Sepuloni Carmel: Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Sepuloni Carmel: Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 17 November 2009. Volume:659;Page:7739. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour) 
: 
 I am very happy to stand and speak in opposition to the Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill and many of the speeches we have heard this evening highlight the reason why. When I look across the room I cannot believe there are people who would support this bill. The previous speaker Mr Jonathan Young went on about the fact that when National came into Government there was such a high level of incarceration. That is a huge contradiction when we know that a big part of the platform that the National Party stood on to win last year’s election was that apparently we were not locking up enough people. Yet today that member is saying that we had high levels of incarceration and we were locking up far too many offenders. This is the type of thing that shows the flip-flop nature of that Government. 
There are a few things I want to touch on with regard to what other people have spoken about tonight. One comment that I found quite offensive was made by the ACT member David Garrett and concerned one of the submissions made by the prison union the Corrections Association of New Zealand. He talked about the fact that the union representatives came to the committee and talked about this that and the other and he referred to them as union goons. Personally I find that comment offensive. As far as I am concerned the only goon in the room when they were presenting their submission was that member himself. 
That same member—that same goon—also went on about the fact that there was no evidence as to why private prisons would not work. I sat on the Law and Order Committee with my learned colleagues Clayton Cosgrove and Rick Barker and we heard much evidence to support our line that private prisons did not work the one time we ran that proposition in New Zealand. They have not worked overseas either. I found it difficult to listen to the ACT member go on about the fact that there has been no evidence that private prisons do not work. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Where is the goon? 
CARMEL SEPULONI 
: I do not know where the goon is. He went on about the fact that they are safer cheaper and better and that we had no grounds for opposing what they were putting forward to us. Apart from the evidence that came from GEO Group the Australians who want to gain entry into our country to run our prisons and gain the profits from it I think every other submission basically proved the fact that it would not be cheaper safer and better for New Zealand. 
There are a couple of points I want to touch on that have not been brought up so far. One of them concerns the length of the contracts that this Government will be looking at when it does privatise prisons and when it lets GEO Group or maybe other companies run these prisons. The issue that came up during the select committee was that there was no time limit on the length of these contracts. Basically from what we could see how long the contract would run for would be at the discretion of the Minister. That is a real concern because if the Minister of Corrections ties us into a 25-year or 35-year contract and it does not work then it will cost New Zealand taxpayers a lot of money to buy our way out of a contract that is not working and is failing in our country. That is a real issue. 
It is important to mention that one of our members Mr Rick Barker put forward a Supplementary Order Paper on the issue proposing that we cannot be tied into a contract for more than 3 years so that the contract has to be looked at and we can decide to opt out. That is important because if it is not working we need to have that choice. 
Another issue that came up—apart from the obvious and it is the one thing I have not mentioned yet—is that incarceration is a core function of the State. 
Sandra Goudie 
: Here we go! Nanny State! 
CARMEL SEPULONI 
: The chairperson of the Law and Order Committee says “Here we go!”. She may not realise it—and ordinary New Zealanders will—but incarceration is a core function of the State. When something goes wrong with our prisons we need to be able to turn round and hold our Government accountable. Unfortunately with the private management of our prisons which this Government is proposing we will not be able to do that. In many ways possibly it will work for this Government because then it gets to shift the blame and take no responsibility for any of the mistakes that undoubtedly will be made under its rule as Government. It will not have to take responsibility; it cannot be held accountable. But that is a very real issue and it is something that we have been pushing from the start. 
Labour’s minority report brought up the issue of the select committee process and this is another point I wish to cover this evening because it has not yet been discussed: “Labour members have serious concerns about the Government members using their majority on this committee to block our access to Ministry of Justice officials. The Ministry of Justice had input into the departmental report and we believe that the committee would have benefited from hearing the views and insight of the Ministry. We question the motive for not allowing the committee access to these officials and we are disappointed that this opportunity has been denied when we are considering such a significant shift in our justice system.” 
There was absolutely no reason to deny us access to those officials. At the end of the day National had the numbers. All we wanted was to make sure that some independent scrutiny was going on and that we could ask the questions we needed to ask. But instead the Government side of the House used its numbers to block us from being able to do that. 
More important—to mention another point carrying on from that—there are constitutional issues in respect of this matter. Government members as I have said used their majority vote to block Opposition members from making legitimate inquiries of a Government ministry that had specialist knowledge of the matters being considered. Just as members have rights to free speech we believe that select committee members must have rights of access to officials and information. What this shows is that the bill we have before us is already flawed because of the process that was followed during the select committee proceedings and because of the fact that Government members used their numbers to block us from being able to access the information that we needed in order to be able to make accurate decisions. That is a huge problem that arose from the Government side of the House blocking us with its majority. 
One thing that came up earlier and I do want to touch on this concerned the Maori Party member who was talking about the fact that Maori should have a right to manage prisons as well and that perhaps that would be a good thing. One of my colleagues Mr Kelvin Davis wrote a column on this issue and I think he made a really important point. He made the point that as a Maori he did not want to see his whanau being worth more to Maori being locked up inside than they would be outside. That is the issue that he had. We are not saying Maori should be the only ones not allowed to manage prisons; we are saying no one should be allowed to privately manage prisons. This is going back to the fact that this is a core function of the State and it is not something that should be so easily handed over to the private sector to take control of when we should be able to hold our Government to account. It should be that our Government is responsible for anything that goes on in those prisons not the private sector. 
Hon Members 
: Why? 
CARMEL SEPULONI 
: Members on that side of the House are asking why and I will touch on a couple of examples before I end this speech. Even the members on the select committee were not listening when the submissions were made. 
One submission came through that basically told the whole story. I think this story was told by 30 prison officers. They talked about what happened when they were working in— 
Hon Members 
: Union officials. 
CARMEL SEPULONI 
: —not union officials; these were prison officers—a private prison and the difference between that and working in a prison that was run by the State. They talked about the cover-ups that went on and about the lack of reporting on issues because of the fact that these private companies wanted to be able to claim the bonuses and everything else that was available to them. They talked about all of the flaws that existed. These stories came from people who had worked on both sides—in privately run prisons and State-run prisons. Members on that side of the House asked about the evidence. The evidence is all in the submissions. The only submission that those members were willing to listen to was the one that came from the Australian company that wants to run our prisons in New Zealand. We are opposed to this bill and we will not be supporting it. We are opposed to private prisons. Thank you.