Robertson Grant: Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Robertson Grant: Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 24 November 2009. Volume:659;Page:8147. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 New Zealand has far too many people in prison. Our incarceration rates are among the worst and are nearly the highest in the Western World. Simply building more prisons and locking up more people will not give us the secure and inclusive society that we all desire. It might make some people feel better it might make the Sensible Sentencing Trust feel better but in the long run it is not where our attention should be. We must be more involved in addressing the causes of crime such as poor housing unemployment alienation from family and poor education and health outcomes. We must do this creatively and we must do this innovatively. But we have prisons and the reality is that we have to deal with prisons as they are today. It is a fundamental principle of the Labour Party and of mine that the incarceration of citizens is a core Crown responsibility and it should be under the direct control of the Crown through the Department of Corrections. 
Incarceration and therefore the denial of liberty and freedom is one of the most invasive powers of State jurisdiction. If we are to privatise it we lose the moral authority that goes with incarceration. Public prisons are morally and fiscally accountable to taxpayers. Private prisons are accountable to their shareholders and they have a binding obligation to their shareholders to maximise profit. Under the system that is being introduced today what we are saying is that profiting out of incarceration is OK; I say that that is wrong. Profit is what the private sector does best and we on this side of the House are not opposed to profit. What we are saying is that the incarceration of people the taking away of their liberties and freedoms should not be the subject of profit. If fundamental roles such as incarceration can be privatised why not privatise the police? If we do not believe that a fundamental role like incarceration is a State responsibility why not privatise the police? Mr Garrett probably believes that we should do that. Why not privatise the defence force? 
David Garrett 
: Mr Shearer thinks we should have private armies. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: Mr Garrett interjects as he did last night about David Shearer. The member should read what David Shearer said and he will realise that it has nothing to do with the privatisation of the defence force. But that probably is what Mr Garrett wants. Is it what the National Government wants? Is privatising those core functions of the State what the National Government wants? That is where we are going with this bill. That is the direction this bill goes in. It says that a core function the taking away of freedom and liberty can be handed over to the private sector. I say that that is wrong. 
This bill is wrong in principle because it opens up New Zealand to legal challenge as to whether private prisons are constitutional. Last night we heard a number of descriptions of the decision of the Israeli Supreme Court but this was dismissed by members on the other side of the House as not being relevant. But I caution those members that the people who brought forward this case in the Israeli Supreme Court said specifically that a worldwide precedent had been set. I am sure that organisations like the Howard League for Penal Reform will be looking very closely at the decision of the Israeli Supreme Court and looking to see whether this can be put in place in New Zealand. Can a challenge be taken to the constitutionality of private prisons? We have seen this decision today and last night we asked the Minister of Corrections Judith Collins to take a call to tell us whether she had had any advice about the Israeli decision. She refused to answer that question. I think it sets a very interesting precedent. I think that cases on the constitutionality of private prisons are likely to be taken around the world and I strongly believe that the Minister needs to take this issue far more seriously. 
There is no evidence to support New Zealand moving to private prison management because there is no evidence that it will deliver a safe secure transparent and accountable system. We know that when New Zealand last went down this path with the Auckland Central Remand Prison under private management the costs were higher. The argument that it is somehow a more efficient and cheaper scheme simply does not stack up. The Auckland Central Remand Prison operating costs under private provision were $35700 per prisoner $57280 when we include overheads and $50208 in public provision. The evidence from last time was that private management was not cheaper and it was not more efficient. The Law and Order Committee also heard from prison officers who said that the standard of service the standards that were put up when the Auckland Central Remand Prison was in private management simply did not stack up. Corners are cut in the system because in the end it is about maximising profit for shareholders. It is not about ensuring the safety and security of New Zealanders or the safety and security of the staff who are involved in those prisons. 
An important point to make is that members on this side of the House have argued this debate on principle. We accept the fact that there is an ideological divide on this issue and we have argued it on those grounds. But we have also argued it on the grounds of evidence—and evidence in particular from jurisdictions overseas that have gone down this path. In particular we talked about the United States of America where over the years a number of reports have come through that have shown that private prisons have simply not delivered the outcomes that people around the world hoped they would. In particular the role of the GEO Group has been raised a number of times. These are the people whom the National Government would have come into New Zealand and run our prisons. The GEO Group formerly known as Wackenhut Corporation has been involved throughout the world in the reduction of conditions in prisons the reduction of safety in them and in particular I want to focus on the reduction in terms of staffing. In 2001 the United States National Council on Crime and Delinquency produced a report on private prisons. It said that there was “no data to support the contention that privately operated facilities offer cost savings over publicly managed facilities”. It went on to say that privatisation had led to a 15 percent lower ratio of staffing to inmates. Is reducing the ratio of staffing to inmates supposed to make our society safer? In the end that is what private operators will do. They will attempt to cut the corners and ensure that they maximise their profit. That is fair enough; that is what corporations do. But should we be involving those corporations in such a critical State responsibility in an area where safety is absolutely crucial when that is what we are opening ourselves up for and when that is what the evidence tells us from the United States? 
If we come a little closer to home we see that Australia has had time and again to relook at its privatisation. I mentioned during the Committee stage of this debate the situation involving the Metropolitan Women’s Correctional Centre in Victoria. Following an inquiry in 2000 that found widespread drug use deaths in custody poor training and cover-ups the Victorian Government had to take that centre back into public control. I ask whether we really want to continue to repeat the failures of these prisons overseas. In the United Kingdom a prison service report in 2008 stated that when they did a league table—and we know how much National likes league tables—of prisons in the UK by the prison service 10 of the 11 private prisons were in the bottom quarter of prisons in that league table. So in respect of private prisons in the UK we have evidence—Mr Garrett wanted evidence last night—that they are not working. Privatisation is not working in the United States it is not working in the United Kingdom and it is not working in Australia. In Canada a private prison was brought back into public ownership because it was not working. So the evidence simply does not stack up. Internationally the evidence does not stack up; inside New Zealand it does not stack up. 
In the brief time remaining I want to say that it was a bit rich to be told last night by National that we were all about ideology on this side of the House on this issue. We are proud to stand up for our principles on this issue but we did not see a scrap of evidence from National last night to actually back up why it is doing this. The chair of the Law and Order Committee Sandra Goudie who heard us speaking about this said that the reason why National was doing this was to “give it a go give it a whirl and see how it works”. I am sorry but the safety and security of New Zealanders is far more important than just “giving it a go and giving it a whirl”. New Zealanders will regret the decision that National is forcing through under urgency. The incarceration of New Zealanders the taking away of liberties and freedoms is a core State role. New Zealanders deserve a quality public prison service rather than having it sacrificed for profit margins in the private sector.