Alexander Marc: Corrections Bill — Second Reading 
Alexander Marc: Corrections Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:617;Page:12595] 
MARC ALEXANDER (United Future) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of United Future to address the second reading of the Corrections Bill. Although the bill addresses numerous issues I wish to concentrate on our concern that in spite of 30 of the 33 submissions that dealt with the provisions ending the private management of prisons being in favour of maintaining the status quo this Government has chosen the fool’s path of ideology over credibility. 
Clause 194 prohibits the extension of the existing management contract for Auckland Central Remand Prison and clauses 185 and 186 prohibit any new contracts being entered into. United Future rejects the stated rationale for these provisions as being in keeping with the so-called “core functions” of the State. It is not a rationale at all but is the replacement of common sense with an ideological harlot—a triumph of socialist irresponsibility. 
This Government is utterly bereft of consistency. It conveniently overlooks the privately managed and outsourced correctional services such as escort and courtroom custodial services home detention and external providers of programmes for offenders. Chubb has been allowed to escort and perform courtroom custodial sentences—up to 26892 prison escorts and 8021 court custody tasks were undertaken in 2002 alone. Some of these inmate transfers are conducted on commercial flights—also creating profits for somebody—for inmates to attend court appearances and rehabilitation programmes and to ease overcrowding. Since August 1999 Chubb has also provided services related to the administration of home detention throughout New Zealand. Chubb provides electronic monitoring and manual surveillance services to the Department of Corrections for those offenders serving home detention orders. 
The Community Probation Service has contracted external private providers for both residential programmes and non-residential programmes for offenders. These programmes include alcohol drug and violence prevention and sex offender treatment programmes. The only private prison in New Zealand is the Auckland Central Remand Prison managed by Australasian Correctional Management Pty Ltd and despite its exemplary performance this Labour Government wants to terminate the company’s contract. Why? Because it does not do a good job? Because it costs too much or does not deliver on its promise? Not at all. It is simply because the prison is privately managed. We all know that this Government has a huge problem with anything that resembles a successful enterprise in which it plays no part. 
Normally the Government would tax the company to death—a slow economic euthanasia—but in this case it is a matter of removing it and damn the taxpayers who are presently benefiting. The facts are clear enough: where a comparable State facility costs $72000 per year per inmate the Auckland Central Remand Prison costs $43000. Despite these cost efficiencies the remand prison provides higher levels of services than State managed providers including having a New Zealand Qualifications Authority accredited training area for the kitchen; a drug reduction strategy resulting in more long-term drug users choosing to become drug free; on-site health provision including diabetes screening 24-hour medical coverage with a registered nurse a psychiatric service staff testing for cholesterol and diabetes and a whole range of other medical benefits; offender services including full-time psychologists and assessors; the provision of 60000 programme and vocational hours; the provision of 10000 cultural activity programme hours; and employment and programmes provided for 75 percent of the inmates. 
The prison provides National Certificate of Employment Skills training which is available to all inmates. This includes literacy and numeracy skills and focuses on enhancing the future employment possibilities of the inmates. It is the only prison in New Zealand to deliver New Zealand Qualifications Authority alcohol and drug unit standards and it has successfully passed the integrated offender management implementation final review. It is also the only prison in New Zealand to provide reintegration programmes to remand inmates. 
In the Law and Order Committee’s report on Vote Corrections in the 2001/02 estimates the Minister of Corrections asserted the view that privately run prisons could not integrate with the approach the Government wanted in publicly administered prisons. Given the superior outcomes of a privately managed prison what that really means is that the Minister could not have confidence that State managed prisons could measure up. In other words get rid of the competition because it embarrasses us. Bluntly the Government’s determination to exclude the private management of prisons is motivated by the prevailing political ideology the prospect of comparisons with inadequate outcomes and the influence of unions amongst correctional staff and State-run prisons. 
The Government’s assertion that coercive powers to restrict the freedom of inmates should be applied by no agency other than the State is weakened by the fact that the courts not the prisons impose this restriction. The ideological distaste for the private management of prisons is based on the assumptions that a private provider should not generate profit from crime. But the attack on the profit motive fails to stand up to scrutiny when lawyers and law firms profit from their representation and prosecution functions construction companies profit from the construction of prisons and suppliers of a range of products both material and educational profit from their service to prisons. 
What this intellectually lethargic Government steadfastly refuses to understand is that the administration of a custodial sentence is distinct from the State’s power to enforce the law and impose the sentence. At no time can private management undermine the State’s authority. The provisions are set out in a negotiated tender advanced by the Government. There is an independent monitoring of practices and standards and there is a high degree of scrutiny from visiting justices prisoner aid and rehabilitation organisations and Ministry of Justice prison inspectors. Having both State and private providers of the management of prisons competing for tenders promotes accountability. To have both will be the best assurance of the highest quality standards at the best possible price for the taxpayers and victims of New Zealand. This Minister is now trying to snuff out the candle only to be left in the dark groping like a blind bat looking for a match. 
This Government has listened to the people of this country with Van Gogh’s ear acknowledging only the Corrections Association and the faint distant heartbeat of a discredited social philosophy that distrusts anything other than the bloated State bureaucracy. This Government is hell-bent on enshrining ideology by courting the Corrections Association at the expense of inmates at the expense of New Zealand taxpayers and at the expense of common sense. Worse this pragmatically impoverished Labour Government is insulting the very victims that it pretends to care about. Not only have the spiralling numbers of victims paid a heavy price due to the offences perpetrated on them but they now have to pay more than they need to to keep those offenders behind bars. The fact is that if State-managed prisons were as economically efficient as our privately managed prison we would save nearly $400 million a year. That would mean more resources for frontline police more for restitution to victims more for drug and alcohol rehabilitation programmes and better resourced early interventions. 
It stuns me that the Greens have sold what is left of their soul for this ideologically indulgent legislation. I hope the price was worth it. When the Greens come out with comments like: “There are some officers who have a brutality of attitude that cannot be accepted in our Department of Corrections.” from April 2003 or: “The Corrections Department still seems to be mired in the Dark Ages.” from November 2003 how can they suddenly turn and support the Government on this particular piece of ideology? It is unbecoming of all people who think that they want to further the interests of the criminal justice system. Such nice sentiments but from the Greens their sweetness is as bitter as bile. The Greens have sold out on no fewer than seven northern Maori iwi the Pacific Island community the inmates the taxpayer and the growing roll call of victims in one fell swoop. The number of submitters from iwi who supported the Auckland Central Remand Prison as the best provider of services to Maori and Pacific Island inmates has not been given sufficient weight by either the Greens or the Labour Government. The decision to end private prison management was not based on either performance or efficiency criteria but on ideology alone. It is noteworthy that National ACT and New Zealand First did not succumb to the crapulent ideological nonsense espoused by this Labour Government. It was up to the underwhelming Greens and the Alliance leftovers the Progressives who with Labour make up the troika that defines political absurdity. They are three intersecting streams of ideological bankruptcy resembling three maggots festering on the carcass of common sense. United Future will not support this legislation.