Urgent Debates

Madam SPEAKER Link to this

I have received letters from Simon Power and Nandor Tanczos, seeking to debate under Standing Order 380 the report of the Ombudsmen entitled Investigation by John Belgrave, Chief Ombudsman and Mel Smith, Ombudsman of the Department of Corrections in Relation to the Transport of Prisoners. The release of the report is a particular case of recent occurrence involving ministerial responsibility, and it does require the immediate attention of the House. I therefore accept the application. As Simon Power lodged his application first, I call on Mr Power to move that the House take note of the matter.

SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) Link to this

I move, That the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance. The Department of Corrections is the department that has in recent months brought to the New Zealand public massive budget blowouts in the building of four new prisons, corruption and contraband stories that have spread throughout the media for the last 12 or 15 months, and responsibility for large portions of the Graeme Burton debacle and crisis. It was also responsible for reports being written and for follow-up action in the Liam Ashley tragedy, about which the Ombudsmen have produced one of the most scathing and direct reports this House has seen in some time.

We found out today during question time the most interesting thing about the way the Minister has interpreted this report. Despite the Ombudsmen making it very clear that they were very disturbed to discover that their expectations—which they had been led to believe by the Department of Corrections were being met in respect of transport safety—had not been met. The Minister of Corrections, as if he was not deep enough in trouble, stood in this House during question time today and said that was the Ombudsmen’s fault for misunderstanding what the department had said. Well, I know whom I would believe. I know whom the New Zealand public believe, when it comes to pitting the word of the Ombudsmen—who were blatantly disappointed at having been misled by the Department of Corrections over its progress on prisoner transport—against the word of the Department of Corrections, which has had the worst 18 months of any Government department or ministry.

The Minister, having said in this morning’s New Zealand Herald that he would implement every single one of the recommendations made by the Ombudsmen in this report, stood in this House today and immediately began the process we have seen surrounding the Department of Corrections for the last 18 months. The equivocation began within 10 hours of the publishing the Minister’s statement that all those recommendations would be implemented. All of a sudden it became a matter of negotiating the implementation of those recommendations as they unfolded.

This Minister and department, over the last 14 or 15 months, have adopted three strategies in running that department: deny, deny, deny. It is always somebody else’s fault, and when the Ombudsmen, Officers of Parliament, table a report that is scathing of the department’s handling of prisoner transport, with virtually every page describing the department’s response to these matters as unsatisfactory, and with the words “disappointed” or “disturbed” appearing more than once, the Minister has the gall to stand in question time and say the Ombudsmen misunderstood the department.

The public of New Zealand will not buy that for one second, and the Minister knows that. The Minister knows that, because on the radio this morning, when asked whether Barry Matthews would stay in his job, the Minister said “He stays for the moment.” When the interviewer pressed Mr O’Connor on that issue and said “For the moment?”, Mr O’Connor responded “Absolutely.” So when asked about this matter this morning at the Law and Order Committee during the estimates hearing, Mr O’Connor confirmed that the chief executive of the department would stay for the moment. That is hardly a vote of confidence. This is the same man whom the Prime Minister has described as an outstanding or exceptional civil servant. Well, I say to the Minister, it is a slippery, slippery slope.

The Minister also found himself quoted on the front page of the New Zealand Herald this morning as saying all senior managers were on notice. When asked in the select committee this morning what that would mean if there was a bungle of similar proportions to this one further down the track, he said “Oh, we’ll have to see how we get on with that particular issue.”

Let us not forget that the role of the Ombudsmen is separated from the politics of the day—and thank goodness it is, because so many reports into this department have not been up to scratch, have covered up some of the more serious issues in the department, and have skated over serious matters that have been raised. But the Ombudsmen, in a fearless and an independent way, have put a report on the Table that is so scathing of the department that the Ombudsmen felt a qualifying statement had to be put at the end of the report, saying they hoped it did not look like “criticism for criticism’s sake.”, because so much is wrong in the way the department handles problems as they arise.

