If keeping baddies banged up is the objective, Corrections data suggest prisons work well

Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis – we learned this morning – hadn’t seen fresh prison population forecasts when plans to build a mega-prison at Waikeria were scrapped in May.

Never mind that he later issued a clarifying statement.  The key point is that instead of proceeding to build the biggest prison in the country, he announced a small prison to replace the deteriorating jail at Waikeria. It will be a 500-bed high-security facility with a 100-bed specialised unit for prisoners suffering significant mental health issues.

The new forecasts are unlikely to have tempered his thinking. He says mega-prisons don’t work.

The forecasts are contained in a Ministry of Justice report.  They point to New Zealand’s prison population rising to more than 4000 over the next decade.  This would lift the number of inmates to 14,400 by the year 2027.

Govt is counting on conservationists to plant trees – with $6.6m encouragement

We use taxes to grow trees – axes are for bringing them down.

The headline on a press statement that came our way was rich with possibilities: TREES THAT COUNT SET TO GROW THROUGH PROVINCIAL GROWTH FUND SUPPORT

Trees that count – we mused – could be gainfully employed keeping tabs on Forestry Minister Shane Jones’ performance as he sets out on his mission to have a billion trees planted.

Trees that count might be useful in the Treasury, too, which was embarrassed (or should have been) by the recent findings of an independent review into a coding error that affected child-poverty projections given to the Government in December 2017.

But no. It quickly became apparent Trees That Count is a conservation outfit which, the  press statement advised, was gearing up to push its programme with the help of a $6.6 million grant from the Government’s Provincial Growth Fund, as part of the Billion Trees programme.