Letter to the editor – If Serco was the answer, what was the question?

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from: Frank Macskasy <fmacskasy@gmail.com>
to: Dominion Post <letters@dompost.co.nz>
date: Sun, Jul 26, 2015
subject: Letter to the editor

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The editor
Dominion Post

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Our esteemed prime minister, John Key, recently made statements minimising Serco’s mis-management of Mt Eden Prison.

On 26 July, on TV1’s Q+A, Key said,

“And so the point will be, I think what it will show is on reported instances , that SERCO ‘s about consistant with the others [prisons]… as far as sexual assaults and violent assaults, I think you’ll see Mt Eden’s pretty similar to the other prisons.”

And in the NZ Herald, on 23 July, Key was reported;

Mr Key defended National’s prison privatisation policy, saying that violence was not limited to private jails.

If, as Mr Key maintains, there is no appreciable difference between privately managed or State-run prisons – then what is the point of contracting Serco to run Mt Eden and Wiri Prisons?

Why are we taxpayers paying out hundreds of millions of dollars of our money to a private company, when, as John Key tells us, “Mt Eden’s pretty similar to the other prisons”?

What is the point in  paying this company to do a job no better or worse than our own Corrections Dept?

In fact, there seems to be no point.

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-Frank Macskasy

 

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[address and phone number supplied]

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