On page 35 of the report we see one of the most startling admissions by the Ombudsmen that I have certainly seen in my short time in this Parliament. The Ombudsmen tell the public of New Zealand they were deceived. The Ombudsmen were deceived by the department. Let us spend some time on this matter. The Chief Ombudsman writes in his 2004 annual report “we are pleased to report that the Department has developed and formalised minimum standards including ventilation and temperature control for all escort vehicles.” That is what he was told, and that is what the Ombudsmen have recorded in this report. They go on to state: “We have been most disturbed to discover that our expectations were not met, and have still not been met.” A more serious indictment of the knowledge and information that a department has passed to the Office of the Ombudsmen would be difficult to come up with in a dream, quite frankly.

The Minister, instead of saying he backs the independence that Parliament puts behind the Ombudsmen and will deal to the official who told them that deceitful statement, rose in the House in question time today and said the Ombudsmen had misunderstood the department, and it was not the department’s fault that the Ombudsmen got it wrong. Well I say to Mr O’Connor that I am sorry, but the public of New Zealand believe the Ombudsmen, not the department and not that Minister. We will take the Ombudsmen’s word over that of the Minister and his department any day. Let us not forget how serious the matter is when the Ombudsmen feel compelled to spell that out in such bald terms. For the Minister to come to this House and tell the Parliament and the people of New Zealand that the Ombudsmen got it wrong is not even worth the paper it is written on.

More disturbingly, the report goes on, on page 92, to talk about the way head office communicates with front-line staff. This is a major issue that I know Ron Mark has felt pretty strongly about over the years. You see, what the Ombudsmen find is: “Throughout the investigation, we were saddened to find a theme of lack of communication between National Office and front-line staff which has resulted in numerous different practices developing at the front line.” The problem with that is the report goes on to state “We find an echo of our remarks in the 2005 Report”. In other words, 18 months ago the same issue was raised with the department and its officials. The reports say that 18 months ago the relationship between head office and front-line prison officers was dysfunctional, and what has changed? Nothing. Nothing has changed. Every time, this Minister gets on his feet and says there will be a review, and that everything will change now that he has been made aware of the problem. How can the public of New Zealand trust this Minister to follow through on those undertakings, when he has not done it in respect of the relationship and communication between head office and front-line staff and the Ombudsmen feel compelled to point that out?

What is more, even if the Ombudsmen or the New Zealand public did believe Damien O’Connor and the department were capable of changing the culture, we cannot trust them to tell the Ombudsmen the truth about what has changed in the guidelines or in the way that the department does its business. As the Ombudsmen stated in this report, they were misled. So this Government’s ability to deliver on promised change is nil—it is absolutely nil.

The report goes on to ask a series of very, very serious questions. But before we talk about those, it is worth just noting that in relation to the communication between head office and the people on the front line, the chief executive officer of the department, during the time the Ombudsmen were investigating this matter, decided to write a letter to the Ombudsmen, stating that in his view “I do not agree that lack of communications between National Office and front-line staff is the reason why we have not developed national standards in the prisoner transportation area.” Deny, deny, deny! Every time a problem is put in front of this department, it says there is no problem. And how did the Ombudsmen respond? This is interesting. The Ombudsmen say “We note the response of the Department, but consider our remarks fair and appropriate.” In other words, the Ombudsmen do not believe the department.

The fact is that that problem remains, and the Minister’s assertions, or the fact that he is prepared to go into print and say that is not the case, hold no weight with the Ombudsmen who investigated this department. That is a crisis of confidence, not only in the chief executive of the department but also in a Minister who has been driven to the position where he defends his department day after day, rather than giving it political direction and political leadership. He is incapable of getting above the day-to-day bungling of the department and wresting political control back from the senior management, which is driving the department into the ground. The confidence of the New Zealand public in this department, as we know from polls, is at an all-time low.

More concerns, though, from the Ombudsmen involved things such as no specific duty on custodial staff to take any notice of judges’ statements that relate to the status of prisoners—whether they are at risk, and whether they need extra attention. The thing I found curious about the Ombudsmen’s report was that they felt compelled, on page 22, to point out that the time taken by the department to answer questions put by them led to this very report being delayed. Now that is nothing to be proud of at all. How can we have any confidence that the department is capable of managing an increasing prison population? How can we have any confidence the department is capable of implementing the Government’s flagship Effective Interventions scheme, when the Ombudsmen do not trust its word, when the Ombudsmen have been deceived, when the department disregards comments from the chief executive, trying to put at ease the Ombudsmen’s minds over national office and front-line communication lines?

