Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill

CHRIS HIPKINS Link to this

—he has given it for 25 years—about the fact that the State is bad, everything the Government does is bad, and everything should be left to the private sector. This is the same party, of course, that put up Mr Garrett, whose best argument, I think, was articulated in his first reading speech. He said he thought private prisons would be cheaper than public prisons, because they would go round all the dairies in South Auckland and buy all of the stale food that was past its use-by date and feed that to the prisoners. That was the best argument that the ACT Party could come up with to suggest that private prisons would be more efficient and cheaper for New Zealanders.

In the last minute or so, I say to the Māori Party that I agreed with a lot of the aims and objectives that Pita Sharples set out in what I thought was a quite thoughtful speech, in terms of what the prison service should aim to do and aim to deliver for prisoners. I absolutely agreed with a lot of what he said, but I do not see the connection between privatising the prisons and delivering on the aspirations that Dr Sharples set out. They are very worthy, but we do not need to privatise the prisons in order to do that. The Public Service, and all of our prisons, should be delivering on the types of aspirations that Dr Sharples laid out.

So that is the wrong debate for the House to have. The debate should really be about why we have such a high incarceration rate in New Zealand. It is one of the highest rates in the developed world. This debate should be about how we reduce the number of people who end up going back to prison after they have been released—how we can reduce the recidivism rate. It should not be about how we can cut corners and transfer money from hard-working taxpayers to overseas corporate owners of private prisons, which is what this legislation will enable. This legislation will enable the transfer of money to the American owners of the prison contract, if the National Government gets its way. There is no evidence to suggest that we will end up with a better-quality prison service as a result of that. The privatising of prisons is an ideological decision, it does not make sense, and the Labour Party will be opposing it at every step of the way.

GRANT ROBERTSON Link to this

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 $35,700 per prisoner, $57,280 when we include overheads, and $50,208 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.