Cosgrove Clayton: Corrections Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Cosgrove Clayton: Corrections Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 28 February 2012. Volume:677;Page:633. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour) 
: 
 In the brief time we have available I just want to set out as many colleagues have our reasons for opposing the Corrections Amendment Bill. I recall when I was corrections spokesperson for our team having visited every prison in the country bar one and I share the sentiments of the speaker who spoke before me from National in respect of Paremoremo. I remember visiting Paremoremo and to be blunt it was like an out-take from  
The Silence of the Lambs 
 in D Block I think it is or the maximum security section of that prison.  
Labour is opposed to this bill not just specifically on ideological grounds but I place on record that we have a position as our position has always been that says that this is a core responsibility—that is the incarceration of the citizenry is a core responsibility—of the Government of the Crown of the community in effect. It is the Crown through the police that effects an arrest and brings charges. It is the Crown through the judiciary that deals and renders a verdict through the court system. And therefore it should be the Crown that takes responsibility for incarceration. But what if you put those facts aside or that position aside and all we are interested in in respect of corrections is dollars and cents? That is an important concern to have but I would say the most important concern is the public duty that we have in this place to ensure that for somebody going to prison their problems are identified they are rehabilitated—which is not a dirty word—and they are returned to the community in the hope that their behaviour has been changed that they have been rewired and reprogrammed as it were in the hope that they will not offend again thereby not creating another victim or series of victims. I would have thought the absolute base primary function of a corrections system is behaviour change because if it is not behaviour change then we let the person out again without addressing the fundamentals and there is another person killed maimed or wounded—another set of tears another loss. 
 But if all we are interested in is dollars and cents then can I just remind the House of when National was last in Government in the 1990s and it privatised the Auckland Central Remand Prison. Treasury actually looked at that and independent audits were done and when you compare the privatised Auckland Central Remand Prison which we wound back with a like remand prison—not comparing a maximum security facility with a remand prison—the dollars that were revealed showed that the public sector actually was cheaper per prisoner to administer. So if all the Government is interested in is dollar efficiency my query is this: are the Minister and the Government so weak that they cannot require their own department to be innovative to learn from overseas examples to be efficient to be more effective? Are the Crown and the Government so inept that they are not prepared to require of their department that when required it lift its game? Or have they decided through this bill and through the privatisation of the Auckland Central Remand Prison for the second time that they have hoisted the white flag and said: “It is not up to us as a Government any more or a corrections Minister. We give up. We’re just going to pass it over to the private sector.”? Because if all you are interested in is dollars and cents the only evidence—I recall this on the select committee when the privatisation bill was going through and we heard it from corrections officers Treasury folk and others—is that like for like the public sector was cheaper. It was cheaper. They were the facts.  
So we will oppose this not just on a belief that there is a Crown core responsibility when it comes to the incarceration of citizenry but we will also oppose this because it does not work. I do not believe as a former Minister that you should say: “We are out of ideas. We can’t require a department to be innovative or efficient. We are just going to contract it out and flick it out to the private sector and give up.” You need to show some guts you need to show some gumption and you need to require of that department that it does the Government’s will. I have to say that corrections officers—the men and women whom I have met—do a job that I could not do and I suspect that very few of any people in this House could do dealing with the ugly side of our society and putting themselves in harm’s way.