The Beehive's prison service provider Serco has become something of a Cirque du Soleil but unfortunately the Government's not getting much enjoyment out of the performance.

MORE: Serco guard 'just teaching inmates sparring technique'

The minister in charge of our jails Sam Lotu-Iiga is either too honest for the business of politics or he's not dissimilar to the clowns being hired by Serco to look after our undesirables.

Perhaps it's time for them to think about selling the Victorian Mt Eden Prison and freeing up the highly valuable land it sits on for much needed housing in the City of Fails. Prison reformers have always seen it as a dog and it's now got the minister in charge of it jumping through the hoops.

Serco must have a substantial kitty put aside for under performance. Over the past few months it's been fined a couple of hundred grand for failing to ensure the safe custody and welfare of inmates, fifty thousand for serious assaults at the prison and $315,000 for failing to contain assaults within its contractual requirement.

And now we've been told by the Minister that another hundred grand fine's been imposed on the Pommie based company for allowing segregated prisoners to mix with other inmates, resulting in a couple of assaults which could also draw more fines.

But then all the fines are small change when you consider Serco's being paid three hundred million bucks over ten years to run Mt Eden, although the contract's six year review is about to be held so they should start counting their prisoners before they're dispatched.

In the latest performance at the prison Sam Lotu-Iiga's told the guffawing grizzlies in Parliament's bear pit that a Serco guard approached a group of sparring inmates and coached them how to feint duck and weave properly. That'll be helpful in their illegal, bare fisted fight clubs that have been captured on their phones and naively posted by them on the cyber highway.

The prisoners have drawn attention to themselves by scrapping and proudly posing with the wicked weed for the cameras so they only have themselves to blame for a tighter regime now at the prison.

Unfortunately prisons are a growth business in God's Own but why outsiders have to be brought in to run them is a debatable point. The Corrections Department seemed to be doing a pretty good job, well at least on the face of it, before Serco took over the lockup's keys five years ago.

The alternative to prisons are monitoring anklets and we've recently seen how effective they are!