Bridges Simon: Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Bridges Simon: Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 24 November 2009. Volume:659;Page:8122. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga) 
: 
 I have to say that I have been frustrated while I have been sitting here throughout this debate by the misinformation that I have heard from the Labour members. I do not think it is wilful misinformation. Members opposite are not setting out to be duplicitous and to say things that are dishonest; I do not think that at all. A fog or a mist has come over those members’ eyes though through their ideology and dogma. When I think of their ideology I think of old men who died probably about 150 years ago and who were caught up in arguments about profit the proletariat and so on. When all that debate is boiled down that is what it comes to from those members’ perspective. It comes down to ideology. 
We have heard from Grant Robertson. I am simplifying it but I think he said that profit equals bad. Profit equals bad. That is what I heard. I admit that he fancied it up and he titified it but he made the argument that profit is bad— 
Hon Member 
: “Tit-ify” Harawira? 
Chris Hipkins 
: The National Party would know all about that! 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: I tell Chris Hipkins to look that one up. There are more meanings than he thinks and he should get his mind out of the gutter. Grant Robertson said that profit is bad. He said that if an organisation has a business imperative in the prisons and is making a profit then through those members’ leap of logic that compromises what those who are running the prison are doing. How ridiculous I say to Grant Robertson. That argument goes something like this if we apply it in other sectors. Toyota makes a profit from manufacturing motor vehicles and because it makes a profit that somehow compromises their safety record. 
Hon Members 
: No. 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: Well that is what the member said. He was making the argument that profit is bad. The members opposite do not like it. They say that when businesses make a profit that somehow compromises them. How ridiculous! 
We heard the same sort of ideological bunk from Lianne Dalziel who I admit dressed it up in a kind of human rights language of liberty and talked about the Israeli Supreme Court and so on. But again if we boil it all down it is ideology. 
We heard the same from Jacinda Ardern. She said that making a profit was somehow bad and that the reason it was bad was that prisons are a core Government function and service. Again I say that is absolutely ridiculous. How absolutely ridiculous! Firstly the Department of Corrections will be overseeing all these prisons. Secondly I do not think anyone in this House would argue that health and education are not core Government functions. Those members argue that having private schools and private hospitals corrupts the whole system when what they actually do is to add to the system. They free up public resources and enhance the system. That shows the ideology of members opposite. 
The Minister of Corrections Judith Collins is exactly right. What we have from this Government and from the Maori Party is a philosophy that says to do what works. Let us be pragmatic about it let us look at the evidence and we will do what works. We are beginning to see that under National and I think that is a very good thing. 
Another point that has come out in the debate concerns price. Those members argue that the evidence that the price is more expensive stacks up and that we would be paying more under a private prison contract. How ridiculous again! We are not comparing apples with apples for starters. We could get into the figures. I do not want to have a sterile debate on the figures but the reality is that when the Auckland Central Remand Prison was privatised it cost I think $57000 per prisoner as opposed to $61000 in the wider system. We have seen cost advantages in Australia and England. If we are talking price then the arguments go both ways. We could argue about the numbers but what is more important than that? This measure is not about the numbers; it is about having effective and safe prisons rather than having cheap ones.