The "Briscoes sentencing" has been a bone of contention for years, this and reducing the sway cultural reports have are both absolute gimmes for National.
this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2023
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Are some of our prisons still for profit?
For the last 25-odd years, National's been giving contracts to private prisons while they're in power, then Labour's been letting them lapse when they're back in.
But the one at they built at Wiri under the last National government has a contract until 2040. The benefit of the deal is that if the recidivism rate of the prison isn't at least 10% lower than public corrections facilities, they have to pay stiff financial penalties. It still means they have every incentive to make sentences as long as possible, which can affect the wider crime rate.
Do you mean the prison has every incentive for that? I didn't think prison operators got to choose the length of a sentence. Or are you meaning them trying to influence politics and parole boards and so on?
It's hard to know how much influence they have. They don't have any say in the initial sentence.
But their incentive is to increase prison populations and sentences. And as a stakeholder, they will get a seat at the table. They might lobby government for longer sentences, they might attempt to influence public opinion, they might give less favourable behaviour reports to parole boards. They might do none of those things. But I don't think it's a good idea to give people a financial incentive to keep people in jail longer than they need to be.
That's... an interesting contract. What happens if a government starts investing heavily in rehabilitation programmes and produces good results that you just can't compete with not because you're not doing well but because the other government prisons are doing well?
But yes, my concern about things like increasing prison sentence lengths is that there is lobbying happening. It reminds me of the time Act (I think) said that if they had to make their donor names public, they would lose 80% of their donations. Is that because it's donations from companies running prisons and other conflicts of interest?
It is a weird contract. But it means they have to consistently do better than the government or pay us a lot, which is good. As long as they aren't doing harm in the process.
I'm very untrusting of the private sector getting involved in prisons in general. It's open to all kinds of corruption and human rights violations. Justice, policing, armed forces, corrections, things like that - they all need to be under direct government control, in my opinion.
Edit: I wish we could just ban political donations altogether. Or, probably better, set it at like $1,000 per person per year. Let people run campaigns on ideas, not advertising. Use the media to get the word out.
And, by the way, the only reason Act could have for wanting to hide their donors is because they know it will make them look corrupt. It's like Trump wanting to hide his tax return.
And, by the way, the only reason Act could have for wanting to hide their donors is because they know it will make them look corrupt. It’s like Trump wanting to hide his tax return.
I don't think this is necessarily true. I've personally never felt compelled to donate to a political party. If I did have money and wanted to donate a substantial amount some day, though, then I think I'd feel very uneasy about my name being out in public. That's always going to attract attention from people who you don't necessarily want chasing you around and trying to look into your interests and maybe your private life. I definitely wouldn't want to be seen donating money to Act, but it'd probably put me off for any political party.
I don't think this concern makes it okay to keep donations anonymous in the same way as happens presently. We need to rethink the system.
Yes I agree. Also if you check the register, donor's addresses are published too.
If someone's concern is not privacy but that they don't want to be seen donating to Act, they probably shouldn't be donating.
I'm convincing myself we should extend the (already pretty generous) public funding for political advertising, and ban donations. The premise of donating to political parties concerns me somewhat.
Just on this...
If someone’s concern is not privacy but that they don’t want to be seen donating to Act, they probably shouldn’t be donating.
Maybe it comes under privacy, but the main scenario I can think of is similar to a reason why I think guaranteed anonymous voting is really important. For example, maybe your workplace surrounds you with very strong unionists or very strong capitalists, or just extremely opinionated people who potentially have a lot of power and influence over you if and when they choose to exert it. It's not always ideal for your political affiliations to be out in public, so in those kinds of situations it could be a very strong disincentive for a person, or a general group of people, to donate due to peer pressure reasons that don't apply to others.
I’m convincing myself we should extend the (already pretty generous) public funding for political advertising, and ban donations. The premise of donating to political parties concerns me somewhat.
That and/or just limit the size of donations and sources to identifiable individuals, imho.
To me politics and political discussion should be driven by the enthusiasm of people who are being governed. If lots of people like an idea then each can donate a modest amount towards helping communicate it to others, just as they might donate their time. That way the movements have an amount of money and time roughly proportionate to their amount of support and enthusiasm, and I don't have much of a problem with that. I have more of a problem with disproportionately rich people donating disproportionately large amounts of money to promote and wash their ideas over everyone else's discussion.
Maybe it comes under privacy, but the main scenario I can think of is similar to a reason why I think guaranteed anonymous voting is really important. For example, maybe your workplace surrounds you with very strong unionists or very strong capitalists, or just extremely opinionated people who potentially have a lot of power and influence over you if and when they choose to exert it. It’s not always ideal for your political affiliations to be out in public, so in those kinds of situations it could be a very strong disincentive for a person, or a general group of people, to donate due to peer pressure reasons that don’t apply to others.
Yes I guess this falls under privacy, but it's a good point. It's possible to fully believe you are in the right, but not want those around you to see you as the enemy.
That and/or just limit the size of donations and sources to identifiable individuals, imho.
Yes, it's the idea of parties relying on money from private people and parties that concerns me. But banning donations does make it more difficult for new parties to start (who presumably wouldn't be able to get started without a large donation). Like almost anything controversial, there are no simple answers.
To me politics and political discussion should be driven by the enthusiasm of people who are being governed. If lots of people like an idea then each can donate a modest amount towards helping communicate it to others, just as they might donate their time. That way the movements have an amount of money and time roughly proportionate to their amount of support and enthusiasm, and I don’t have much of a problem with that.