We have here a department that is totally dysfunctional, and independent Officers of Parliament tabled a report in this House yesterday that confirms that fact.

Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR (Minister of Corrections) Link to this

The death of Liam Ashley was a tragic event. It should never have occurred, and it has been the subject of a number of investigations that have identified a number of mistakes that should not have occurred. I am determined to make the changes to the Department of Corrections to prevent such a tragedy occurring in the future. The safety of prisoners was the prime focus of this Ombudsmen’s report. However, the safety of the community, through the responsibility of the Department of Corrections, must be paramount for any administration in overseeing corrections. The safety of staff must be considered as well, as the Ombudsmen rightly point out. The safety of prisoners is also our responsibility.

The Ombudsmen moved further on to point to areas of comfort and to what he considers inappropriate conditions governing the transportation of prisoners. We accept this report, the spirit in which it is written, and the recommendations. We have already agreed to, and moved on, the majority of recommendations. However, there are still some we will need to work through to ensure that we can practically and honestly implement them in a consistent way.

My prime focus is the safety of prisoners. That is why we will introduce restraints, so that the terrible assault that took place in the back of that prison van by one George Baker cannot occur again, because in future the arms and wrists of prisoners will be constrained when inside prison vans, unless there is justifiable reason not to do so.

We need to ensure that the processes surrounding prison transportation are robust. The member has pointed to a number of issues rightfully raised by the Ombudsmen in regard to national standards in prison transportation. The fact is that the previous Government tried to introduce privatisation by signing with Chubb a contract for prisoner transportation and custodial services in Auckland and Northland. That was just an example of the regime that operated back through the 1990s and into the early 2000s. It is one where each prison decided to make calls on the types of vehicles, processes, and procedures for its prisoner transportation. I consider that to be unsatisfactory. That is why we will accept, have accepted, and have moved on the recommendations in the Ombudsmen’s report regarding national standards.

The Ombudsmen refer to an issue of directives from within the department to improve the standards laid down in 2004. The member who has just spoken accuses the department of trying to deceive the Ombudsmen. I do not accept that. I think inadequate information went across to the Office of the Ombudsmen, and, from the information I have seen and read, I believe that it is easy for misinterpretation to occur. I am determined to sort out that matter and to ensure that the Office of the Ombudsmen does have confidence in the information provided to him. I respect the independence of the Chief Ombudsman’s office and his right to investigate complaints and to look into any procedures that operate through the corrections system. It is important that he has confidence in that process, and I will investigate and clarify the points raised in this report.

The tragic loss of Liam Ashley, and the prevention of any such tragedy in the future, should be the prime focus of this report, and, as I have said, it is. I assure this House and the people of New Zealand that we acted immediately, following that tragic event, to make changes. I issued an instruction to make sure that no one under the age of 18 years should be transported in a compartment with anyone over the age of 18 years. That happened immediately. I issued instructions to clarify the procedures, the policy, and all the forms related to prisoner transportation, so that no confusion could occur in the future regarding the risk status or any other conditions that should apply to any prisoner while in transportation.

We have gone through and reviewed our entire system. We now have an opportunity, provided by Chubb’s announcement that it wishes to exit its responsibilities in this area, to explore the possibility of taking that service back in under the department’s arm. I intend to proceed with investigation of that. Chubb’s staff should not be alarmed. We still need personnel who have the skills, who have the training, who understand the procedures, and who have the support from head office, to carry out the over 200,000 transportations that occur each and every year.

The Ombudsmen’s report refers to issues, which some have called inhumane, that relate to the comfort of prisoners while being transported around the country. Three percent of transportations occur for longer than 1 hour. There are recommendations in the report that relate to squabs, seatbelts, speeding, comfort stops, the provision of water, and the provision of food. We accept those recommendations. However, the implementation of each and every one of those has to be done in a way that first considers the security of the community, and its confidence in our ability to keep dangerous prisoners locked up. We will not stop for toilet breaks whenever a prisoner wants to. That is simply unacceptable. However, the Ombudsmen recommend that we take that on board, and we will work through that with them so we can reach agreement on what an acceptable practice is. Once again, the security of the public, of the staff, and of the prisoners themselves is paramount.

