Collins Judith: Corrections Bill — Second Reading 
Collins Judith: Corrections Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:617;Page:12604] 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 I first acknowledge the role of the committee and on behalf of the National Party I would like to thank Mr Gallagher for his graciousness in acknowledging the work of my colleagues on this bill. Certainly the commentary shows they did their very best to try to help bring some sense to the bill. 
I want at this moment to deal with an issue raised by Mr Franks. He mentioned the issue of the costs of prisons—of private prisons as opposed to State-run prisons. The dulcet tones of the Government chief whip were heard singing out across the debating chamber along the lines of: “Oh they only have the less serious prisoners.” I invite that member in her ignorance to forget the words of the Attorney-General and former Minister of Corrections Margaret Wilson and actually go to see what happens in private prisons. She will see contrary to the advice given by Margaret Wilson that the private prison at Auckland the Auckland Central Remand Prison has in it some of the worst possible offenders. I note that in a Radio New Zealand  
Morning Report 
 interview on 7 March 2003 which I will seek leave to table later the Hon Margaret Wilson in answer to a question from the presenter said: “Most of the private prisoners are of course prisoners held there who are low security. In other words it is cheaper to run those prisons because of the nature of the incarceration and that’s tended to be the experience overseas as well.” Well we are not allowed to use the word I would like to use for that so I will say that that former Minister of Corrections was grossly mistaken and grossly wrong. 
The current Minister of Corrections put it straight to us when he told us here in the House that the reason for what is happening is that it is Labour Party policy—and that is the truth; that is what it is all about. The facts are that the privately run Auckland Central Remand Prison costs $43000 a year per prisoner and that cost is for a mix of low to high-security prisoners in a high-security environment. The public prison service costs $54000 a year per minimum-security prisoner and $72000 a year per high-security prisoner. That has nothing to do with the private prison’s building being relatively new because there is also a new prison down in the South Island and its costs are still high—like the rest of the public service. It is all to do with staffing levels and the way prisons are run. 
Staffing levels are all about cushy jobs—having all sorts of staff on duty in accordance with the union’s directives. I went to have a look at the privately run prison and I found it had four staff in total looking after a wing containing 40 prisoners—and those were high-security prisoners. The reason is that the prison uses technology and does not have people standing around watching each other watch other people. I have also visited publicly run prisons when I was a lawyer and I have seen what they do instead. For a wing of 40 people they have 22 staff on duty watching each other watching everyone else. That is what they do because that is the union directive. Publicly run prisons are not run for the benefit of the people of New Zealand; they are run for the benefit of the union and that is what this is all about. 
This bill will have to have a very short life because not only is it wrong but it is ruining our reputation as a country. We are moving away from where everyone else is moving to progressively—towards privately run prisons which have been proven time and time again—and proven so in New Zealand—to be better run to have better outcomes and to be an awful lot cheaper than public prisons. So it is going to have to go for it. Next time we should allow not just one private prison but allow the lot. That is what we should do; there should be none of this half-pie stuff. We should get rid of the other lot and destroy the bureaucracy that is holding this country back. 
I do not think that to be in prison should be a cakewalk and I do not think it ever is. The loss of liberty is a pretty serious issue. Having said that I point out that people who go into prisons who have committed crimes are volunteers. Not one of them has gone to prison because their country has ordered them to do their duty for the country. No they have gone there because they have committed serious criminal offences. Although when people go into prisons I would like to think that in a humane society we will not create an environment from which they will come out necessarily worse than when they went in because that is actually what happens in a lot of the publicly run prisons. When we look at the public prison environment and the attitudes of people we see how the place does not really run because programmes are not there to help those who do want to be helped and then when we look at the private prison we see what they have done with so much less money. 
For instance they look like professionals—that is not the criminals but the staff—in the privately run prisons. The Auckland Central Remand Prison is the only prison in New Zealand to have ISO 9001:2000 accreditation and to have its own full-time drug dog handler and dog. It is a member of the Equal Employment Opportunities Trust although I suppose that that is not necessarily a good thing. It has a low serious incidents rate and it has a lot fewer nasty incidents happening against its staff and other prisoners by prisoners. That is because it sets rules. Its staff show respect and they expect respect. It has in place all sorts of health provisions for the prisoners such as a dental surgery. It has all sorts of things going on there. It has a portable X-ray sexually transmitted disease screening and treatment and diabetes screening. It has something that is probably really important in terms of rehabilitation if there is ever to be a chance of it: it actually has literacy and literary programmes that people want to go to. The prison staff take their work seriously so what are we going to do in this Parliament? We are going to get rid of them because they actually do the job well. 
I know that the Green members want to stand up. Mr Locke gave a very well-read speech with so much passion that one has to wonder why he bothered. I know from listening to him that the Greens have actually been to visit the private prison. They have said they agree with all of these things but unfortunately ideologically they have a problem with it. Well it is not the provision of the services of rehabilitation—or in this case of punishment or anything else as deterrent—that should necessarily be run by the State. It is the State that already arrests people prosecutes them and sentences them; that is actually where the State’s place should be. 
Why is it OK that every provision of anything to do with prisoners—things like cleaning services building services and transportation services from courts to prisons—can be private but not the prisons themselves? The reason is that the unions do not want it and this Government is doing all it can in the few months it has left to pay back the unions. It will not work because we are going to get rid of it very fast—and we have to. If we allow this thing to continue we will continue to have the reoffending rate we already have and we will continue to have the huge drain and cost on our economy.