Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill

Hon TREVOR MALLARD Link to this

I think it is a minor miracle, and if the Leader of the House wants to keep that up we can stretch the debate. I can congratulate him until the closure, if that is what he would like.

We have a whole pile of cells around the place. They are not used anywhere near the way they need to be. They are not ideal accommodation for prisoners. They are certainly not good for keeping prisoners on a longer-term basis. But in my opinion, compared with some of the cells in some of the older prisons around the country, they are not the worst cells in the country. My view is that using them where necessary, in emergency situations, is logical and a hell of a lot better an idea than setting up a tent somewhere, especially to hold remand prisoners.

But I want to play back to National the comments of Tony Ryall. He said the use of court cells was a warning of a jail crisis. In 2005, when this measure was being introduced by Labour, he said it was a system in crisis. “Police continually warn about the dangers caused by holding prisoners in court cells … Mainstream New Zealand should be worried by this escalating crisis because it means there will be more prisoner compensation claims,”.

That is what Tony Ryall said in 2005. [Interruption] I am very reluctant to adopt his words and to agree with him, so I will not. In respect of compensation, it was nonsense when he said it then and it is nonsense now. But it is a sign, I think it is fair to say, of a very, very lazy Minister of Corrections, who promised a lot more than she has delivered. She promised, for example, that she would have crates and containers all over the place to keep prisoners in. I expected she would have a line up of those down in Wellington. I expected that she would use Wellington Prison to a much greater extent than she is. But what is she doing? She is bringing in legislation here.

I also think it is interesting that someone on the National front bench who is much more rational and much more reasonable than Tony Ryall was also—

Hon TREVOR MALLARD Link to this

It is not hard to name people who are more rational than Tony Ryall. The particular member I was thinking of is Simon Power. On 22 November 2005 he said: “With prisoners being housed in vans,”—and I gather that is the next National policy—“showered at rugby clubs, and kept in police and court cells, how can the Minister convince the members of the New Zealand public that they are safer since he became Minister of Corrections?”. And that is the issue here. How can Judith Collins convince people that we are safer since she became Minister of Corrections? I want to know why this legislation has taken a year.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD Link to this

Clearly the tent city has not worked. I would have thought that in any decent emergency situation getting hold of a few tents, going to Stewart Island, Matiu Island, or somewhere like that, putting up the tents, and sticking the prisoners there would not be too much of a problem. That is what Judith Collins promised she would do, but she is such a lazy member, that she cannot even wander down to the Warehouse or Kathmandu and get a few tents to put prisoners in, in the way she promised.

All we have here is evidence of a lot of hot air from Judith Collins. You know, she likes to act tough. How many cars have been crushed? Not one. How many prisoners are being held in containers? Not one. She is beginning to be known as the Minister of the eight-letter word that we are not allowed to use in this House, and it has to do with bovine animals. She is the “Minister for What Comes Out of Bovine Animals”. That Minister is not delivering. She fronts up tough, she puts her chin out, and she lifts her chest. But does she deliver in the portfolio? No, she does not, at all. She is all puffery, and she shows no action whatsoever.

I want to know why, if the Minister was confident about this bill, she did not send it to the select committee. Why did she not have the confidence of her own intelligence to send the bill to a select committee and have it tested?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD Link to this

She is laughing because she does not have the confidence of her own intelligence to defend the bill at select committee.

The Labour Party is happy to get the Government out of the hole. We do not want prisoners running round because that Government has not acted properly. We do not want prisoners up and down the streets, the way they would be if they were being held in tents, as she was promising. We will support her. But if we were allowed to use the word “hypocrisy” in this House, I would have.

CARMEL SEPULONI Link to this

Tony Ryall—the current Minister of Health—when in Opposition, in 2005 said that the growing use of police and court cells was a warning of a jail in crisis.

We are aware of the fact that there is a crisis going on with regard to crime in New Zealand, and that it has been going on since National took office in 2008. When we refer back to what Tony Ryall said, it just confirms what we already know. It is a message that we need to get out to the public with regard to what this Government is not doing to resolve the problems that we have with crime. Another person from the National Government, Mr Simon Power, said on 22 November 2005: “With prisoners being housed in vans, showered at rugby clubs, and kept in police and court cells, how can the Minister convince the members of the New Zealand public that they are safer since he became the Minister of Corrections?”.

