Lees-Galloway Iain: Corrections Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Lees-Galloway Iain: Corrections Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 13 February 2013. Volume:687;Page:7846. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North) 
: 
 Thank you very much— 
Charles Chauvel 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. It is really just a question of clarification. I read Supplementary Order Paper 171 as proposing amendments to clauses 2 4 and 36. So I am not sure that there is a Part 3 to the bill— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: There is a new Part 3. 
Charles Chauvel 
: I am sorry. Well I missed that. That is the clarification I was seeking. Thank you. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Very good. Iain Lees-Galloway has the call. 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY 
: I would like to pick up on some of the points raised by David Clendon because the contributions from the Minister of Corrections and from Jacqui Dean have suggested that the Opposition’s opposition to the use of private firms in the incarceration of New Zealand citizens is a purely ideological one. But I think the Minister has failed to actually explain what it is about the privatisation of prisons that will improve the service that the Department of Corrections and Serco provide New Zealanders in terms of the rehabilitation of prisoners and the safe incarceration of prisoners. 
The Minister listed a few things that she thinks are wrong with the current system that she thinks the corrections department could be doing better but then simply says the answer to that is to hand over that responsibility to abdicate that responsibility to the private sector. Well that is not governing. That is not leading. That is the very worst example of taking a hands-off approach to leading our nation. The Minister has said she is not prepared to roll up her sleeves to work with the corrections department to try to improve its culture to try to improve the way the public sector delivers corrections services. She is not energetic enough to do that. She is not enthusiastic enough to do that. She simply wants to step back take the hands-off approach and hand that responsibility to bring fresh thinking and new ideas to corrections to the private sector. That is not good enough. 
That is not a good enough reason for New Zealand to give up on the fundamental principle that the incarceration of our citizens should be the sole preserve of an elected Government. That is one of the fundamental principles of living in the liberal democracy that we do in New Zealand—that we take people’s freedom seriously and we take the removal of freedom seriously. That is something that only an elected Government that represents the people and that has a mandate from the people should be involved in. That should not be handed over to a private firm listed on the London Stock Exchange. It is that fact that actually gets to the heart of what the Government is attempting to achieve here because we know that the National Party is the party of big foreign capital. 
Big foreign multinational companies like Serco are lobbying Governments around the world to get themselves a slice of the public purse by getting involved not only in building prisons but also in the health sector and the defence sector and interestingly in building detention centres for asylum seekers. Serco has been lobbying the Canadian Government very hard to adopt a policy of mass detention of asylum seekers so that Serco can perhaps acquire a few contracts and build those detention centres. And now here we have in New Zealand our Prime Minister suggesting that we need to have a policy of mass detention of asylum seekers and working with the Australians who coincidentally also contract Serco to build and operate their detention centres for asylum seekers. What an extraordinary coincidence that Serco should pop up all over the world where these policies have been adopted and now we know that Serco is active in New Zealand and our Prime Minister wants to adopt that policy of building mass detention centres for asylum seekers who have never even made it to New Zealand and are in all likelihood never going to make it to New Zealand. So he has to make up stories about how the Australians are going to shepherd asylum seekers across the Tasman. He has to make up stories about boats that he has heard of that have left Indonesia and may or may not make it down to New Zealand. Why? Because he wants to appease Serco the company— 
Louise Upston 
: Are you talking about Part 1? 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY 
: —the only people who will benefit from this bill Ms Upston. They are the only people who will benefit from Part 1 of the Corrections Amendment Bill.