Tanczos Nandor: Corrections Bill — Third Reading 
Tanczos Nandor: Corrections Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:617;Page:13341] 
NANDOR TANCZOS (Green) 
: 
 I do not want to go over in great detail the significant amendments to the bill that have resulted from the Greens’ negotiations with the Minister. I have done that already in the second reading and during the Committee stage. Some of them were mentioned briefly by the Hon Rick Barker; in particular the new clauses about community consultation and tangata whenua participation in decisions—we can compare that to what is done so well at the remand prison; some strengthening around protection for whistle blowers in the prison system and also some added safeguards around the use of non-voluntary segregation to try to ensure that abuses of the behavioural modification regime are less likely to occur in the future. Those are things that the Green Party is proud of. Members who want to check that out in more detail can do so on the Green website www.greens.org.nz. 
I would like to confine my speech to the central issue at the heart of the opposition to this bill—the ending of the privately run prison. I will begin by once again pointing out the curious fact that those people who are most supportive of the remand prison are the same people who are fundamentally opposed to the very things that are said by the general manager to be at the heart of its success—in particular the focus on rehabilitation its relationship with tangata whenua and its humanistic approach to the way it deals with inmates. 
It is interesting because this internal contradiction was inherent in the speeches of Mr Ryall and Mr Mark. They spent the first half of their speeches telling us how fantastic the privately run prison is then in the second half talked about how bad this bill is because it will implement some of those same kinds of ideas. Mr Ryall talked about rights for inmates and how terrible that was and how terrible it was that the prison service will recognise some cultural values in its processes and practices—what a terrible thing that is! Those are the very things that Dom Karauria said are at the heart of what is done at the remand prison. 
That was the Government that chose the site for the Ngawha Prison. When that Government did an evaluation of the site it came out at 35th out of 70—but then 1999 was an election year John Banks was stepping down and Phil Heatley was standing for the first time in the Whangarei electorate. The National Government decided that it could not annoy Whangarei farmers too much so it put the prison at Ngawha because who cared what the people of Kaikohe thought? So that is how that party made decisions when it was in Government. 
Even so let us be clear that many of the claims made on behalf of the private prison are simply not true. One of those claims is around the costs. Members tell us in the House all the time how much cheaper it is to run the private prison. Of course they are not taking into account the fixed costs that are born by the ministry. They are not comparing comparable costs with costs. The members who say how much less we are spending on the private prison are factually incorrect. 
There are many other ways that the prisons are not comparable in any case. The remand prison is a remand prison. The factors that one has to take into account are quite different. The other thing is that it has a managed roster. I had people from te Iwi Whanui talking to me just a week or two ago about how the Government had tried to increase their roster and they had refused. That is fine. Good on them because it allows them to manage their services properly. But the reality is that the public service just cannot do that. It has to take what it is given. So let us be fair when we start to compare what is going on in those two different institutions. 
More importantly we need to take account of what the future will hold if the privatisation of prisons continues which is clearly what the members on the right of the House would have us do. Australasian Correctional Management has no regard for tangata whenua or for the rehabilitation of inmates or for Aotearoa at all. It is interested in the maximisation of its shareholders’ profits. 
So what is the remand prison? It is a glossy sales brochure for Australasian Correctional Management in order to maintain a presence for private prisons in that company so it can stick its foot in the door because if it gets that foot in the door we can be very clear that under a National Government the door would be jammed open and it would be all on. 
Let us look at the history of Australasian Correctional Management. [ 
Interruption 
] Well good. It has been subject to a history of complaints of abuse. First of all the Royal Australasian College of Physicians has called for a sweeping and comprehensive inquiry into all its detention centres following allegations of poor management at the Woomera detention centre. [ 
Interruption 
] It is Australasian Correctional Management. The member should have a quick look on a website. There have been huge numbers of allegations of all kinds of abuses. 
It does not apply just to the detention centres. The prisons that that company runs have also been subject to allegations. They are the first prisons subject to suit in Australia by an employee where a court found the company guilty of unsafe work practices. The problems are not unique. Australasian Correctional Management is one subsidiary of a much bigger global conglomeration of security services whose aim is to gobble security and prison services all around the world. For the majority of the time it has been running the remand prison it has been a subsidiary of the Wackenhut Corporation. A quick look on the web shows that prison staff at Wackenhut are suspected of having sex with inmates—so that is not confined to the public sector. 
One website states: “Published news accounts report that authorities have subpoenaed jail records in search of evidence that may reveal assaults retaliation contraband attempts to silence witnesses and the response of jail management to any problems in the past two years’.” I have been told by people who have been employed by Australasian Correctional Management of lack of appropriate medical services. Doctors who have been employed by Australasian Correctional Management have had to sign dubious contracts prohibiting them from commenting on what is going on. In fact I have seen the clauses in contracts that Australasian Correctional Management prison staff have been required to sign stating that they will agree to withhold information even where a court has directed that information to be made available. That stuff is all publicly available. There are overall concerns about lack of responsibility lack of transparency and lack of accountability. There have been huge numbers of resignations. 
Ron Mark 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. This bill is not about Waikeria it is not about Paparua it is not about Paremoremo. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: That is not a point of order. It would be better if the member did not disrupt the speaker. 
NANDOR TANCZOS 
: The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists has said that encouraging people to work in the centres in Australia would be similar to telling them to go and apply for jobs in Nazi concentration camps. That is how Louise Newman the chair of the New South Wales branch of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists has described the practices in Australasian Correctional Management. 
Let us be clear. There is a perverse incentive in privately run prisons. We could say that Chubb would run the police more efficiently but that is not an argument. Most of us would not say that we should privatise the police and turn them over to Chubb. Perhaps ACT would disagree. I am not sure. Mr Prebble is nodding his head—fair enough—but it is certainly not something that the Green Party would support. 
There is also evidence from the United States of big campaign donations to political candidates by prison companies which shows the potential for very real corruption. The Government made it clear when it introduced this bill that it will stop Australasian Correctional Management running the prison regardless of whether the bill passes. The Green Party said that we support that. Our responsibility is not to save the remand prison for the benefit of Australasian Correctional Management shareholders. Our responsibility is to change the practice in all prisons by addressing the problems in the public sector. We have tried to do that in this bill. We are not expecting miracles. We are not saying that there will be changes overnight but it is a start—not just for a few remand prisons but for all 6393 inmates in the New Zealand public prison sector.