Ardern Jacinda: Urgent Debates — Mt Eden Corrections Facility—Serco’s PerformanceText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeArdern Jacinda: Urgent Debates — Mt Eden Corrections Facility—Serco’s Performance[Sitting date: 21 July 2015. Volume:707;Page:5130. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JACINDA ARDERN (Labour):Perhaps I should not be surprised that Government members in their contributions in this House on such a critical issue as the state of our corrections service actually reference Orange is the New Black as part of their contribution to this debate. Perhaps I should not have been surprised because of course this debate has been triggered by the emergence of what appears to be organised fight clubs and not just in the corrections service but explicitly within the Serco-run prison at Mt Eden.This has been happening for some time. Fight clubs are not new. We are now learning that a report was carried out within the Department of Corrections some time ago—many many months ago—and it was not acted upon. When the Minister of Corrections was asked why he had not acted upon this report he simply said that he was not the Minister when it was first written and therefore it was not his responsibility. I mean that is almost as credible as having the Minister say: “The first rule of fight club is don’t talk about fight club.” That actually would have been just as credible a response because we have a “Don’t ask don’t tell.” response to the debacle that is occurring not in our corrections service but in Serco-run prisons—in a Serco-run prison—and it is an important distinction to raise.I cannot let the Minister’s speech go unresponded to. He laid out some particularly awful responses to Kelvin Davis’ very legitimate speech in this House. Kelvin Davis raised legitimate concerns not just about the fight clubs or the contradictions that have arisen since this issue has emerged. He raised concerns about assaults he raised concerns about unrecorded incidents within Mt Eden and he raised concerns about prisoners with significant injuries as a result of assaults being moved to other prisons to potentially stop them being recorded against Serco’s record.What was the Minister’s response to those legitimate claims of concern? What was his response to the request from the member to simply investigate as any Minister doing their job should? Well first he called it hearsay. That was probably the response the first time that fight clubs were raised as well. How do you prove that something is occurring within a prison? We are not there 24/7. We hear what we hear from staff and then we ask the Minister to do the right thing and investigate. To have it called hearsay is simply irresponsible and it is the Minister avoiding doing his job.He then claimed that Kelvin Davis should put up or shut up. Well the last time that Labour raised concerns about Serco was when we had legitimate concerns raised by staff within that facility who said that Serco was understaffing the prisons and that at times on a unit of 40 there would be one prison officer—one prison officer—in the security area and then one on the other wing. That is understaffing what is a critical part of the corrections service. We raised that and what happened as a result? Serco issued its staff with what could be considered only as a threat—that any more concerns raised in public would be clamped down on. So that is what happens when this side of the House puts up. We put up we told the Government what is happening in this prison well over a year ago and what happened? The staff got threats.So I say to that Minister that we have put up. It is now up to the Minister to respond. But what this side of the House will not do is put Department of Corrections staff under threat or at risk by exposing them. Instead it is our job to raise those issues and it is our expectation that the Minister will do something about it.Our concerns about Serco are longstanding. It is not just a moral issue for us that prisons should be run by the State. If you remove the liberties of an individual that should be the job of the State. Why should there be a profit motive in our prison system? But our response to privatisation has also been practical. Serco has an appalling record—appalling—in Australia and the UK and yet this Government’s response has been not only to hand it Mt Eden prison but to build one of the largest prisons in New Zealand and to hand it to Serco to operate. It is now closing arms of regional prisons in order to make sure that Wiri Prison is full so that it can fulfil its contract with Serco. It is appalling it is shameful and the Minister needs to do his job.