Labour could have avoided prison bed crisis
new-zealand-national-party
Mon Jun 04 2007 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)
Labour could have avoided prison bed crisis
Monday, 4 June 2007, 3:34 pm
Press Release: New Zealand National Party
Simon Power MP
National Party Justice & Corrections Spokesman
4 June 2007
Labour could have avoided prison bed crisis
The Labour Government could have avoided the crisis which has resulted in 150 prisoners being held in police cells had the new Otago Regional Prison had been built on time, says National’s Justice & Corrections spokesman, Simon Power.
He is releasing Cabinet papers showing the opening date of the prison was put back several times.
"The papers show this prison should have opened last year, not three weeks ago.”
· A Cabinet paper of October 2004 says overcrowding is not expected to abate until the new prisons come on line, including the Otago Prison in 2006.
· A Cabinet paper of March 2005 says Otago will hold ‘up to 335 inmates, opening during 2006’.
“Then a Corrections Department report on 13 May 2005 says ‘Planned construction completion dates for the remaining three new facilities are ... Otago Region Corrections Facility: January 2007’. The completion date of March 2007 was not confirmed till December 2005, and it opened on May 10.
“The 2004 paper says the new prisons would have helped prevent overcrowding, and there is no doubt that had those 335 beds at Otago been completed last year as planned, there would not have been 150 prisoners in police cells now at $190 per night per prisoner.
“Labour’s defence that the $490 million blowout in the prison construction budget and the use of the controversial CWA contracting method enabled the prisons to be built on budget and on time, is blown out of the water by these papers.
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“They knock out for once and for all any remaining justification for using that shonky contracting method.
“They also confirm, yet again, that Minister Damien O’Connor has no real idea what is going on in his department.
“He told the House last year that the State Services Commission inquiry ‘did state that without the collaborative working arrangement management system, it was unlikely that these projects would have been completed on time. They have been and will be completed on time, and that is a major achievement’, and at the opening of the prison that ‘It was built on time and on budget’.
“He should admit that his Government’s use of CWAs was a disaster.”
ENDS
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