutiny with unions claiming that they've been underfunded for more than a decade. On top of all that there's been speculation that the training institutions Australia-wide are on the brink of being privatised. Veronica Buck reports.

The Vinyl Revival

While the explosion of digital music has put a big dent in CD sales it appears to be having the opposite effect on the old fashioned format of vinyl.

Figures from the Australian recording industry show that while demand for CDs is falling, sales of LPs are up by a third. The music industry insists the number of people buying vinyl is still minuscule and will remain a niche market in the digital age. But as Claire Moodie reports, specialist record shops and diehard collectors are talking up a vinyl revival.