Last night we debated the Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill. It was pushed through because the National Government believed that private prisons will be safer, better, and cheaper for New Zealand. Yet here we are now with the Government pushing through a bill that is basically opening up the prison system so that more prisoners can be held in court cells because the Government knows it will not be able to contain them in the prisons we have. There is a certain irony there that I really feel I need to put out.

One thing I really want to highlight is that we are here discussing the need to find accommodation for an excess of prisoners who will not be able to be held in our prisons due to the fact that there will not be enough accommodation for them. Yet one thing the National Government is not discussing in detail is the fact that crime is on the rise. It has been on the rise since National took over in 2008.

The National Government continues to ignore the fact that there is a strong correlation between crime, unemployment, and poverty. Unemployment and poverty are the two things that this Government is not addressing. It will continue to put through legislation that acts as an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, but it will do nothing to ensure that we reduce the numbers of people committing crimes.

I found an article on The Standard that discusses the leap in crime. Recorded crimes per person leapt 2.8 percent in the June year as unemployment climbed from 4 percent to 6 percent. Obviously, it is not a coincidence. As Mr Ryall pointed out before, crime is a symptom of a society in distress. It shows that there is a crisis, and that is something the National Government has to take full responsibility for.

On a number of occasions Government members have said that the previous Labour Government did nothing with regard to crime, and they have created the perception with the public that crime increased under Labour. I refer to a press release from the University of Auckland—not from the Labour caucus, but from the University of Auckland. It is dated 26 February 2008, and it states: “Contrary to popular perception, according to a recent study, the incidence of crime in New Zealand has steadily decreased over the last decade, says Julia Tolmie, co-editor of … Criminal Justice in New Zealand and associate professor of law at the University of Auckland. What has changed is that the amount of people who are being prosecuted and the sentences that they are getting have both increased.”

Now, that happened under a Labour Government. The prosecutions and sentences increased but the crime decreased. In other words, the numbers we are locking up for committing crimes have rapidly increased in recent years, even though crime is not growing. The perception that crime climbed under a Labour Government was put out by National members, and it was incredibly irresponsible. Now they are in a situation where they are in charge, they are experiencing a crisis, they know they cannot house the number of prisoners who will be coming through the prisons, and they are looking to privatise. But even with the benefits they perceive from that around rehabilitation and reintegration, they know they will have an overcrowding problem in our prisons. Therefore, they have to push through this bill.

I want to touch on the main provisions of this bill. Clause 4 inserts a new subsection that ensures that if a court cell block has been declared by notice in the Gazette to be a part of a corrections prison, then section 9 of the Resource Management Act 1991 does not prevent that cell block being used to detain prisoners. Clause 5 makes a consequential amendment to the Resource Management Act to signal that section 9 of that Act does not apply to the detention of prisoners in a court cell block that is declared by notice in the Gazette to be part of a corrections prison.

As I said, Labour members support this bill, but the issue we are discussing is the irony of this measure—and I am not allowed to use the word, which Mr Mallard pointed out, that starts with “h”. But that is the word we are discussing here, and that is the issue we are discussing.

I want to go back to the bill that was discussed previously tonight, and I discuss it in correlation with this one. That bill was the Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill, which is known to most people as the “Privatisation of Prisons Bill”. I go back to what we discussed about the Government’s argument that, for some reason or another, private prisons would be better, safer, and cheaper despite the fact that the vast majority of the submissions showed us that that would not be the case.

In recent months we have experienced a major issue with regard to a shortage of court security officers, and we have also experienced some major upheaval with our justice employees with regard to the working conditions they are being forced to work under, under this National Government. Here we are, putting through this legislation, and knowing that a higher number than usual of prisoners will be kept in our court cells. But do we really have the capacity in terms of staff to ensure that the staff remain safe? Are security measures in place to ensure that the public is also safe? Do the working conditions for the security staff ensure that they will not be on strike every 5 minutes because they are fighting with the Government over what they should be entitled to?

I refer to a Manukau Courier article that was put out on 16 April this year—that is, under this Government. It states: “Judges are publicly backing a third budget bid by the Justice Ministry to increase the number of court security officers nationwide. Security staff at the court wear stab-proof vests because of the number of knives they seize from people entering court, says the Public Service Association, the union for state sector workers … PSA national secretary Richard Wagstaff says there aren’t enough officers to cover the three courts at all times … That shortage is ‘mirrored at courts across the country and threatens the safety of the public’, Mr Wagstaff says.”

