Smith Nick: Corrections Bill — First Reading 
Smith Nick: Corrections Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:607;Page:4700] 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (NZ National—Nelson) 
: 
 That speech showed just how out of touch the Government is with the expectations that the people of New Zealand have of our corrections services. This afternoon I join with my colleague Tony Ryall—one of the most effective spokespersons on justice I have seen in my 12 years in this Parliament—who brings some realism to the key issues of law and order we deal with in this House. In particular I want to focus on the Government’s obsession with statist solutions to correctional challenges. 
It is good to have John Tamihere in Parliament. What he said about the statist policies of this Government is absolutely right and no more reinforced than in the mad provisions of this bill—clauses 185 and 186—that will prohibit private management of prisons in New Zealand. John Tamihere said that the State does not have all the answers and National knew that. That is why in 1997 National provided in our correctional laws—specifically the Penal Institutions Act—for the private management of prisons. What did Labour members predict? Labour members should go back to  
Hansard 
 to look at the stupid things they said about what private prisons would do. They made all sorts of obscene claims. As a previous Minister of Corrections I am proud that I signed the contract to allow Australasian correctional management to introduce the private management of the Auckland remand prison. 
Have any claims made by Labour in 1997 come to fruition? 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Not one. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Not one. In every single performance measure the Auckland remand prison has outperformed our public prisons. Labour wants to shut it down and I want to know why. 
Stephen Franks 
: It is too embarrassing. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: My colleague is probably right. He is right in saying that Labour is so embarrassed by the success of private prisons. 
One thing that concerns me and my constituents is the cost of running our prison service. Do members know that the private prison system is providing a remand facility at $29000 per inmate a year less than the public service? That is $5.7 million a year being saved by what National did in providing private contracts. Why are members opposite opposed to saving $5.7 million a year? 
Russell Fairbrother 
: You cannot compare remand prisons to sentence prisons. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Let us check that out. Mr know-it-all Fairbrother says that one cannot compare prisons. Margaret Wilson tried that line and misled the people of New Zealand. She said that the figure of $72000 per inmate in the public prison service was an unfair comparison with $43000. Let us be serious. Where do we know of a comparable public facility? The Christchurch remand prison is identical. It was built by National. It is a brand new building run by the public prison service and it costs $29000 per inmate more for public prisons to run it than it does to run the Auckland facility. If that is not comparable then I ask Mr Fairbrother to explain why. [ 
Interruption 
] I remind members opposite of all the good things we could do with $5.7 million a year such as the number of people who could be put into a prevention programme like Family Start the number of extra teachers and a reduction in the number of mental health patients. Under this Government they are being thrown into police cells and prison because this Government’s ideological perversities are so opposed to private success stories. It is just unexplainable and it is a disgrace. I challenge John Tamihere to oppose this bill because it is statist nonsense. It is that simplistic view that if it is not run by the public service then it is not good. 
Then we had the contribution from Mr Matt Robson. He said—and I give him credit—that as Minister of Corrections he had been to the Auckland remand centre and it was doing a good job. On that Mr Robson we agree. He said the reason was that all the staff had been trained in the public prison service. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Rubbish! 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Well I have the staff figures here and there are 69 correctional officers at the Auckland remand centre. Do members know what portion of them have previously worked in the public prison service? It is less than 10 percent. Ninety percent of them have never worked in the public prison service. Is it not a remarkable success story that a facility run by a private service with independently trained officers is able to so outperform the public one? 
Let us look at the ways in which the private prison service is outperforming the public sector. Let us look at the number of incidents. All of us in this Parliament would want to run a prison service in which suicides and self-harm are minimised. Is it not interesting that the record of the private prison service is substantially better than the public prison service? Let us look at the training programmes that have operated in terms of the Maori relationship which is obviously important for a prison in Auckland. I can tell Mr John Tamihere that the Maori community in Auckland says that the privately run prison is a success story. 
Let us look at the number of programmes that are run in terms of education and cultural activity. In all those things the private prison service is outperforming the public prison service. Why shut it down? Why let ideology get in the way of what works? When we debated that matter in 1997 there was a theoretical debate. People said it might work in Australia but it would not work in New Zealand. Well it is working in New Zealand and this ideologically stupid Government wants to shut down success increase the cost to the New Zealand taxpayer and reduce the performance of our prison service. I say that that is a disgrace—[ 
Interruption 
] I ask Mr Fairbrother why the Auckland remand prison has been able to operate successfully with 69 prison officers— 
Russell Fairbrother 
: It is a remand prison. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: That is right it is a remand prison. When it is taken over by the public prison service how many staff do the union rules say it must have? Not 69 but 150! What is the sense in that? That is simply about Labour playing to its trade union - lackey mates rather than doing what is in the interests of the taxpayers and our prison services. It is a disgrace. 
The further point of concern that I have about this bill is that there are loads of clauses on all of the rights our inmates must have and so little about the victims. We have three clauses about all the food and dietary provisions we have to make for our prisoners. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Read it out. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Well it does make interesting reading: “Every prisoner must be provided with a sufficient quantity of wholesome food and drink based on food and nutritional guidelines”…that will comply with “the various religious spiritual and cultural needs of the prisoners.” My goodness me! It seems to me that this Government is more interested in the rights of inmates than the rights of other citizens in this country of ours. Members on this side of the House say that is wrong. 
I have to make one further point in respect of some of the other rights such as telephones. We will give inmates the right to use telephones. Is it not intriguing that the Minister of Justice Phil Goff challenged me as Minister of Corrections to make the legal changes to allow phone-tapping? In 3 and a bit years of a Labour Government they have not done a thing about it. Inmates are continuing to commit crimes behind prison walls and Labour does not seem to care. It is not good enough.