The Government is to meet private operators of prisons this week.
After campaigning on the issue, National announced on Monday it is to change the law to allow private companies to run corrections facilities.
Minister of Corrections Judith Collins said it is now important to find out if private operators are interested in tendering for new prisons.
Ms Collins said it is important that there is competition within the Department of Corrections to raise standards.
An Associate Professor at Canterbury University, Greg Newbold, says private companies do not tolerate the sort of entrenched failures of policy and management seen in public prisons.
Dr Newbold says accountability is key to how private companies run prisons.
Dr Newbold is a former prison inmate. Contrary to union claims, he says the Auckland remand prison was well-run by its Australian contractors.
The previous Labour-led government cancelled the deal in 2005.
