Ardern Shane: Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons)  Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Ardern Shane: Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons)  Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:653;Page:2038] 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country) 
: 
 I also rise in support of the Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill. May I say that I was fascinated by the speech given by the previous corrections Minister now Leader of the Opposition—unkindly described by some of his colleagues as “Phil-in”. He is now the Leader of the Opposition no less and I guess one could argue that he is also the person in the House most likely to have some knowledge of this topic as he was the previous Minister with the corrections portfolio. He said that the whole thing was driven by ideology. I just could not believe it. He was followed by colleagues who spoke on the same theme: that ideology is driving this amendment. To suggest that is to suggest that the status quo is the perfect outcome. It is to suggest that what we have now cannot be improved on and that therefore any suggested change will be a backward change that should not be considered. 
 There is an old saying and it goes like this: “If you always do what you’ve always done you’ll always get what you’ve always got.” If people are happy with what they have that is probably the best position for them to take. But I for one am not happy—and a lot of members on this side of the House are not happy—with the status quo in regard to our penal institutions in this country. We are absolutely dissatisfied with the outcome. 
One example that many have spoken of—and my colleague Te Ururoa Flavell who spoke just before me very eloquently described it—is the situation with the Auckland Central Remand Prison. It was an experiment it was something new and it was something we could look to for guidance to see what worked what did not work and what could be done better. We find when we go back and look at that example—and here is the irony of the Leader of the Opposition’s comments—that it was done away with on the purely ideological ground that we cannot have the private sector involved in the management of our prisons. Members should understand that; it is what the explanatory note of the bill states. We could not have the private sector involved in the management—not the ownership general direction or policy but just the management—of our prisons. The Labour Government did away with that. It introduced legislation to wipe it out when it was just starting to bed in and when its advantages were starting to become evident. 
We know for a fact that about 50 percent of our prison population is Maori. We have to ask some very basic questions about why that is. Why is it the case? What can be done about that? Is the current system working? Is there opportunity through individual management policies for Maori to have a greater role in what is clearly a problem within that racial group? Is that a question or not? The answer is clearly yes there is potentially an opportunity for something to happen. If we look again at the example of the Auckland Central Remand Prison and ask what happened during the private management period we see that Maori themselves took much greater ownership of what was going on in our penal system and the outcomes were overwhelmingly good. 
So why would Labour which has for years purported to represent this sector of society be so vehemently opposed to the notion of contract management of prisons? Why would it? The only explanation—and my colleague Te Ururoa Flavell overwhelmingly stated this—is that Labour wants to keep Maori in a lower socio-economic group in society so that they will keep voting for Labour. Well it is over. That show is over. It ended in 2008 and Labour needs to get used to it. That was the end of that. 
So what is proposed? The proposal in this bill is to introduce private management along the lines of what was in place in the Auckland Central Remand Prison back in 2000 when that prison was built and opened and to allow the chief executive of the Department of Corrections to have oversight of the management of it. 
David Garrett 
: There’s a frightening idea! 
SHANE ARDERN 
: Well that is what is proposed. Everybody has the opportunity to raise those issues in the select committee and I am sure the ACT Party will contribute substantially to that. 
David Garrett 
: A rhetorical observation. 
SHANE ARDERN 
: I know but it is a legitimate concern based on some of the discussion that has gone on in recent times. 
The bottom line is that what is happening now is failing. So what are we going to do differently if we do not accept this proposal that has been put forward? What is being proposed is to put this bill through the select committee process to allow for open scrutiny and proper study a proper survey of what is happening internationally. 
I was interested in some of the comments from the Green Party which used the American example and implied that the judiciary was able to be corrupted. I guess one could find some examples somewhere in the world where that has happened but New Zealand has a proud record. I stand to be corrected but I do not think there has been a single case anywhere in New Zealand where there was evidence of corruption at the top level of our judiciary. So to imply that it could happen by our allowing private management of a prison facility is a step well and truly beyond where most of us are able to leap in our thinking at this stage. 
At the end of the day it is a question of what is next and how we are going to improve the status quo. Here is an opportunity for those on the other side of the House to observe be involved be positive and perhaps have a look at what can be done and not just oppose on an ideological ground. Even though the previous Minister must have evidence that what we have been doing in New Zealand could be done better he certainly will have plenty of evidence that private sector operations in other fields operate well. 
Are Labour members suggesting that our dental services in this country are second-rate? Are they suggesting that in health our general practitioners do not operate to the standards that doctors do in the State part of our hospital system? Their Labour Government used private sector providers to transport prisoners and some shortcomings were found. Are they suggesting that all prison transport should now be managed by the State? Are they suggesting for example that all of our farms in New Zealand should be run by the State? That was tried in Russia many years ago and it did not work. Are they suggesting that all of our roading in New Zealand should be managed and funded entirely by the State? When Labour was in Government it could not do that itself. The Labour Government allowed the private sector into roading despite many of its members having said it never would. Are Labour members suggesting that the private sector has no role to play anywhere in any part of Government policy? 
I agree with Mr Goff that one of the core activities or principles of a democracy or a Government is to protect its citizens and to provide the right set of standards and services particularly in our penal institutions. We agree on that; that is absolute. But is Labour saying that as a result of our allowing private management of some of those services we will see a much lower standard or potentially a hazardous situation? Well there may be an example somewhere where that will be the case but as we know there are plenty of examples in our current system where the State has failed. The worst cases of constituent abuse that I have had to deal with as a constituency MP have been those carried out by Government departments not by the private sector. There is plenty of evidence on both sides of this argument that one is as good as the other provided that the policy framework the regulation and the things that need to be put in place to make sure it is run well are there and are administered.