24 July 2015 MEDIA STATEMENT

Serco bail-out shows failure of Nats’ privatisation agenda

National’s decision to step in and take over the management of Mt Eden prison is an admission that privatising the prison was a mistake, says Labour’s Corrections Spokesperson Kelvin Davis.

“The Government has gone all in on Serco and it’s been a fiasco. After spending millions of taxpayers’ dollars on getting a private company to run Mt Eden, the Government is now having to spend even more cleaning up the mess.

“Serco has totally failed to deliver the high quality prison they promised. Instead we’ve had chaos and violence.

“This is a big black eye for the Government, and a humiliating back down. Just last month, the Minister was crowing that Serco’s performance was at the highest level. Now they are having to take the prison off them.

“The question now is, if the Government’s prison privatisation has been such a failure, why on earth would we let them privatise anything else?” says Kelvin Davis.

ends