The Nation has finally caught up with The Daily Blog’s issues on the private prison at Wiri.
Now while we would never expect some acknowledgement from The Nation’s Executive Producer Tim Watkin (I think TDB is unofficially banned from The Nation), the issue of private prisons needs far more scrutiny from the poorly resourced mainstream media can manage, so to help them out, here are the specific questions the media need to start asking the Minister of Private Prisons.
1: Who receives the money from the work prisoners do inside the Private Prison (please note journalists – the recent law change by National that means if a prisoner refuses to work, they can’t get parole). This means the work in private prisons is effectively forced labour, which breaches international labour agreements NZ is signed up to.
2: NZ will now have the highest percentage of prisoners in private prisons, what are the issues for NZ’s already high incarceration rate if there is a profit incentive to keep those prisons full?
3: ACC are a shareholder in this profit driven abomination of a social policy – how wise is it for a Government Department to seek returns from an industry that makes its money from locking NZers up? Doesn’t that create an incentive for longer and longer sentences? Is it ethical for a Government Department to be a shareholder?
4: How can Serco be aiming to make $30m a year in profits? Shouldn’t that money go into rehabilitation of prisoners?
5: The Contract means we pay 100% occupancy for the full life of the 25 year contract – doesn’t that create an incentive to always ensure prisoners are in cells?
Private Prisons are an abomination, but what will probably make the issue so attractive for political journalists is that Sam Lotu-Iiga is an incredibly weak Minister who manages to put blood in the water for every interview he has. His appalling display on The Nation this morning shows he has no idea of any of these questions and is so flat footed and frightened during interviews he can be sliced and diced by any journalist.
Journalists rarely do news that asks hard questions about right wing social policy, but they will go into a feeding frenzy if they smell a weak Minister.
GOVERNMENT IS ALREADY PRIVATISING ALL OUR SERVICES.
They are paving the way for one world government where all who are then incarcerated are eventually sent to death camps as happened in 1933.
Here is the truth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6z4H6USPt4
Good subject Martyn and we hope you will use some of this stuff in this video to wake the sleeping NZ public who are now Hypnotised by the MSM already.
ACC invests in private prisons ??? WTF ? They didn’t tell me that when they forced me to pay levies then refused compensation for my back injury sustained while on the job.
48% voted yankee doodle psycho jonky-stien and Whaleoil leads by a country mile . Are we fucked or am I just imagining things ?
On the comments regarding the minister, I would say that he is minister BECAUSE he is weak. The whole way it has been developed and implemented reeks of corruption and you don’t want anyone in the ministerial post that might rock the boat by asking some difficult questions. Sam probably took the portfolio knowing that if he declined he would be back to the back benches in a shot.
You can be sure that private prisons is being masterminded by others , I suspect people like Judith Collins, Paula Bennett, David Seymour and other darlings of the right wing who would rather the blame fall on a political also-ran rather than themselves when the whole thing collapses.
Does NZ have to copy every failed policy of the USA and the UK?
Yes, because that’s the price of being in the club.
Where’s the failure?
Money gets taken in taxes and paid to private companies.
Privatise profits, socialise losses.
Tax cuts for the rich and she’s pretty much a perfect system for the 1%.
I thought he was weak and looked like the Island blood in him comes to the surface to quickly when being questioned thoroughly.
I was surprised to hear the ex Labour president say he (Sam Lotu-Liga) handled himself pretty well in the interview, was Mike sucking up to Sam as he is now the new leader for the Howard League foundation and needs his support when dealing with the prison industry sounds like it to me.
I actually have to support one initiative and that is giving inmates something to do while being incarcerated as I have experiences of being looked down and giving something tangible when being released is positive especially when it can lead to a better way of thinking and having legit skills most inmates don’t get whilst incarcerated which could lead positively to contributing to society and less likely to recidivism.
But I am skeptical in treating inmates as cheap Labor ($12.00 wkly) as incentive is only temporary whilst incarcerated and old habits will likely transpire to re-offending. To give a person who has been at the bottom of the food chain and trampled on for most of their life, hope in changing old and bad habits has to start with giving them incentives of success and how that would look like is paying them properly like minimum wage and savings account for future release then the government target rate to reduce recidivism would no dealt be reached.
Really, some of the commentators make the right wing twits from the good old USA seem like Mensa members.
Out of 5 above, we have a conspiracy theory flake and a racist. I have always supported left of centre policies because they lift people up. “Island blood?” What the hell is that?
One world government? In any discussion that is the greatest fear of the Right that the ‘Socialists’ taking over; here we have that the Capitalists’ Sigh… there is a wall of stupidity that seems to transcend all hues on the political spectrum.
The prison work shop looked like a sweat shop to me. What will they learn? How to bang up thousands of trusses in a week for free? What about the builders outside will they be dumped for cheap prison labour banging up kitset houses? I can imagine land bankers getting excited at how much money they can make getting sweat shop houses plonked on and sell for half a million. Which the prisoners will never afford.
Re: #2: “NZ will now have the highest percentage of prisoners in private prisons, what are the issues for NZ’s already high incarceration rate if there is a profit incentive to keep those prisons full?”
No issues at all, M’Lud – We just keep unemployment high, wages low, the police force underfunded, and legislate to make being poor illegal. Voila! Plenty of new prisoners to replace the old ones!
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