This is an issue that the National Government will have to deal with as it brings this legislation through. It is no good saying that prisoners who cannot be accommodated in our prisons can be housed in court cells if it does not have in place the security measures to ensure that not only the staff who are working there but also the public are safe. It is a very real issue that I really thought I needed to bring to the attention of this Government. The other issue I touched on before was with regard to the pay disputes that have been happening across the justice sector.

DAVID CLENDON Link to this

I say to Mr Garrett that I like to be predictable. This bill allows the Department of Corrections to jail prisoners in court cells. Currently, this can be done by providing notices in the Gazette, but this would usually require approval under the Resource Management Act. This bill establishes an exception, so the Resource Management Act does not cover the housing of prisoners in court cells. We know that court cells are not designed or suitable for the long-term housing of prisoners. It is flagged in the regulatory impact statement to this bill that the completely inadequate nature of these facilities means that the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act is potentially contravened, as indeed could some relevant international conventions.

Last night there was mention of innovation and vision in changes to corrections more generally, and specifically in the terms of the Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill that was discussed last night. The vision that underpins this current bill seems to be that we will continue to imprison people in large numbers, we will not make any attempt to reduce the number of prisoners, and we will simply use whatever expedient measure we can to put people away, to keep them out of the public view, and to make no effort to rehabilitate them or to reduce or deal with the underlying causes of crime. We have heard of shipping containers being used as cells, and now we have court cells. I can only surmise as to the opinion of the police force when discovering that their holding cells, which are there for a very real and proper purpose, are now to be used to manage the lack of other adequate facilities for maintaining prisoner security and, indeed, public safety.

We know that the prison system is under extraordinary pressure and again I refer to the presentation yesterday to the Law and Order Committee from the head of the Department of Corrections, who indicated quite clearly and frankly that the department is under extraordinary stress and is very close to breaking point. Double-bunking is seen as one mechanism for reducing or managing the pressure on prisons, but we know from prison officers that it puts them in an extremely vulnerable, very dangerous, and potentially very violent situation, which will be dangerous both for them and for inmates.

The option of last resort is this one that seems to have been chosen—the idea of using court cells to accommodate the overflow. It has been used in the past, as I said, for acute accommodation shortages in the very short term. But this bill would embed and normalise the practice of putting prisoners into court cells, which is completely inadequate and is not acceptable in a modern, allegedly developed society.

The objective of the policy, as stated in the regulatory impact statement, is to enable the Department of Corrections to continue to manage the prison population within the available resource and in a manner that is safe, secure, humane, and effective. We argue that this bill fails those tests. It will not enhance safety. Court cells are not secure, in the sense that they are not designed for the long-term custody of prisoners. It certainly is not humane to put people in a situation where there are no facilities for adequate exercise or for access from visitors or, indeed, for proper legal representation, and we do not believe it would be effective.

This bill, in part, is intended to circumvent the requirements of section 9 of the Resource Management Act. The disadvantage of the proposal is that it prevents, or would prevent, neighbouring residents and other affected parties from challenging the overnight accommodation of prisoners in court cells. An understatement in the regulatory impact statement suggests that the legislation could be controversial. To say the least, it will most certainly be controversial; the Resource Management Act is a document that has already been under attack this year and we expect there will be further attacks next year. Specifically, the Greens defend the Resource Management Act on the grounds that it is our primary source of environmental protection and we absolutely will continue to defend the principle of public participation.

This bill endeavours to circumvent the opportunity for members of the public to participate effectively through the sections and provisions of the bill. Granting an exemption from the Resource Management Act requirements also sets a very unhealthy precedent that could be taken up by others who see that there may be advantage in a Government agency seeking to carry out urgent building work, for example, or other activities with an environmental or social impact. The bill could be seen as a precedent to pursue similar exemptions.

The comment has been made that using court cells for overflow might carry a risk of litigation. The prisoners housed in these cells could claim that their treatment does not comply with the provisions of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. Indeed, one can readily imagine situations where prisoners would be quite right in that assertion, in that their rights would, in fact, be contravened. It is acknowledged that the use of court cells for overflow prisoners is not a new policy. Court cells have been used in the past, and the department was able to meet its obligations under domestic and international law. However that was always in the sense of exceptional circumstance—a temporary, one-off, seldom repeated situation. As I said, this bill would seek to normalise the use of court cells as overflow with all of the accompanying indications that people will continue to offend, we will continue to provide inadequate treatment, rehabilitation services, or even proper and decent accommodation, and therefore we will use this stopgap measure. Except rather than have it as a stopgap measure, it will become a core part of our corrections system.

