Prison Propaganda, Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) and 'Vaccine' Mandate Exemptions in New Zealand

Staff who complied, prisoners who did NOT comply, and those of us left with more questions than answers...

Photo by Hédi Benyounes on Unsplash

One of my roles BC (Before Covid) was being one of the 2,000 volunteers for the NZ Dept of Corrections. I was Tutor for prisoners who were keen to learn - from basic literacy and numeracy to a Degree in Law, it was a challenging task, but rewarding. We had limited resources and no technology, but my students were enthusiastic and critical thinkers.

But then I was forced to leave when then-PM Jacinda-’single-source-of-truth’ Ardern implemented the Covid Vaccination Order that included all Corrections staff. That decision was ironic because I knew most of my conscientious students #donotcomply. I probably can’t write much about that experience publicly, but what I am interested in writing about, is how the prisons functioned during the covid era and the importance of investigating those Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) that have spread like a nasty rash over the NZ prison system.

First, some context:

NZ Dept of Corrections is apparently the largest of the public sector entities, with an enormous budget (tragically, bigger than some education sectors) and around 10,000 staff (including 2,000 registered volunteers). That’s probably because New Zealand has one of the highest rates of imprisonment of any other country. Surprised? The majority of Corrections staff work with offenders in 200 spaces, including 18 prisons, Community Corrections Sites and other locations. Corrections provides a range of programmes that try to help to reduce the re-offending of their approx 8,500 inmates and around 31,000 people serving sentences and orders in their communities.

The Corrections website states:

“Corrections protects the public of New Zealand from those who can harm them, by:

• making sure people we manage comply with the sentences and orders imposed by the Courts and New Zealand Parole Board

• providing rehabilitation programmes, education and job training that will turn lives around and break the cycle of re-offending.”

Colonialism inflicts complex negative impact. Like many other countries, NZ has long-running, complex debates around why there are disproportionate numbers of ethnic minorities in prison. In some areas, over 50% of inmates identify as Māori, when only 15% (max) of the general population identify as that heritage (and less than 5% speak the language). More importantly, what can be done to address these inequalities, including high rates of recidivism?

Having observed personally what was happening in terms of educational provision in NZ Prisons, I have my own theories about solutions, but that is not what this post is about.

For an overview of NZ Prisons, including the drugs, violence and gang membership that those readers outside New Zealand may find conflicts with that ‘Clean, Green, 100% Pure’ equal and free society myth, you could watch this doco from 10 years ago (25 mins):

Today, nothing much seems to have changed, other than corrupt PPPs being brought in to ‘fix’ the lack of Government investment in the buildings and infrastructure. Good job!

NZ Prisons during the covid era

Readers will know that I’ve been on a bit of a mission to uncover some of the secrecy around jab mandates in our healthcare system. You can read about that here, here and here. Or you can listen to me being interviewed about this topic here, and here. I’ve also been investigating other public sectors, to uncover some more pieces of the jigsaw.

Today, I’m reporting the various NZ Dept of Corrections responses to my questions about the covid era restrictions. Some of which are ongoing. In an OIA dated 11 Dec 2023, they claimed (in a generic-template letter):

“People in prison are some of the most susceptible to COVID-19, due to many being vulnerable due to existing health conditions, and the ease of transmission that COVID-19 could have had in the prison environment. Internationally, we have seen the devastating impact of COVID-19 in prison environments, with many prison staff and prisoners becoming seriously unwell, and a number of deaths occurring.” (my emphasis)

I’ve not looked specifically at the academic literature about covid deaths and prisoners, but I can guess what I’ll find when I search. Propaganda. For one thing, with nothing much to do, and tiny, inadequate cells to sleep in, many NZ prisoners choose to spend most of their time in the outside quad, in the Kiwi sunshine, lifting weights and playing rugby. But let’s not let any natural immunity-type facts get in the way of BigPharma-sponsored fear-mongering. Corrections continue…

“Since March 2020 we put in place extensive plans to manage any risk to our staff or the people we manage, and we have continued to refine these plans in order to do everything we can to keep our staff and the people we manage safe from COVID-19. This includes robust infection prevention and control plans, with detailed record keeping for both staff and visitors to our sites to enable fast and thorough contact tracing – including the use of proximity detection technology to assist with contact tracing.”

Mmm that’s interesting. What kind of ‘proximity detection technology’? Did everyone have informed consent about that?

The infection and control measures that were implemented included identifying roles which could only be undertaken by vaccinated staff, introducing vaccination requirements for visitors, as well as the use of thermal cameras to screen for high temperatures, health screening on entry, contact tracing, separating new arrivals for their first 14 days, and the use of personal protective equipment.

Yes, you read that correctly. The jab mandates were also applied to prisoners’ visitors - presumably simultaneously while those visitors also knew that the prisoners they were were visiting were not jabbed (more on that in a tick). Curiouser and curiouser. Did that include the prisoner’s children?

I think we know the answer to that question, eh?

The coercion was so unethical, it leaves me without words to describe those abusing their positions of power. And while we are on that subject, who were those people exactly? Here is the answer to that one:

“The process for reaching and reviewing our position decisions was led by Corrections’ Safety & Wellbeing team, working in partnership with a variety of other teams and representatives such as Corrections Services, Legal, Policy, Communications, Unions and Health and Safety Representatives. The views of staff and our Executive Leadership Team were also considered. The final decision and approval was made by Jeremy Lightfoot – the Chief Executive of Corrections.”

