2. JOHN KEY (Leader of the Opposition) Link to this
to the Prime Minister
Does she have confidence in her Ministers of Corrections and Justice and their chief executives, in light of her announcement yesterday of a wide-ranging review of the justice system?
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Acting Prime Minister) Link to this
Yes, because the two Ministers are hard-working and conscientious, and because the two chief executives are fully capable of implementing Government policy.
If the Prime Minister has so much confidence in Damien O’Connor and the Department of Corrections, why has she announced a review of the department “because she is concerned about the overall operation of the system”—what are her reasons?
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN Link to this
One of those issues is clear. In 1995 the then National Government split the Department of Corrections and the Department for Courts from the Ministry of Justice. The member, of course, was overseas at the time, and was therefore unaware of that.
Madam SPEAKERIt is impossible to hear again. When members ask a question, will they please have respect for those who are answering, so the rest of us can hear the answer.
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN Link to this
One of the issues is whether the creation of headless bodies and bodiless heads is the best way to run the public service. But separating policy from operations was the fad in the late 1980s and 1990s.
Is it not the truth that if the Prime Minister thinks this was a problem dating all the way back to 1995, she has been in office for 8 years and has had 8 years to sort it out?
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN Link to this
One review has already been undertaken. It concluded that the Department for Courts should be re-merged, but at that point officials were strongly of the view that the Department of Corrections should not be. The Prime Minister has signalled that that matter will now be the subject of a full review, the terms of which will be decided when she returns from the United States.
Hon Annette KingDoes the Prime Minister agree with the comments made by the then Department of Corrections chief executive under the National Government that the fences around Pāremoremo prison were not meant to stop prisoners escaping, but just to slow them down on the way out?
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN Link to this
That was indeed National’s approach to open Government when it was in office. We have added 17 kilometres of new fencing around Pāremoremo and other prisons, and have moved to single points of entry for prisons. As a result, escapes from prisons are now down by 70 percent from their level under the National Government.
Does the Prime Minister remember saying to the House last week that she had “great respect” for the corrections CEO, Barry Matthews, and would she like to explain why, if she has such great respect for him, she is now looking to abolish his job?
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN Link to this
Structural reviews are made in a way that does not necessarily affect the individual. It is not a matter of whether that person is the right person; it is whether the structure is the right structure. Unlike the Opposition, this Government does not go around all the time attacking public servants who cannot defend themselves.
Could the Prime Minister explain what the difference is between a structural review and a back-down and a U-turn, because on this side of the House this looks exactly like a back-down and a U-turn?
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN Link to this
For a man who has adopted flip-flops as his symbol, that is an extraordinary question to put in this House. The member, of course, is part of a party that separated the Department of Corrections out from the Ministry of Justice when it was in Government. The National Party is the party that has flip-flopped; Labour never supported that separation in the first place.
Ron MarkWould the Minister not agree with New Zealand First that in light of the series of failures within the Department of Corrections and within the Ministry of Justice, and the plethora of reforms and legislative changes that have occurred in the ministry over the last 20 years, it would be foolish not to go back to the very genesis of some of those reforms and try to identify where we have created the gaps between statutory responsibility and operational control, with a view to doing something meaningful about that, as opposed to sitting on the sidelines and whining, carping, and grandstanding?
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN Link to this
I think the member makes a useful, if somewhat lengthy, point. I would add that the review that the Prime Minister is considering is not just around the structural issue of the place of corrections in relation to the Ministry of Justice.
If the Prime Minister is concerned enough about corrections to instigate a structural review of the Department of Corrections, but according to her neither Damien O’Connor nor Barry Matthews is to blame, then who actually is responsible for the shambles in the department?
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN Link to this
As the Prime Minister, I think, has made reasonably clear, obviously a number of mistakes were made. But, at the end of the day, the person responsible for the murder was Graeme Burton—nobody else.
Does the Prime Minister agree with Damien O’Connor, when he said a few weeks ago that the idea of folding corrections back into the Ministry of Justice was “policy on the hoof”; in which case, why is she now doing just that?
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN Link to this
When one thinks about the terms of review and the reviews that are to be undertaken, that is not policy on the hoof; that is preparing policy properly. The member’s question implies that Governments could never change direction, at all, because to do so would be policy on the hoof. That is a very stupid comment from a member who clearly has flies on him.