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Prime Minister Helen Clark today rejected opposition calls to sack her Corrections Minister Damien O'Connor saying he will fix problems.
Yesterday National deputy leader Bill English repeated the party's call for Mr O'Connor to resign or for Miss Clark to sack him over the death of Auckland teenager Liam Ashley.
The latest demand followed revelations a female prison officer had a relationship with Liam's killer 25-year-old George Charlie Baker and claims that staff at Upper Hutt's Rimutaka Prison were being bribed by gangs and prisoners to supply them with drugs.
Helen Clark said Corrections Department Chief Executive Barry Matthews had been in the job for about 18 months and Mr O'Connor held the portfolio for about a year and were in a good position to fix problems.
"Damien O'Connor is a compassionate and humane person and he's trying with the chief executive to get a turn-around in our prison system," Helen Clark told TV One's Breakfast programme.
"The prison system has been under very heavy pressure for some years now with fast rising numbers of inmates and that has finally been arrested but there's been a struggle."
"I think they are both in a position where they can see what the issues are and can move to fix them and clearly there are issues that need to be fixed."
She described Mr Matthews as an "exceptional public servant" and said drugs in prisons was an international problem.
"Of course we want to keep drugs out of prisons but we would be I think be among the company of every country in the world in having a battle to keep drugs out of prisons." she said.
"We just have to have ever better surveillance techniques to stop it. We want to stop it. It should be stopped but it isn't as easy as just waving a magic wand."
On Friday Baker was sentenced to life imprisonment with a non-parole period of 18 years for the strangling and stomping of Liam in the back of a prison van in August.
At the weekend it was revealed a female prison officer had a relationship with Baker during and after a previous stint in prison.
The Sunday Star-Times reported the 30-year-old mother of three Te Awhina Nepia admitted the relationship and resigned.
The revelation came on top of the launch of the investigation at Rimutaka Prison near Wellington.
Former officers, Ingrid and Mark Rijniers, alleged staff were being bribed by gangs and prisoners who had unlimited access to drugs.
The couple, who were recruited from Holland, said the prison was controlled by gangs and they received death threats while they were working there.
Mr Matthews said the pair were demanding money to co-operate with the investigation.
- NZPA