We need to put our efforts—significant efforts and, indeed, significant resources—into reducing our prison population. We need non-custodial intervention for minor non-violent offending, instead of the default position of throwing young people into the schools of crime that our prisons are. We need a much greater focus on early intervention, rehabilitation, and adult and community education. Such a large number of our prison population have literacy and numeracy problems, and community-based education is a very powerful mechanism for remedying that very real problem. It is very unfortunate that this Government has chosen to reduce adult and community education funding at a time when it is of critical importance and could make a major, albeit indirect, contribution to reducing our prison population.

There is a need to address the causes of crime such as entrenched poverty, which is becoming endemic in this country despite it being a wealthy—or at least potentially a wealthy—country. The evidence this week that something like one in five children in our country is effectively living in poverty is simply intolerable. The children of those homes, the children of those families, will almost inevitably become a high risk in their time, and that is virtually guaranteeing another generation of offending. I have mentioned in previous speeches the ever-widening income gap in New Zealand. We will have more and more people with very little to lose, and a few with far too much to lose. Again this is not a mechanism for social harmony or well-being. It will increase the risk of offending.

Given that this bill was not available to us until quite recently, these are only very preliminary comments, but I can assure the House that we will continue to oppose this bill throughout its passage. Kia ora.

DAVID GARRETT Link to this

As Mr Cosgrove is aware, I have actually seen tent jails over in Arizona, and they seem to work fairly well. I welcome Mr Mallard’s openness of thinking and his willingness to consider what has, in the past, been dismissed as total red-neckery. I congratulate Mr Mallard for that breadth, that openness, and that willingness to consider innovative solutions to problems.

No one will argue, and I certainly will not, that long-term or even regular incarceration in court cells is a good idea. Of course it is not. But everyone over on the other side of the House has seemingly forgotten that—if I recall correctly, not so long ago—prisoners were held in prison vans outside police stations and courts because there was nowhere else to hold them. I would be very surprised to hear anyone argue, even on Planet Gaia, that incarceration in prison vans is a good idea.

This is a sensible measure. It will not normalise the use of court cells. I say to Mr Clendon that the sky will not fall. We will not have every court cell in the country full of prisoners. But in emergency situations it is sensible and, indeed, humane that prisoners be held in court cells with running water rather than in a van outside. We will be supporting the bill.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE Link to this

—I think that member might be about to blow—is that National put out a pamphlet that said if all its policies were implemented, the prison population would double. That is what it said, but now it recasts history and the Minister of Corrections says that she did not know this was going to happen. Yet her own party’s policy before the election said that if all the National Party’s law and order commitments were fulfilled, it would double the prison population. So that is the “l” word; it is porky No. 1.

The third point I make is that the Minister forgets she had a briefing as the incoming new Minister that gave her, a 1 year ago almost to the day, the prison forecast. I recall when I was in Cabinet—and I am sure that Mr Assistant Speaker Barker will recall it as he was there as well—every Monday morning we had a document that showed the prison forecast and the actual numbers. Every time something happened in the community that was outrageous, the National Opposition members stood up and said Labour was not locking up enough criminals. It is a bit like Nick Smith saying that New Zealand must show leadership over the emissions trading system when a year ago he said we should not show leadership at all, because he was in Opposition. I say to those members: “You can’t fudge history.” That is the point.

We will support the bill because there is a requirement for flexibility. Court cells were used from time to time under the last Government, and we have to put those people somewhere. I accept that, but members of the National Government get up and say “Shock, horror! The prison figures are outrageous and it is an outrage that New Zealand has the second-largest incarceration rate, per head of population, in the world.”

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE Link to this

Well, that is what they said, except the problem with that view is that not 12 months ago, during a general election, and years before that, those members accused the last Government of not locking up enough people. I say to members opposite that they cannot have it both ways.

The other observation I would make is that I believe we are now perhaps 7 or 8—depending on whether the Leader of the House stuffs it up again—parliamentary days away from the end of the sitting year. The Minister of Corrections has had her forecast for a year, and there has been no plan to address this issue. Here we stand in urgency, ramming another bill through. Most members never saw it until it was tabled because of the Minister’s own disorganisation. She has bleated about this issue for nigh on 12 months, but she has presented no formal strategy or plan. She has a commitment in her election policy to build a new prison, yet no money was allocated in the Budget, no spade went into the ground, and no foundation was laid—nothing. We have no plan from the Government on how to address the prison muster in a formal, logical, and logistical sense.

