A very confounding government press conference

Tuesday, 7 May 2024

Tova O’Brien is Stuff’s Chief Political Correspondent and host of the weekly political podcast, Tova. Listen to the latest episode, ‘the return of the alternative coalition’, here.

ANALYSIS: Oh to be a fly on the wall of the conversation between the Prime Minister and his Corrections Minister as they walked away from what could be described as the most confounding post-cabinet press conferences of this government - and less charitably, as Labour put it, “that horrible performance”.

It is extremely unusual - possibly unheard of - for a clarifying correction to be sent out to the press gallery about almost the entirety of the post-cabinet press conference but that’s what was required after yesterday’s presser.

On the face of it the announcement was simple enough. A $1.9 billion investment in Corrections - more prison guards and beds. Then it broke down.

“This means the Government can deliver an 810-bed extension to Waikeria prison,” Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell said. .

Did that mean 810 beds above and beyond the 600 already being built as part of the Waikeria extension?

“So that's that's an addition,” Mitchell explained, “So we're going to, at Waikeria, we’ll have 600 beds that will come online at the middle of next year. And then there'll be an additional 220 beds that come on with the new one.”

Hang on, so that’s 820 beds now - but only 220 of them are new beds beyond what the previous government had already announced, paid for and nearly finished.

“No, there’s 800 extra beds going into the system,” the Prime Minister corrected.

But just as you thought you were getting the hang of it, if indeed you did, Mark Mitchell again: “Well if you let me finish what I was going to say is that under the previous Labour Government, what happened was there was about 400 beds that were decommissioned because they weren't funded. We are funding those and those going to be brought back online. So that's an additional 400 beds that are coming online, inside the system.”

So to be clear the calculation at this stage looks something a bit like this:

600+810-600+220+800-400=absolutely baffled.

Asked to clarify if Labour had decommissioned 400 of the 600 beds at Waikeria the minister replied, “I think what we're doing is we're restating our commitments as the incoming government to get that delivered.”

The press gallery kept trying in earnest: so some of the 500 have dropped off, you’ve topped that up and are now adding another 310 in addition, where does that leave the 100 dedicated mental health beds? Ok so that’s 820 and 100 of them are mental health beds, we’re now down to 710 beds with 500 of them announced in 2018 by Labour right?

The Corrections Minister was starting to look bamboozled.

In the past when former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern discovered she’d brought poorly briefed or ill-equipped ministers to her post-cabinet, she would rescue them by basically shutting them down and taking over.

Not so Luxon.

The Prime Minister shut up shop, instead appearing transfixed on shuffling his notes around on the lectern.

There was no rapid response rescue team coming for this minister - regardless of the SOS need.

More questions followed with yet more conflicting answers:

So you’re building 200 new beds? Yes.

What’s the capacity of Waikeria now? Waikeria hasn’t been delivered.

There are prisoners at Waikeria now? That’s the old prison.

How many prisoners? Don’t know.

Is the old prison still being decommissioned? Don’t know.

You’re bringing 400 decommissioned beds at Waikeria back online? No, 400 across the country.

It was feeling like an impossible maths problem in a TV sitcom. If train A leaves the station at 9.56am and travels 96km/hr and train B is travelling 50km/hr in the opposite direction at 10.23am what time does train C get to Waikeria prison?

And it wasn’t just the beds turning into number soup - nor was it just the minister getting confused.

Asked if the $1.9billion budget top up was operating allowance alone, not to be used for the actual building works, the Prime Minister replied confidently, “yes, it’s all operating.”

But the PM was swiftly corrected by Mitchell, “the capital funding is inside the 1.9billion.”

In fact, alongside amending the Prime Minister’s mistake, it was only when defending corrections officers’ rights to slushies that Mitchell sounded truly confident.

“In my view, the welfare of corrections officers must always be considered, they work in hot cramped conditions where they're carrying seven kgs of equipment on them and the core temperature is actually something that's key and dehydration is something they fight with every summer.”

It wasn’t long after the Prime Minister and his Corrections minister left the press conference that a clarifying statement was sent round.

Waikeria Prison currently has 455 beds. 810 beds will be added - on top of the 600 announced by Labour. All up Waikeria will have a 1865 capacity.

Asked what went so wrong, a Beehive staffer told Stuff, “there were a lot of numbers in his head.”

Ultimately this should have been a good news story for this “tough on crime” National-led government: a funding boost to keep more bad guys off the streets and more prison guards watching over them - slushies in hand keeping morale high and temperatures low in summer.

What instead unfolded was a derailment or sorts, a political train wreck as Train A and Train B hit Train C as they all arrived simultaneously at Waikeria Prison.