Editorial: Fast-tracking Wiri jail plan unwarranted

Environment Minister Nick Smith has told the Auckland Council he will probably invoke the fast-track to resource consent that the Government has given itself for projects of national significance when it comes to building a South Auckland prison.

By what possible definition of national significance could this be warranted?

When the Government wrote its fast track into the Resource Management Act last year, it was widely imagined the urgency was intended for projects of particular strategic importance to the economy and its vital infrastructure.

In fact, the criteria went further. The amendment allowed the Government to "call in" projects that, among other things, would "assist the Crown in fulfilling its public health, welfare, security, or safety obligations ..."

That clause is capable of covering just about anything the Government decides to do in the name of health, social welfare or public safety.

If it uses that clause to call in the proposed prison at Wiri, it will be a declaration that the Government is indeed willing to give itself a dispensation from the usual procedures of approval for just about anything it wishes to do.

Auckland's Mayor has been too quick to support a fast track for the prison, anxious as he is to see all sorts of projects happening. The Manurewa Local Board chairman wants this one to face the normal objections and appeals.

Prisons are unlikely to be welcome anywhere and people in the vicinity should have the fullest rights of resistance.

If their case cannot defeat the project, it can secure for them the highest possible standards of safety and the prison's concealment.

Their resistance might also call into question the wisdom of answering every public worry about crime with longer prison terms. We are building so many new prisons that Corrections has become the fastest growing item in the national budget.

The proposed Wiri prison has been politically contentious because it is the first in New Zealand to be designed, built and operated by a private contractor.

No doubt some with a philosophical objection to privately managed prisons would concoct an environmental case against them but it would be unlikely to convince a court. The most it might manage would be to delay the project with appeals.

By setting up a board of inquiry, from whose decision there could be no appeal on issues of substance, the Government's prison could go ahead within nine months. That was the time set, by the first fast-track procedure under the revised act, for the Waterview motorway link.

Completion of Auckland's motorway network has national significance. But a prison? Hardly. Facilities for criminal offenders do not warrant restrictions on the ordinary rights of nearby residents.

This country is too willing to suspend legal and constitutional checks on power. Governments give themselves legislation to override any opposition not only in response to a calamity such as the Christchurch earthquake but even for a project such as the Rugby World Cup. No Government has a monopoly on wisdom and the public good. Its projects should face the same tests its law applies to others. A mundane prison is no exception.

It is not clear whether the Government means to fast-track resource consent for all prisons or just this one.

If it regards the fast track as part of its contribution to a "public-private partnership", it dishonours its environmental procedures, awards these investors an advantage over others and distorts the national economy.

If, however, it regards all prisons as projects of national significance, it would be more honest to give itself a blanket exemption from the Resource Management Act. For that is what it would be.