It was all about privatising jails

The big mouth behaviour of the Corrections Minister has been exposed by the State Services Commissioner’s report on Barry Matthews, Progressive Wigram MP Jim Anderton says.

“The report confirms mainly that Judith Collins is not equipped for a tough job.

“And it exposes the campaign to vilify a government department was really a cynical campaign to privatise prison management.

“Ms Collins swaggered around leaving no one under any doubt that she would force the Corrections department CEO to step down. For example, the Herald - citing Ms Collins’ ‘ruthless combination of raw power and tactical guile’ - declared:
She has made Matthews’ position utterly untenable. And she left the [State Services Commission - as Matthews’ employer - no option but to remove him, assuming he does not resign beforehand.

Jim Anderton says the pressure on Mr Matthews to go was always an overreaction to the Auditor’s report.

“Among the specific, highlighted examples the Auditor cited were failures to fill out reports and inconsistency in classification of the illness of paroled offenders. These procedural issues needed to be fixed, but it was unjustified and disproportionate to say they amounted to a case for immediate dismissal. That was always going to be a wrong judgement - exactly what the State Services inquiry has found.

“Ms Collins should have known that there was no case to support the dismissal of the CEO of her department. Either she didn’t know and isn’t up to the job, or she did know and was cynical in the way she used the issue.”

ENDS

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