Wednesday 18 February 2009

RUDMAN GETS IT WRONG

Normally Brian Rudman gives a reasonable view of the world. He's not the best writer or the best analyst but his points of view are nearly always well reasoned.  But todays column he says that  Maori putting their hands up to run prisons on the back was not an ethical investment .  That raised our ire.

Its plain crap. running drugs is not an ethical investment. Running stand over operations is not ethical. Running casinos is not ethical. All leave Maori worse off.

Running prisons would show that Maori are willing to own the problem. They can institute some of the tough love, restorative justice type programmes that they know work. They will be much harder than pakeha running jails simply because they will have so much to prove. It is very ethical for Maori to run prisons. And if they make money doing it good on them. It is no less ethical that they get paid than any multinational private prison company.

Rudman seems to contend that Maori should not be making money out of the sorrow of their own people. Wrong, to coin a much used phrase  - If they own the problem they will be better placed to find  the solutions to the high incarceration and recidivism rates of their own people


 

4 comments:

Keeping Stock said...

Quite so BB - we also blogged about Rudman this morning - it is the second time his bleeing heart tendancies have raised our ire this week!

http://keepingstock.blogspot.com/2009/02/more-bile-from-rudman.html

Anonymous said...

Rudman is a bit of a theroetical bleeding heart handwringer at times. He was wailing about the killing of the tagger the other day (a sorry episode for all involved) but like so many he refuses to think through what will solve these problems - like this boy would still be alive if his parents took an interest in him.And in so many situations, problems would have been avoided if parents took an interest in what their kids were up to. But no, he thinks its "societies" problem. Idiot.

FAIRFACTS MEDIA said...

Well said BB.
It is heartening to see a new government open-minded to let Maori or anyone give it ago.
That way we get diversity and hopefully by seeing what works, a better service.
I have just blogged about a mate of mine at Ngawha.
Thankfully, where he is, there is not internet for him to read the post.

Anonymous said...

From my experience BB Maori are doing a high percentage of the `work` in prisons already.I posted on Whales Blog that the Iwi with cash, land and experienced personnel could well be placed to tender for Correctional facilities.