Barry Matthews

Wellington, Sept 23 NZPA - The military are ready to step in and run prisons if industrial unrest escalates, Corrections chief executive Barry Matthews told MPs today.

There were standing provisions for the military to help keep prisons operating in case of a strike or a lockout, Mr Matthews told Parliament's law and order select committee.

They were updated regularly and he had met military bosses in February to keep them in touch as collective contracts expired at the end of the year.

Mr Matthews said his department had not been funded to give any pay rise to prison staff.

The pay talks coincide with the prison officers' union, the Corrections Association, taking the department to court over double bunking.

Labour MP Clayton Cosgrove suggested that the possibility of a zero percent payrise, prison privatisation and the use of the military were being used a threat to get staff to agree to double bunking.

Mr Matthews said no threats had been made and he believed most staff just wanted to get on with double-bunking.

He later told journalists that the military back-up plan was last used in the 1990s.

Any deployment of soldiers would be alongside prison management and non-striking staff.

He also confirmed that his department's financial support to the Corrections Association has been suspended.

It emerged recently that association president Beven Hanlon, one of the Government's most vocal union critics, was paid nearly $130,000 last year to subsidise wages and expenses.

His most recent targets have been privately-run prisons and the Employment Court action over double-bunking.

The department paid the association and Mr Hanlon $127,727 in the 2008/09 financial year.

That included $44,889 to subsidise Mr Hanlon's salary for the two days a week he spends on union business and the amount to hire a replacement for those days.

Another $32,215 was paid in airfares, $3163 for car rentals and taxis, $6226 for accommodation and $41,233 for what is described in documents as "salaries and backfill".

Mr Matthews said the payments had been suspended until a memorandum of understanding about the support to the union was agreed.

Labour MPs said the payments were meant to compensate the union for costs incurred in employer-called meetings.