Sepuloni Carmel: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSepuloni Carmel: General Debate[Sitting date: 29 July 2015. Volume:707;Page:5436. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): Tēnā koutou katoa. I just want to start by pointing out that clearly all of the National MPs were told to come to the House today to say that Labour members are grumpy and divided. Clearly those are the lines of the day. But we are laughing on this side of the House because we have never seen those National Government members as solemn as we have seen them in the last 3 weeks. They are rattled; they are solemn. Clearly they are in trouble and they know it.The reason we know that they know they are in trouble is that every time they are in trouble every time there is a major drama and the National Party is in the centre of it they come out kicking the beneficiaries kicking the poor people. What have we seen over the last 2 weeks? We have seen the National Party in serious trouble over the Serco situation. We have seen the National Party in serious trouble over the fact that its members are doing nothing about the housing crisis. So what do they do in response to it? Do they do anything to rectify the Serco situation? Not really. Do they announce any good policies to address the housing crisis? No they do not. What they do is they send Paula Bennett into the National Party conference to announce that the Government will be placing sanctions on Housing New Zealand wait-listers who turn down houses. How important is that for all of New Zealand? Is that important? No. And then Paula came to the House yesterday and said that two people—two people—said no to a Housing New Zealand house because of the décor. Two people—when we are talking about thousands of New Zealanders who cannot get into homes she wants to talk about two people. We know that National members are solemn they are desperate and they know they are in trouble.Today I want to talk about the privatisation agenda of that Government and I want to talk particularly about the role that the Minister for Social Development had to play in that. I kind of feel sorry a little bit for the current Minister of Corrections because he has been left picking up the pieces. Very little spotlight really has been placed on the person who was the Minister at the time singing the praises of Serco that being the Minister Anne Tolley. I just want to quote the Minister Anne Tolley on her view of Serco and the privatisation of prisons. She said: “This PPP”—public-private partnership—“will give us exposure to world-class innovation and expertise.” That is what she said in 2012 when she was the Minister of Corrections. She said that it would provide a modern facility that is safe secure and well equipped to rehabilitate and reintegrate prisoners. Well have we seen a safe and secure prison under Serco? No we have not.We heard in 2012 from the Minister Anne Tolley that the prison operator Serco had made decent progress in its first year. That is despite the company failing to meet half of its performance targets for that year. Even though Ms Tolley said that Sercohad made a lot of mistakes and that she was not satisfied with its performance after two inmates escaped within a year of Serco taking over Mt Eden prison she resisted all calls forSercoto be stripped of its contract. She said she retained confidence in Serco because she was expecting a much better performance in the second year. Well did we see a much better performance in the second year fromSerco? No we did not and poor Sam Lotu-Iiga is left picking up the pieces because of the decisions that that Ministermade.I just want to point out that what really scares me here is not only the fact that she was the Minister for Corrections and that she was actually responsible at the time and that she basically put poor Sam Lotu-Iiga in a sticky situation but that she now takes that same agenda over to the social sector. Even though we can all see very clearly that Sercohas failed is continuing to fail and probably will continue to fail she still refuses to discount the idea of it having any role to play in our social services. Even today when asked in the House she said that she could not rule out the idea that Sercomight have a role to play in our social services. Despite the fact that when asked she said that the National Government has no agenda to privatise the social sector she then stood up to answer the following question and said that “… if National do decide to go out to the market …”.She has not ruled out privatisation yet she has stood here and told us barefaced untruths in the House by saying there was no plan to privatise. There is clearly a plan to privatise. We saw Anne Tolley on Q+A not ruling out again that Sercomight have a role and also bringing the current social services into disrepute by saying that there is no evidence that they work. I want to say that there is evidence that Serco does not work. Privatisation is not the way but it is clearly the National Government’s agenda.