Bakshi Kanwaljit Singh: Urgent Debates — Mt Eden Corrections Facility—Serco’s PerformanceText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBakshi Kanwaljit Singh: Urgent Debates — Mt Eden Corrections Facility—Serco’s Performance[Sitting date: 21 July 2015. Volume:707;Page:5129. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National):Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this urgent debate. I would like to start my contribution with an understanding of what prison is. Prison is a facility where inmates are forcibly confined and denied a variety of freedoms as a form of punishment. Individuals officially charged with or convicted of crimes are confined to prison. There are 8000 prison officers who help us to maintain these facilities and I congratulate them and thank them for the services they provide for the safety of the public staff and prisoners. It is very important that we have these safety measures so that we can feel safe in our houses and at our businesses and I would like to congratulate them on doing so.These postings that have come up on social media in the last few days are of big concern. The Prime Minister and the Minister of Corrections have both expressed their concerns about this filming of prison fights and about prisoners being in possession of contraband inside New Zealand prisons. I echo those concerns.The Department of Corrections is working very closely with Serco as the manager of the Mt Eden Corrections Facility to investigate how the video footage was posted on social media and whether those involved should face internal or police charges. I was watching a TV series recently an American series entitled Orange is the New Black. It showed similar types of problems in American prisons—how contraband is smuggled into the prisons and how the prisoners have got access to it. These are the things that are also coming in front of us in New Zealand.The Department of Corrections intelligence team will be working closely with Serco to identify the prisoners involved even if they have been moved to other prisons. It is very important that those who have got access to facilities that they have been denied should be punished because they are not allowed to have those facilities. The Minister of Corrections has ordered two reviews and terms of reference have been expressed as to how these will be dealt with in the next 2 to 3 months. The Office of the Ombudsmen will be involved in monitoring the role of this review. The police have also been advised and they may conduct their own investigation. The investigation will pay particular attention to the last 3 months to determine whether this type of activity is widespread across the site or limited to a specific unit whether the management or the staff knew about it and what they did about it. Measures have been taken to restrict the contraband.It is very important that the facilities are secure and that the staff also feel safe when they are working over there. Serco has put additional security measures in place to boost the monitoring and the search regime. Access to the exercise yards is now more limited and restricted. There are extra searches of prison cells and everyone entering the prison is searched regardless of their position or role. I visited a couple of the facilities recently: Rimutaka Prison and Wiri Prison the new prison facility. We were also thoroughly searched before we entered the facility over there. I totally agree with the procedures that have been set up to thoroughly check everyone who is entering these facilities.I would also like to say that at one of the recent visits I did to the probation office in Penrose they told us a story about a convict who was totally transformed after working in the prison and who has got a job. Thank you.