Dean Jacqui: Corrections Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Dean Jacqui: Corrections Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 13 February 2013. Volume:687;Page:7837. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki) 
: 
 Just a couple of points I want to raise perhaps in reply to the seemingly ongoing speeches of the Opposition and the first one is— 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Well you didn’t take the call. 
JACQUI DEAN 
: —I am taking a call now—the private management of prisons. It is a given that the Labour-Greens will not support and cannot understand or get their heads around how the private management of a prison can be beneficial but this Government can. That is why this Government has undertaken private management of the prisons. There is nothing about this policy that the Labour-Greens can ever support so it is probably no wonder that they stand up in this House and say nothing good about private management and the private sector involvement in Mt Eden prison’s management and the construction of Wiri Prison which can in fact have the impact of bringing fresh ideas into our prison system. It can in fact improve public safety. 
It can bring—Serco and its management team can bring—innovation into our corrections system and also into our rehabilitation services. Actually it could be a breath of fresh air I would suggest in our corrections services. It could bring benefits that can be shared across the prison network. But of course because of their philosophical position the Labour-Greens and New Zealand First will never entertain the idea that that could be possible. All they can entertain is the idea that it has got to be bad. 
So that leads me to the next question: what really matters in our prisons? Is it the fact that the prison service might be contracted out to private contractors? Is that what matters? No I would suggest that what matters in our corrections service is keeping the public safe and providing good rehabilitation and reintegration services to prisoners in its care. And guess what? That is exactly what our corrections service is doing. In fact I would also venture to note that under National in the past 4 years confidence in the corrections service is 53 percent higher than it was when we came into Government in 2008. 
The member who has just resumed his seat the Hon Phil Goff mentioned how wonderful the Labour Government was regarding the corrections service. Well I recall very well the then corrections Minister Judith Collins having to come in and face an absolute crisis in corrections with prisoner housing. In fact it was so bad that the corrections Minister had to bring in container accommodation. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Not true. 
JACQUI DEAN 
: Not true say Labour members because they do not actually want to face up to what happened. We saw it for ourselves. The Hon Judith Collins when she was the corrections Minister brought in double-stacking containers. I recall in a previous contribution on this bill that Labour said: “Oh they’re terrible they’re terrible.” They are not actually because when the Law and Order Committee visited Rimutaka Prison and visited that container unit which is two containers high and shaped in a courtyard shape the prisoners were perfectly happy with them. In fact they liked them because they were warm they were contained and they felt safe within them. So let us not be having this fallacy and this rewriting of history by Labour that corrections was in a wonderful condition before the National Government came in because it is demonstrably not true. 
I want to also talk about the issue of strip-searching which again seems to have become a clause célèbre for the Labour-Greens—you know how awful it is that mirrors and lights are being used for strip-searching and that some uniformity has been brought into the process. What I say and what we were also told in the select committee—but of course what the Labour-Greens and New Zealand First do not like to acknowledge—is that what bringing uniformity into the strip-searching procedures does is twofold. What happens is that there is some certainty brought into the process. So if a prisoner comes back in from a court appearance or from some other reason for being outside the wire they know they are going to get a certain level of strip-searching no matter what. That not only ratchets down the tension on behalf of the prisoner and also the prison officer but acts as a very powerful deterrent. Who are we talking about here? We are talking about prisoners. These are people who have been convicted of crimes and sent to prison. There is something very good in my view about sending a deterrent to those people. 
The second aspect I want to just touch on is the use of mirrors and lights which has taken on the spectre of being somehow more intrusive. I would put it to those members across the House that the use of a mirror and a light on a fitting to look at the things that need to be looked at by prison officers has got to be a whole lot less intrusive than a prison officer actually having to bend down and take a look. I have left you with enough pictures in your mind to be going on with so that is the end of my contribution for the moment.