PPPs and NZ Prisons

Now the timing of Jeremy Lightfoot’s original appointment to CE (10 mins radio interview about it) of NZ Dept of Corrections is worth noting: February 2020. Yes, just before the world was about to shift on its axis. Here is the guy from the website:

Jeremy Lightfoot, Chief Executive Dept of Corrections

“Appointed as Chief Executive in February 2020, Jeremy leads a workforce of nearly 9,000 people who manage around 10,000 people in prison and 30,000 people serving sentences or orders in the community.

He was also the Public Private Partnership (PPP) Director for the Auckland South Corrections Facility overseeing the country’s first PPP to combine design, build, financing and operation of a prison.

Jeremy has extensive public sector, commercial and contract management experience both in New Zealand and the United Kingdom, with a strong focus on PPPs and Public Finance Initiatives.”

This begins to make sense now. Lightfoot appears to have no career experience or quals related to the prison service, education, health, or even military or police. But he does have experience from the UK PPPs consultancy investment sector. Was he head-hunted from the UK specifically for this role (will he inevitably become a fall guy?) And remember the PPP model has been rolling-out globally, as a copy and paste. BTW It’s perhaps not a coincidence that Mr Lightfoot’s listed qualification is from the University of Sussex - one of the UK captured many institutions that is explicitly linked to impact investment / PPP arms of the Legatum Institute, the ‘education’-focused Luminos Fund, including its Board of Directors. To recap on that, see this previous post. And here’s my draft diagram to show what is meant by impact investment:

It’s no secret to followers of NGOs like Amnesty International that NZ Prisons are failing to provide basic Human Rights. What is the solution? PPPs of course! PPPs seem to be the only solution in much of the world when public sector funding dries-up. Even though there is limited evidence of anything other than negative impact from PPPs and lots of evidence of their harm. For interest, one of the major PPPs with NZ Corrections is in the Waikato, with Australian-based mining and mineral group CIMC.

This PPP is over budget and way behind schedule, originally planned to be opened in 2022, then 2023, and now 2024. Seems like no lessons are ever learned by Governments intent on taking money from private companies for these PPP projects. Maybe that’s partly because so much of the information is hidden from public view?

Vaccine mandates for NZ Corrections staff

Now, back to ‘vaccine’ mandates. There has been some obfuscation regarding the Corrections staff exemptions. This is what I asked the Dept of Corrections about the ‘vaccine’ mandate exemptions for staff.

“Q: What communication with staff was there about the Corrections interpretation of the [Vaccine Mandate Order] policy and what were the policy procedures in place for obtaining/completing and submitting the application form for the exemptions?”

A: In an effort to ensure the safety and wellbeing of all staff and people in Corrections’ management, Corrections did not apply for any exemptions under section 12(a)(4)(c) of the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Vaccinations) Order 2021 – (Amendment 25 October 2021) on behalf of staff, as it was determined that exemptions did not need to be made for essential operations to continue.”

However, later in the same OIA response, it is stated:

Two temporary COVID-19 Vaccine medical exemptions were granted by the Director General of Health. These were applied for by staff directly.

So what happened to the other 10,000 staff including the 2000 volunteers like me, who were mandated? Can we really believe that no-one stood up for bodily sovereignty? These people, even when knowing many of their prisoners who were their patients, students or even congregation at the daily prison mass, were NOT ‘vaccinated’, they just went along with the policy anyway? Why? The website where the Dept of Corrections published prisoners’ ‘vaccination’ rates has long since been deleted. But fortunately, the Wayback Machine provides us with some interesting data that confirms 72% of prisoners were ‘fully vaccinated’ and less than 49% were boosted (screenshots):

And the breakdown by area provides more detail:

These outcomes represent a much lower level of success with the unethical coercion and propaganda campaign, compared to the general Kiwi population. The prisoners were apparently not persuaded with bribes of food or sweets (as this different OIA explains):

“We continue to explore different means of reaching people in prison to encourage 
vaccination. This includes local/national initiatives and shared insights across our prisons to boost the…uptake of the vaccine. Initiatives include promoting word of mouth discussions with 
influential leaders in our prisons and culturally targeted educational forums. 
Corrections ensures informed consent is always obtained from all people in prison who 
received the COVID-19 vaccination. As occurred at many vaccination sites across the 
country, some prisons provided food to people in prison following their vaccination. This 
included lollipops and cookies.”

 

Conclusions

Finally, as I have written about before when investigating the $millions which silenced the academics some of whom were mandated out of their roles by NZ universities, I thought this question may provide some clues…

I would like to see numbers of Records of Settlement, Non-disclosure agreements and/or similar employment agreements – created, declined and agreed – again using the above criteria if possible of region/role and date. Plus the total sums involved.

But nope:

Records show that one record of settlement was signed on 1 July 2022 in the Southern region. Information about the role is withheld under section 9(2)(a) of the OIA, in order to protect the privacy of natural persons.

So that’s it. Not much uncovered here, save what is NOT said by the many staff and volunteers and even the prisoners themselves and their families about what went on in NZ Prisons during the covid era. I wasn’t there. But I do care about my students who were left without a tutor without good reason. There doesn’t appear to be any reason for the silence from the Corrections staff. Two years have passed since the mandates were applied. It’s way past time for whistleblowers to speak out.