The ability for prisoners to have access to escape hatches in the rare event of a traffic accident is something we accept, and that is something the Ombudsmen have recommended. But we have to work through that very, very carefully. We will not allow prisoners to walk out of prisoner vans at their will. As I have said, it is important that we have the confidence of the community—that none of these changes will lead to further security breaches, as has occurred in the past in both Department of Corrections and Chubb vans.

This Government is committed to running a fair, efficient, secure, and effective corrections system. As Minister, I am committed to improving the system. I acknowledge that mistakes have been made in the past, but I will ensure that we will run a better system that minimises the opportunities for those mistakes in the future. There has been a head office restructure. We are reviewing public prison services to ensure that the alignment of responsibilities, of instructions, and of accountability is quite clear from top to bottom, so that front-line officers—be they involved in transportation, in health services, or in custodial services—know whom they can go to for support, whom they have to answer to for their performance, and what the objectives of their jobs are.

We are committed to a secure prison system, but we have also clearly identified through effective interventions that we want to better rehabilitate and reintegrate prisoners back into the community at the end of their sentences. We have not lost sight of that. While improving the security of prisoners both within the prisons and through the transportation system, and doing it in a humane way, we are also conscious of the fact that prisoners have to be encouraged to rehabilitate themselves and to take the opportunities that we are now providing through the corrections system.

We have opened up two new drug and alcohol units and we intend to open up two more. I have issued instructions for more community-based sentences for drug and alcohol offences. We are making changes to contraband regulations. It is not appropriate that anyone should attempt to smuggle into prisons, in whatever way, any form of contraband, drug, cellphone, or whatever. We need to change the system, and we have. We will continue to work through the issues. Barry Matthews has a job on his hands to make sure that the head office restructure delivers effective, improved management of the corrections system. I accept that mistakes have been made. The Ombudsmen have identified some of those. We will clarify the issue of information flow between the Department of Corrections and the Ombudsmen, and report back.

I assure the public that we have a robust corrections system, and that each and every person in that system will be focused on improving the culture, on improving his or her performance, and on making sure that no such tragic events as the death of Liam Ashley will occur in the future. Out of respect for him and for his family, who have had to go through this very difficult time, I want to assure the Ashley family that the recommendations that have come through this report will be carried through, that we have agreed to them for the most part, and that we will work through the few that require further implementation, and that we will show due respect to them and to their son.

RON MARK (NZ First) Link to this

Well, this is a sad day, and a very interesting day—unfortunately—for the listeners. For a start, let us be clear here. New Zealand First does not share the Minister’s view that the Department of Corrections did not seek to deceive or mislead the Office of the Ombudsmen. New Zealand First believes that it is very clear, from the report, in the rebuttals to Department of Corrections statements upon having read the draft copy of the report, and from the past track record of the Department of Corrections, that it has been for years engaged in deception and in public relations spin. It has been for years giving a succession of Ministers—I think we are up to the seventh Minister of Corrections since Labour came to office—incomplete, inaccurate, or deliberately misleading advice.

New Zealand First does not believe that putting the transportation of inmates back into the hands of the Department of Corrections will in itself change anything. You see, it is the Department of Corrections that has had the responsibility for formulating national policy and standard operating procedures, for auditing compliance, for giving contracts, and for assessing and vetting tenderers as to their suitability and ability to meet those nationally applied standards. It has been the Department of Corrections that has had that responsibility ever since the year dot. And it has failed—singularly, absolutely, and fundamentally—to meet its responsibilities. So it does not matter if we give the job of prisoner transportation to a contractor, according to Department of Corrections guidelines, or we give it back to the department. Unless there is some fundamental owning up to responsibilities and the failure to meet those responsibilities, nothing will change.

So what is the problem? Well, New Zealand First has long said in this House, for years now, that the problem lies at head office. Let us look at head office’s track record. What do we know about the emergency response unit in Christchurch, infamously known as the “goon squad”? Ailsa Duffy’s report states it quite clearly. Head office failed to put in place the correct structures. Head office failed to audit the procedures. Head office failed to ensure that Canterbury was not acting outside the brief for the pilot unit. When it was brought to the attention of head office that there were serious failures, and when frontline staff of the prisons concerned—and even members of the “goon squad” itself—raised their objections and their complaints, head office shrugged them off, dusted them off. It took 4 years to get to the truth of that matter, and that did not come through head office people volunteering the information.

