Cosgrove Clayton: Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Cosgrove Clayton: Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 17 November 2009. Volume:659;Page:7726. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 Labour members will oppose the Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill and we will do so on two main platforms. One is a core principle that I will come to in a moment and the other is centred on the objective of this bill which could be characterised as an attempt to distance performance from accountability. 
An offer was made to the Law and Order Committee to have the idea—that is that private is better than public in the prison service—tested in an independent way by agencies and commercial enterprises that do not have an axe to grind or a vested interest. The Minister of Corrections Judith Collins to this day will not submit this proposal to independent scrutiny and at that point we have to ask ourselves why. I know that other members from the Labour side will deal with this matter in more detail so putting aside for a moment the notion that it is the role of the Crown as a core responsibility to incarcerate and therefore be responsible for incarcerating its citizenry there are core responsibilities within the Crown portfolio. I suspect that we are not yet—or at least I hope not—talking about privatising other services like the police. Of course we would not do that—I hope. I am sure we would not I hope have a debate in this House about privatising core services—for instance our military capacity. I hope that we will not; I pray that we will not. 
The incarceration the rehabilitation and the responsibility for incarcerating our citizenry is indeed I put to you Mr Assistant Speaker a core responsibility of the State. This Parliament sets the laws the courts interpret those laws and pass sentence and then it is handed back to the Crown through the Department of Corrections to incarcerate administer and punish—because that is part of prison and one is soft on crime in my view if one does not believe that—but also then to rehabilitate and hopefully return to our society folk who will not engage in the heinous crimes they did to get there in the first place. That in my view and I submit this to you Mr Assistant Speaker is a core responsibility of the State. 
Yet I could be wrong. The Minister could be wrong in promoting the privatisation of the prison service. I put to this Parliament that that argument could well be alleviated if that Minister would submit her ideas and her proposals to independent accountability to thorough analysis by those who do not have a vested interest in order to test the argument and the idea. There has been no evidence put to this Parliament or the Law and Order Committee from anybody that justifies the privatisation of prisons. Members should remember that the original proposition for this bill was the potential privatisation and management of future new yet-to-be-built prisons. But that does not appear in this bill and we know from an email sent I believe in June of this year that Barry Matthews—and the chief executive of the Department of Corrections will be held to account for his comments in the select committee when he appears in the financial review—sent a threatening email to staff saying that there was no money for a wage increase and that if they did not toe the line he would recommend the privatisation of the management of prisons. 
The only justification for privatisation that has been put up is one of cost. We have just heard flimflam from the Minister sounding high and mighty but I will say that the principal goals about rehabilitation about skills training and about providing facilities where the game is lifted and where prisoners and dangerous folk are secured from our community are all valid and principled aims. But there is no reason why those valid and principled aims could not be brought to bear on a department called the Department of Corrections. 
Much was made of the only historical example of privatisation that we have in this country which was when the Auckland Central Remand Prison was privatised. That is the only example we have and that was reversed by the then incoming Labour Government. That is the only example we have. The Minister trumpeted that she will have the ability to if you will penalise a private company for instance for escapes by taking the money out of their kick. All those objectives I have outlined and a practical measure like that could well be exercised by this Minister if she had a will to do it if she had a will to make her department accountable because we move this bill through its parliamentary stages in an environment where the Department of Corrections is in industrial terms at war with itself by taking its own department to the Employment Court to try to protect its own members from a Minister who describes broken bones of prison officers as “minor injuries”. 
But let us for a moment consider the only justification that the Minister has trumpeted in an environment of economic recession for going private—that is cost cutting. The thesis is that the private sector can incarcerate rehabilitate and provide skills at a cheaper rate of course than the public sector. The Minister said as much in an answer to me in volume 656 of the  
Hansard 
 when she said: “I am aware of information from my own department that in 2004-05 the last year the Auckland Central Remand Prison was privately run the cost was $57280 per prisoner whereas the equivalent in the public sector cost $61796 per prisoner.” Well that is interesting because I also have in front of me the document that her own department submitted and this is the only real justification put up for privatising prisons. It states that the costs from the same period 1 July 2004 to 30 June 2005 inclusive of property-related overheads were $57280 for the private provider and $50208 for the public provider the Department of Corrections. 
So I would like to know who is telling porkies because those figures raise the issue that the advice the Minister has from her own department as per the  
Hansard 
 does not match the advice that the select committee got from her own department which up until today we have not been able to talk about. So who is telling the truth because cost is the only justification that this Minister has used? Apparently one cannot rehabilitate prisoners under the Department of Corrections. Apparently one cannot take money out of Barry Matthews’ budget if there is an escape. Well I say they can if they have the political will. They can use all those motivational tactics such that they are with the Crown department running the show. 
I say this: there are nefarious motives of some and prison officers came before the select committee to advise us of what had occurred under the GEO Group. Prison officers who worked at the Auckland Central Remand Prison both when privately and publicly managed submitted to the committee that decisions were made on a day-to-day basis that were intended to protect the reputation of GEO and also to ensure that performance bonuses provided under the contract were obtained by GEO. They talked about prison officers who had erred but were asked to go quietly and resign rather than being disciplined. I think that is not on. 
The issue before this House is one I believe that is simple. This bill is about distancing as I said at the start the performance of a Minister—or lack of it—from his or her accountability as Minister. This is a Minister who cannot be accountable to this Parliament for the actions of her own department and we have had a litany of prison incidents through the latest Burton assault and through the attack with razor blades which she trumpeted she had got out of our prisons. Yet what happened in the Paremoremo maximum security prison quite recently? This is a Minister who cannot get accountability out of her own department but washes her hands of it and says that it is an operational matter. When we bring evidence that a prison officer’s bones were broken the Minister says it is an operational matter or a minor injury. So what will happen when the Auditor-General cannot penetrate a private company or when the Ombudsman cannot penetrate a private company? Not only will it be an operational matter but journalists and those who want to exercise an Official Information Act request or hold a select committee inquiry will have to go and dig even deeper and they will not be able to penetrate the private provider. The Minister will be able to say not only that it is operational but that it is a private matter and tell them to go away. This will be a sad day for the House and one that I believe this Minister will regret.