Collins Judith: Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Collins Judith: Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 24 November 2009. Volume:659;Page:8092. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Corrections) 
: 
 I think it is only fair that I answer some of the questions raised by the Opposition members. I am happy to do so. 
In relation to Mr Barker’s Supplementary Order Papers I say that Mr Barker has never once referred those matters to me or to our caucus and I am afraid we will not be supporting them. 
Mr Hipkins has been talking tonight about several issues. I hope I have this right. I think one of the things he has raised is that effectively no one should make a profit out of someone else’s unfortunate circumstances. Is that a reasonable rendition of what the member said? 
Chris Hipkins 
: In the case of prisons. 
Hon JUDITH COLLINS 
: On that basis we would not have private hospitals. We would not have dentists outside of the hospitals. We certainly would not have grocery shops because basically food is all privatised in this country. We certainly would not have insurance and we definitely would not have schools that were private or privately owned. The fact is that the State provides the funding and as long as it is monitored and the chief executives are in charge it is another matter who runs it. I have not yet heard Labour members refer to the fact that under their watch it was quite all right for prisoners who were sent from the court to prison to be transported in privately run prison vans. How does that work with the Opposition’s theory that only the State should be in charge of that area? Why should that be? 
The fact is that Opposition members are ideologically driven as long as it works for them. But unfortunately we have found that sometimes the State is not always the best performer on every single measure. I heard a lot from Miss Sepuloni tonight about the terrible things that have happened in private prisons. I have news for that member: really terrible things have happened in State-run prisons too—quite a few of them when Labour was in Government. In fact some of the things we have had to fix happened when it was in Government. 
One of the good things with a privately run prison from our point of view is that we can put performance measures on it. We can have accountability that means something. When Auckland Central Remand Prison was privately run a clause in its contract said that if there was an escape it would pay a fine of $50000. This was at a time when there was a very high escape rate in New Zealand prisons. There was one escape from Auckland Central Remand Prison and it was fined $50000. One of the great things was that it never happened again. 
Simon Bridges 
: Simple but effective. 
Hon JUDITH COLLINS 
: It is very effective. Miss Sepuloni has also said that there have been cover-ups. Well let us see the evidence of that. She has talked about wholesale privatisation. Well we indicated that we are looking at one-tenth of our prisons being privately run which is hardly wholesale privatisation. 
I heard tonight from the Hon Lianne Dalziel about the Supreme Court of Israel. The member quite truthfully said she had not read the case but someone had told her about it. I am sorry but I will need a bit more evidence than that. I have never been to the State of Israel but I am confident that our record on human rights would stack up pretty favourably against that of the State of Israel—or against most other States frankly. 
When we look at the cost—the Labour Party goes on and on about cost—we see that it is a fact that rehabilitation costs money. Auckland Central Remand Prison was contracted to perform 70000 hours of rehabilitation when no other remand wing in this country at that stage was doing it and yes it did cost. In fact it did not just produce 70000 hours; it produced 120000-odd hours. It over performed and did not get paid extra for that either. 
She talked also about the loyal prison officers. It is nice to hear a member of the Opposition saying something nice about prison officers. When I became the Minister of Corrections I was the first Minister of Corrections to ever turn up to a graduation ceremony for our loyal prison officers. Corrections Ministers under Labour which was in Government for 9 long years never once did so—not once. So it is nice to hear that now Labour likes the prison officers. 
Grant Robertson MP spoke about liberties being taken away by private prisons. Well I have news for him; I know he is not a lawyer. It is actually the courts that remove people’s liberty; the Department of Corrections does not. We just receive them. I think most of the issues have been dealt with.