It is clear in that report that Ailsa Duffy had difficulties in ascertaining the clear facts about the reasons for establishing that unit, because head office, again, gave inconsistent evidence and advice. There were rehabilitation programmes—and at the select committee this morning we had another little walk down memory lane on that one. Staff from the head office were running around the world—the world—telling other countries like Canada, the United States, and England that they were world leaders in developing criminogenic rehabilitation programmes that were succeeding, whilst all the time they knew that the data they were assessing was showing that they, at best, were not making an iota of difference; even worse, were not making a difference, at all; and terribly worse, were actually making the problem worse.

They did not front up with that information to the Minister. In fact, one year they omitted to put any information in the annual report, at all. But New Zealand First was not fooled by that, you see, because we knew what was going on. So when it came to the following year we were looking for those rehabilitation quotients, and we were looking for the evidence of success of that programme—and there it was. It was a little figure, minus 5, which when we sat down, scratched our heads, and interpreted it, actually said: “My God, the programmes are making it worse; as a result of doing these courses people are offending.” But head office people did not front up and say that they were sorry, that they had been running courses that had actually been making it more likely for offenders to offend than not to offend, and that they had made a big booboo. They said nothing until we, with the evidence we had, prised it out of them at a select committee.

I remember how head office dealt with the issue of inappropriate relationships. How ironic that Paul Swain is now sitting in the very seat he sat in as Minister of Corrections year after year. What was his response to corrections? He resigned; he gave it away; he got out of there. He says he is happy to be out of corrections—“Thank God for that.” New Zealand First asked him, in a question in this House, how many cases the Department of Corrections was investigating for inappropriate relationships between officers and inmates. Paul Swain gave an answer, based on quality advice from head office. The number was five. Well, New Zealand First had notification of 16 in its hand right there and then, so within a day he had to come back, bow his head meekly—Paul Swain is nodding right now—and issue a correction, because head office had misinformed him. It had misinformed him.

Year after year, in relation to the smuggling of contraband, front-line officers were saying that we were not hearing the whole story. Not only were they catching record amounts of contraband but no one was investigating how the stuff had got into the prisons. No one was actively or proactively looking for corruption. Head office people continued to say to their Minister that they had it all under control: “Gee, Minister, we got 10,000 items last year—or was it 5,000?”. New Zealand First’s answer was that it did not matter whether it was 5000 or 10,000; the questions were about how the contraband got there, and what the staff was doing to ascertain that. Did the department have corrupt officers? We have had those discussions, and the Minister and Barry Matthews now have a new unit, which New Zealand First applauds. We just wish it had happened 5 years ago.

The failure of home detention is an issue. How many times have we stood here and challenged, challenged, challenged? Yet we still get the tripe coming out from the Department of Corrections saying that it is a resounding success. I tell the Minister to stop. Front-line officers in the corrections and probation services are saying that half the reason the figures look good is that they are not reporting all of the breaches. Half the reason the figures look so good is that they will not report all of the breaches, because they have a system of categorising breaches. The question is: when is a breach not a breach, or a breach worth reporting? I mean, how did a man die of a P overdose while on home detention, and why was he baking it?

The fundamental root of the problem here is that the Ombudsmen now say that they are disappointed—I think, reading between the lines, that they are very angry—and that in some respects the Ombudsmen have been misled. Information has been put about that is not accurate. We in New Zealand First are saying that although we actually have great hopes for Mr Barry Matthews, and we think he is the best man in the country right now to do this God-awful job—but we suspect he wishes he had never taken it up—sitting underneath him are the same old faces, the same people, and the same senior managers, who for the last 7 years have misled people, deceived people, inaccurately advised people, hidden information from people, and colluded with each other, to ensure that their incompetencies were not known.

Well, it is over—it is over. One way or another, this will be over. New Zealand First is looking to see some changes in faces in that department, because, quite frankly, this country deserves better. This country must have prisons, it must have probation, and it must have community service. But it can have those things only if the staff who are responsible for managing it are competent and capable, and have integrity.

We take our hats off to the thousands of front-line corrections officers in prisons up and down this country who try desperately to get their voices heard, and who give information to senior managers only to find that they themselves are the ones under investigation. It would appear that some senior managers see a greater threat in whistleblowers than they do in the risks that exist within their prisons.

