NO VOTE FOR INMATES

we support Paul Quinns bill to stop inmates from having a right to vote while in jail. However it looks like it needs a bit of a tidy up. Its time wasting and costly to have to revisit badly written bills so its important to get it right the first time.

THATS SAD

Well well , thats bad news...... Howard Broad aint seeking another term.. Sad .. Really sad.... We are serious. It really is sad. Really...

PPPP

Public - private partnership prisons - perfick!

All the bleeding hearts will be wailing and weeping over this . However  Greg Newbold is absolutely correct.Success will be  largely driven by the robustness of the contract. 

Something we have always supported and the reason that Judith Collins is one of our fav Ministers. Great stuff.

FLATMATES

We are delighted Judith has delivered on her promise to house inmates in sturdy shipping containers.

We would like to see Corrections put Clayton Weatherston and William Bell together...

And how about .... Philip Field and Nai Yin Xue

and maybe Mary Ann Thompson and Stephen Versalko

So any other suggestions for suitable roomies in the new container cells?

TV3 - SHONKY JOURNALISM

We were pretty angry after we saw a Tv3 60 minutes segment last night on Weatherston where the journalist inferred that she had interviewed Weatherston post his conviction... It was crap journalism - a thinly veiled statement that left viewers with a clear impression that the interview had taken place post his conviction.

You see, we now have it on good authority that the reporter in question visited Weatherston with his parents sometime in March -April this year. Now Journalists require the permission of the family , the inmate and the CE of Corrections. Our snouts tell us that Corrections are not the bad guys here. Apparently no permission was sought so none was granted. So effectively it would appear T3 have broken the rules.

So we apologise to Barry Matthews and his team for casting aspersions on their judgement.

We also think that they will not let this issue rest. TV3 has done their credibility no favours. It was simply bad journalism - They could have told the truth - instead of implying they had permission.

But no - they deceived the public and we expect better.

POWER TO THE MINISTER

Simon Power is the Minister of Corrections and he was tough in his condemnation of how soft prison life had got under Labour. And it seems that as Minister he is going to continue his no frills approach to prisons. We note that he says one prison had a gym that was so good it looked like you would be happy to pay a membership to use it. We, yip its true build a gym in a prison over 18 years ago. It was a skyline garage - un lined with some very basic weight gear. No fancy X- trainers or bikes or anything else - The boys could run around the yard if they wanted to get some aerobic action. It was extremely well used and never caused any issues - it was such a privilege that no one would do anything that would see its use restricted. So we are with Simon - lord only knows what the new gym looked like but we can attest to the fact that the basics is all that is needed.