Yet we have heard: “Let’s fire some bunks in; to hell with the security arrangements for prison officers; and to hell with the potential for prison officers getting done over, because of the stress rising in the prisons.” I am concerned about those prison officers. We have had the great container campaign: bang a few containers—made in China or wherever—in the odd prison and bodgie a strategy together. Now we have court cells being used. As I say, we do not oppose that, but we do feel a duty to point out the obvious to members opposite because when they were in Opposition they railed against the use of police cells and court cells.

We have already heard from Trevor Mallard quoting Simon Power who, in Opposition, said that it was outrageous that we were doing that and that all hell was breaking loose in the prisons because court cells were being used. Tony Ryall, as Opposition spokesperson on corrections, also railed against that practice, yet 12 months into the ether we see members opposite standing up, one after another, led by the nose, reading out National research unit notes and proclaiming that this is a great strategy. Well, as we move through this debate, I would like to know about the logistical arrangements and what provision has been made—for I talked to a senior prison staffer yesterday—for prison officers within our court buildings. Court buildings are used at particular times, as we know, and court cells are required to be used by the judiciary for the administration of alleged criminals from time to time each day. I ask where the security arrangements are, where the extra staff are, and where the basic logistical requirements for the prison officers who have to guard these prisons are—that is, offices if they need them and beds if they need them, or do they share a cell in the court with the prisoner? None of those issues have been addressed, and I would like to know where the budget and where the resources are coming from in respect of that issue.

I point out to members opposite their scattergun approach to muster management, after 12 months in Government. We hear the groans, on cue—if Mr Quinn is awake—that the Labour Government had 9 years to do it. That is dead right, and we built four prisons. But we were criticised by the then National Opposition.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE Link to this

Crime did drop under us, but we still put in place formal prison systems. We built four prisons. Those folk in their manifesto said they were going to build a prison or a number of them. We have heard nothing, seen nothing, and nothing has been done in that respect. They have been in office for 12 months. I would have thought that at least the concrete would go down, or that the odd bit of iron or steel would go in as the foundations were raised and the construction begun 12 months ago. But there was nothing in the Budget and no mention of it from the Minister.

Yet we have a bit of double-bunking, which I fear. My fear is not for the prisoners in this respect but what will occur to the prison officers if the stress level is ratcheted up in those prisons. OK, prisoners are locked up in the cells, but at some point they have to be unlocked. It will not be members opposite who turn the key and open the door and get punched in the face by the prisoner. It will not be those members, as they are closeted behind the glass upstairs; it will be our prison service folk. It will be no one in this Chamber who gets done over. Then we have the scattergun approach in the use of containers—drop a few out of the sky here, a few there. But we cannot get the cost for those. There are three or four costs for those but no one can tell us what it will cost or how long they will last.

I predict that after the Government has done the containerisation of prisoners and has built—if it does—a new prison, the taxpayer will be up for far more than had the Government done the job properly and fulfilled National’s election promise. Then, at the eleventh hour, we have this logical move, I accept, to utilise court cells, and no one opposes that on our side. But with 8 days to go in the parliamentary year, that is the sort of forethought and foresight exhibited. That is the planning and logistical strategising exhibited by this Minister of Corrections. “Last-minute Louis”, with 8 days to go, says: “Let’s do this”, when I presume that Cabinet, or at least her office, gets the prison forecast every week, if not every couple of days, as we did when we were Ministers. This is forecast to go through.

I would also like to know whether the claims made by the Department of Corrections are true that there are, indeed, around 100 to 150 beds available in our prisons. We support this bill, but we believe that those members should be held to account for their comments last year.

Dr RAJEN PRASAD Link to this

It is a nonsense, I agree. So the Government does know—[ Interruption] it is a nonsense, I agree—there will be insufficient accommodation from 2010 onwards. The Department of Corrections is telling us about its problems via its website.

Although the Government talks about this measure being a temporary provision, the member from the Greens raised an important point. The Government’s own website says it is thinking about this facility being made available on an ongoing basis. It is not as though the issue of prison numbers will just go away; it will be there for some time. This measure will be used for some time, and I would like to hear from the Minister as to how she intends to resolve that. For how long does the Minster intend to use this provision? What are the plans for ensuring that it will not be necessary in the future?

