National Party Leader Simon Bridges has accused the government of ignoring a Justice Department report which forecast a higher-than-expected prison population in 10 years' time.
The report was released to the government last year in October, right around the time Labour took power, forecasting an increase of about 40 per cent by 2027 - up from about 20 per cent forecast in 2016.
Despite that forecast, the government downgraded the size of a planned prison at Waikeria from a capacity of 1500 prisoners to only 600.
The government has said its goal is to reduce the prison population by 30 per cent over the next 15 years, which would theoretically make increasing the number of prison beds available less necessary.
Mr Bridges, speaking this morning to TVNZ 1's Breakfast programme, accused the government of being "politically dishonest".
"It's been sat on an I think its politically dishonest by the government," Mr Bridges said.
"What this report shows, it's unarguable, is the prison population is going up much more significantly than they've been saying - by a couple of thousand.
"My worry with that is they want to reduce the prison population by softening up the laws, but they haven't got any plan to reduce re-offending - well, that makes Kiwis less safe."
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