Turei Metiria: Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Turei Metiria: Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 17 November 2009. Volume:659;Page:7732. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 The Green Party remains absolutely opposed to this legislation. It is not evidence-based. It is ideological it is dangerous to the community to staff and to prisoners and it will increase costs to the public purse. 
First I thank all of those brave souls who came to the Law and Order Committee to discuss with the committee their experiences of working within prisons and with prisoners. I pay particular regard to Pat McGill from the Napier Pilot City Trust who with his many years of service to his community talked of the importance of a community taking responsibility for its members developing an inclusive culture that respects all people and seeking non-violent solutions to issues of crime and poverty. 
I acknowledge the Corrections Association of New Zealand for its contribution from front-line staff in its submission to the committee. The association rightfully referred the committee to the many examples of private prison companies overseas that have reduced staff conditions and placed their staff in increasingly dangerous circumstances. Indeed the officials themselves reported that there were more escapes from the private prison in New Zealand than from prisons in the public sector. The Corrections Association talked about how the experience in New Zealand and overseas shows that private prison guards are paid less and have reduced conditions of employment and submitted that there is nothing in this legislation to protect current staff and their jobs and certainly no obligation on the part of the private prison to continue with their collective agreement. The association also raised very serious fears about the impact on staff of a combination of less experienced officers double-bunking and longer lock-up periods for prisoners all of which compound the serious and very real dangers to staff. 
I also thank the staff who had worked in the private prison in Auckland but who came to the select committee despite the risk to their potential future employment. They talked about how decisions were made by GEO Group management to protect the GEO Group’s reputation—this is the lived experience of staff in the private prison—and to ensure that performance bonuses were paid. That experience included the practice of staff not being disciplined but being encouraged to resign so that performance bonuses would continue to be paid. The staff said that emphasis on ensuring compliance with the contract meant there was an incentive not to find drugs in the prison as opposed to the practice in the public sector where there is a genuine wish to find drugs if they are present. Indeed the staff raised concerns about inadequate drug testing under GEO Group management so as to comply with the contract and retain the performance bonus. These are classic examples of that private company in managing the private prison massaging the compliance so that it could continue to make money off the public purse and thereby putting staff prisoners and the public at large at greater risk of harm. 
A similar situation also applied to self-harm incidents where under the GEO Group staff were encouraged to avoid reporting those incidents in order to protect their performance bonuses and to avoid penalties being imposed through the contract. Basic protocol was disregarded such as having prisoners escorted to the visiting areas by guards who were related to them. One guard was later allowed to resign and not prosecuted for breaching that protocol so that performance bonuses would continue to be paid from the public purse to the private company. 
Submitters were concerned that because prison officers worked in a high-risk environment it was vital that officers were of a high calibre but they said that under the GEO Group casual inexperienced staff were often employed in the private prison in Auckland thereby exposing officers to dangerous situations. Australian staff who did not relate well to Maori or Pacific Island prisoners were brought over to work in the private prison and those staff were paid better than their New Zealand counterparts and took jobs from New Zealand corrections officers because the GEO Group paid Department of Corrections staff significantly less than those brought over from Australia. 
This is the practical daily lived experience and it reflects the research around private prisons. The US Department of Justice report  
Emerging Issues on Privatized Prisons 
 clearly shows that the privatisation models simply mimic the public sector. The promises to provide more than 20 percent of savings did not eventuate under private management and the modest savings that were made came as a result of staff reductions and other labour-related costs. Another report from Australia “Privatisation and New South Wales Prisons: Value for Money and Neo-liberal Regulation” again shows that privatisation of prisons there did not result in value for money or in a significant reduction in costs. In fact the paper shows that the rhetoric of cost-effectiveness undermines the alternative criteria such as safety educational outcomes or reduced reoffending. 
Of course we can see all that reflected in the practice of the GEO Group in the Auckland remand prison because by reducing those other criteria for safety like detecting for drugs and following basic protocols the company could maintain its performance bonuses and do a good job of trying to suck up public money. So we know that in a private prison conditions worsen for staff and money is made for the private company through its failing to provide adequate wages and conditions and its failing to report drug and violent incidents. 
National and its cronies however will continue with the fallacy that private prisons are cheaper. It is a fallacy; we know for a fact that it is not true. The officials to the Law and Order Committee told us it was untrue when they provided us with the figures that colleagues from Labour have been discussing in this debate. 
Jane Kelsey came to the committee and provided a very interesting economic analysis particularly about the economic issues facing private ventures into public services. That submission put a spotlight on the fallacy of the National Government—and the Maori Party if it feels it is supporting this bill. Her analysis clearly showed that having private companies running prisons is more costly to the public purse in a variety of ways. The global recession for example means that it is harder for private prison companies to get finance and there is an intense pressure on those companies to maximise short-term profits. If profits do not meet expectations then there are pressures to renegotiate the contract with the State. The State then potentially has to carry the risk of the private company’s failure; the legislation before us does not constrain the length of a private contract so that is a financial risk that the State could carry for many years to come. In addition as it happened with the private prison here in New Zealand the then Labour Government had to wait out the contract before returning the prison to public management because of the cost of closing it down earlier. That is a cost borne by the public—public money is used to prop up other businesses or private companies particularly international companies. 
This bill shuts out the public from knowledge of the commercial interests in the dealings of the private company even though it is public money that is being used to feed that private company. Reports of the monitors are not made public. The Official Information Act can be thwarted by using commercial sensitivity provisions. There is no accountability or at least accountability to the shareholders of the company and no accountability to the public whose safety is at heart here. There are a number of other issues that no doubt we will canvass during the Committee stage of the bill. 
Finally National and the Maori Party are trying to argue that this bill will be good for Maori business or Maori iwi because Maori will be able to get into the business of prisons. Those parties are wrong. Private prisons operate through corporate structures that limit their liability and that puts joint ventures with iwi very much at financial risk. Not only is it a bad deal for Maori economically but it is grossly unethical for Maori to make a profit from the incarceration of Maori in a legal system that has been demonstrably proven to be biased. We urge the Maori Party to oppose any profiteering from racism. Profiteering from racism will never be OK. We urge the Maori Party to oppose this legislation. Prison is the harshest penalty that our community imposes on its citizens. The use of that extraordinary power must remain in the hands of the State which is accountable only to the community and not to international private profiteering companies. Thank you.