There is some good news, and I commend the Department of Corrections for this. It has actually thought matters through, and it does say—both in notes that we have and on its website—that it will do some more work to make sure there is a good understanding of how the use of court cells overnight will work, and to make sure that provisions are made so that prisoners are treated in a humane and effective manner and their rights are protected.

The Department of Corrections’ website also raises—and we have not talked about this a great deal—the fact that there will be difficulties with regard to getting this type of exemption from the Resource Management Act. We should think about that for a moment. If the cells are in neighbourhoods, the people who live in the area will now have no opportunity at all to object to this measure. I am not saying everybody should object, but the facility to object has been taken away. The department’s website also says there are some risks of litigation from the people who are being held in this type of facility.

The Government has promised to look at a whole range of other facilities for prisoners. It does know that we cannot keep on putting more people in prisons. We have an awful performance rate in this area; it is one of the worst rates in the world, after the US.

Dr RAJEN PRASAD Link to this

I will come to that. The member talks about the last 9 years. Members sit there talking about the last 9 years, but that is intellectual dishonesty. When will the Government really address the drivers of crime? Government members have had the meetings and have had the information put before them, but we have seen nothing. We would like Government members to get up and tell us what their crime prevention strategies are. When should we expect to see them, or is it that Government members have found a sore in our society—the view of those who want to be punitive? Is it the case that the Government has utilised that and that it intends to utilise this issue in that particular way? If the Government was really sincere about addressing the drivers of crime and about getting into early intervention, we would have seen that by now. The Government is a third of the way through its term, and we have not seen any really significant proposals. There is the opportunity to change the performance of this country in this particular area, but we have not seen anything. We would like to hear from members opposite about when we can expect to see their proposals. They have had meetings and there has been plenty of input. Or is the issue becoming too hard? Does the Government intend to keep the proposals for the last 6 months of its term and to take them up from there?

Perhaps the biggest irony—and I liken this to a form of intellectual dishonesty—is the fact that we are here, pushing this bill through under urgency and agreeing to these provisions, when National members, day after day, pilloried this very provision when they were in Opposition. Previous speakers have already referred to that. Where is the intellectual honesty of the members opposite, who ought to say, yes, they were wrong to raise this issue in the kind of way that they did. They ought to say they now realise the difficulties and that this provision is needed to overcome them. Some acknowledgment of what Ministers from the previous Labour Government were trying to do in order to use the cell facilities at courts during times of crisis would not be unreasonable.

It would be useful to gain that kind of acknowledgment from members on the Government side of the House, because there is a pattern here: they stand up, use their Crosby/Textor lines—the same thing, time and time again—and simply say nothing has been done in the last 9 years.

Dr RAJEN PRASAD Link to this

The member for Rotorua repeated that earlier. Mr Calder is also making some noises over there. Mr Calder has shown his ignorance of this field already by not even knowing what the research says, and by not being able to give us any example of what he was talking about. The Minister for Social Development and Employment goes on day after day, in an intellectually dishonest manner, saying Labour did nothing for 9 years, but we should look at what the National Government is doing. I advise that Minister to go and talk to her own advisers in the Ministry of Social Development. They will tell her chapter and verse about the actions that were taken to address our society’s social issues, in a manner that she would be impressed by.

Perhaps one day the National members will come to the House and acknowledge what they are having, by default, to acknowledge. They criticised this very provision, yet they are slipping it in before the Christmas break, under urgency, to enable court cells to be used. We are ready to support that, but I look forward to seeing intellectual honesty on the part of members on the other side of the House, so that we can actually work on that basis in the future.

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE Link to this

I think it is, yes; we can put a little bit of substance into it. Here is a lovely quote from Oscar Wilde:

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE Link to this

It was. Well, it is! I used to visit a young Kiwi prisoner in New Caledonia. He was there for some years. I visited him regularly. I have talked to chaplains. I have talked to people who have spent a long time in prison. It ain’t a nice place. Defence lawyers tell me to never let anyone get away with the idea that people like going to prison. They said people never, ever want to go.

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE Link to this

Well, yes, they can be, and that can happen. That does not mean to say people like being there. The worst aspect of facing prison, as those who have had that experience tell me, is the uncertainty. Over the 9 awful years of the last Labour Government, all of those vulnerable people in the corrections system have had a rotten time. It has been a dreadful period, and the Opposition knows it. I will not start to list the dreadful series of events that occurred in corrections during the period of governance of the previous Labour Government. Thank goodness for National, thank goodness for Minister Collins, and thank goodness for the common sense that is now being applied to the use of court cells. Thank you.