I think the public funding model accounts for this. Parties currently get government funding, and it is apportioned based on a bunch of things such as level of support in previous elections and support for candidates in local elections. The pool of money would need to be larger I think, but I'm ok with that. We are only talking about a few million dollars a year.
I have more of a problem with disproportionately rich people donating disproportionately large amounts of money to promote and wash their ideas over everyone else’s discussion.
In 2022, National received about $5m in donations and Act received about 2m.
Act and National total, approx $7,200,000
All other parties combined, approx $1,260,000
This is not unexpected, you would expect National and Act to attract wealthy people and therefore large donations. But it does seem to give more voice to a smaller number of people.
The breakdown of the "All other parties" Is roughly $400k Labour, $400k Greens, $300k NZ First, plus some other parties with $50k or less total each. Notably, TOP received about $4,000 in donations, making me wonder if all those people on reddit aren't that willing to put their money where their mouth is when it comes to supporting TOP. In the years leading up to the 2020 election they were getting $60k-$80k a year (from donors under $15k, mostly under $1.5k), so it's interesting it dropped so substantially.
I think it'll be interesting to see how it compares in the election year, but subjectively at least it's seemed to me that Act and National have been making themselves far more visible out in public than other parties. Especially once you get out of the cities. I guess if you're raising so much, you need to be spending it outside the controlled pre-election period, or you won't be able to spend it.
Those 2022 numbers are pretty much the most National and Act have got ever (based on just scanning back through the years on the page I linked - so I may have missed some). I am very interested to see if it's significantly larger this year.
It is a weird contract. But it means they have to consistently do better than the government or pay us a lot, which is good. As long as they aren’t doing harm in the process.
It seems to heavily favour the government, if I was the prison company I'd be worried about signing it. There is probably more to the fine print, or perhaps just an exit clause so if in the unlikely event the government starts investing heavily in evidence based rehabilitation programmes then the private company can back out.
I’m very untrusting of the private sector getting involved in prisons in general. It’s open to all kinds of corruption and human rights violations. Justice, policing, armed forces, corrections, things like that - they all need to be under direct government control, in my opinion.
It feels, to me, like an insane thing to give up control of to a for-profit company.
I wish we could just ban political donations altogether. Or, probably better, set it at like $1,000 per person per year. Let people run campaigns on ideas, not advertising. Use the media to get the word out.
Parties get public funding for election advertising. I would support a ban on political donations, but I think that would need to come with a boost in public funding. I'd rather funding come without strings, though, so I'd be happy with that.
And, by the way, the only reason Act could have for wanting to hide their donors is because they know it will make them look corrupt.
That's not necessarily true. There may well be people or companies (for example) publicly talking about their efforts to be more environmentally friendly, while privately donating to Act hoping for loosened rules. Even if the donations have no influence, making them public would make the donors seem like hypocrites.
Don't get me wrong, this is a good reason to make them public (or ban them completely), but it could be either side of the transaction that would be made to look bad, and either may prevent the donations being made.
It's worth noting that Act gets like 4X more donations than Labour as per the donation returns. In 2022 they received over $800,000 in donations under $15,000, and Labour received about $400,000 total.
This isn't unexpected, but you do have to ask what the richest man in NZ gets out of donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to National and Act. I bet he doesn't spend a cent that he doesn't get a good return on.
There is probably more to the fine print, or perhaps just an exit clause so if in the unlikely event the government starts investing heavily in evidence based rehabilitation programmes then the private company can back out.
Possibly. My guess is that the prison company said that they could guarantee lower recidivism rates than the public sector, and the negotiators got them to put their money where their mouth was. They may be confident they can do that, regardless of the level of public investment. And I assume any increase in prison budgets to reduce recidivism would go to private prisons too. But it was the National government who made the contract so I don't trust that they didn't put in an exit clause to keep their business friends happy.
Parties get public funding for election advertising.
I thought it was basically nothing for parties outside of parliament, but they got $66,000 this election, which really isn't too bad. Not enough to launch the large-scale advertising campaigns of other parties, though I don't believe those help democracy. Labour and National both got over a million each anyway.
And you're right, Act might not be worried about appearing corrupt. I'm inclined to think that if a party's giving donators what they want, there's a tendency to interpret that as corruption - even if that would have been party policy anyway. But it may well be that they're worried about their donators looking like hypocrites.
This is my main take though - the motivation of basically all political donators is to attempt to influence government policy one way or another. It's essentially a bribe. We don't allow the people who interpret the laws (judges) to be given "donations" by those who are in court. Why should be let them bribe the people who make the laws that decide if they end up in court in the first place?
And you’re right, Act might not be worried about appearing corrupt. I’m inclined to think that if a party’s giving donators what they want, there’s a tendency to interpret that as corruption - even if that would have been party policy anyway. But it may well be that they’re worried about their donators looking like hypocrites.
Yes, one way to think about it is that a party has a stance and direction, and people who support that direction will donate so the party can keep doing what they are doing. But if new evidence comes to light, they can't change policy to match because they risk losing the donations they rely on.
This is my main take though - the motivation of basically all political donators is to attempt to influence government policy one way or another. It’s essentially a bribe. We don’t allow the people who interpret the laws (judges) to be given “donations” by those who are in court. Why should be let them bribe the people who make the laws that decide if they end up in court in the first place?
I fully agree.
So the politicians will decide on sentences? That's going to lead to all kinds of shit.
Yes this will definitely prevent crime like all those ram raids done by youths who've not yet been to jail.