New Zealand First in some ways is once again hugely saddened and disappointed that we are back to this stage again. But we hope that this is the last time. We hope that in moving forward we will see changes in faces, changes in appointments, and a change in behaviour, from the Department of Corrections.

NANDOR TANCZOS (Green) Link to this

I would like to begin by acknowledging Liam Ashley and his family. Liam’s death at the hands of George Baker on 17 August last year sent a shock wave through our country, and led ultimately to the Office of the oOmbudsmen conducting this inquiry. I hope this report gives the family some comfort, and the opportunity to heal some of their grief.

I think this report demonstrates the importance of the Office of the Ombudsmen as an independent Officer of Parliament. The report was conducted carefully and thoroughly, and its quality has reinforced the confidence that members of the public and members of this Parliament can have in that office. In particular, the ground-level scrutiny that was conducted has ensured a report of great rigour. The Office of the Ombudsmen was not satisfied with official documents or bland assurances. The investigators even went to the extent of riding in prisoner transportation vehicles themselves, and required physical demonstrations of how emergency hatches opened, and things like that. It is that thoroughness that has been the key to the solidity of this report. I want to thank that office for an extremely good piece of work.

I think that in that sense the report also emphasises the crucial need for a genuinely independent prison inspectorate, because this work should have been done not to respond to a tragedy but to avoid one. That is what we expect from a prison inspectorate. It is clear now, I think, that structural independence from the Department of Corrections is essential to ensure that this does happen, and the Green Party continues to work with the Government on developing policy in that area.

Independence from the Government in this kind of thing is absolutely crucial. I was deeply disturbed to hear the sniping by Government members on the Ombudsmen’s report, and, in particular, the gross misrepresentations of the recommendations made. Today during question time the Minister repeated those misrepresentations, claiming that the Ombudsmen have recommended stopping transportation every time a prisoner wants a pee and giving prisoners the ability to open escape hatches for themselves. I can only think that the Minister has not read the report, because I do not believe he would deliberately make misrepresentations. The Ombudsmen did not make those recommendations.

What the report does suggest is that prisoners who are being transported—some of them for up to 7 or 8 hours—need access to toilet facilities. His report outlines examples of inmates urinating inside vans because they are unable to hold on or, more frequently, suffering severe pain for having to hold on for extended periods of time. The report specifically recommends that the department review prisoner access to toilet facilities en route. It states that the department “should consider guidance to staff on stopping at specified secure areas, and take into account the existing communication difficulties within prisoner transport vehicles.” Of course, that raises the question of how the guards would even know a prisoner wanted to pee, seeing as they cannot communicate with prisoners in any way.

In addition, the Ombudsmen found that access to emergency exits was inadequate in most vehicles. When staff were asked to demonstrate whether the emergency exits actually worked—which one would think is a pretty routine piece of maintenance—some staff had serious difficulty opening the exits. In addition, the policies on emergency exits are wildly inconsistent around the country, and in some cases roof exits are individually padlocked from the outside, making unlocking them in an emergency pretty much impossible. Again, the report specifically recommends that the department “undertake a full review of the emergency facilities in prisoner transport vehicles; formulate evacuation procedures, and ensure escort staff are trained in, and have drills to practise those procedures; ensure that all cages can be opened without keys; ensure that all emergency hatches operate easily without keys;” and “formulate a policy with regard to whether prisoners should be able themselves to operate emergency exit hatches;”. The report does not say that prisoners should be able to operate emergency hatches; it says that a policy needs to be formulated to cover that area.

Now, I like Damien O’Connor, but the thing that really worries me about this report is not the litany of inadequacies, errors, and apparent deceptions it details, but the response of the Government to the report, which I think has been unnecessarily defensive and flawed. Misrepresenting—perhaps not deliberately—the report of this Officer of Parliament in order to achieve Government spin is in my view deeply offensive, and so is the false dichotomy the Government continues to assert between public safety and humane treatment. They are not incompatible requirements. In fact, the law passed by this Parliament in 2004 requires both, and that is the obligation of the Government.

Equally disheartening for me is the announcement of a proposal to secure all prisoners in waist restraints when being transported. To be clear, we are not talking about lap-belts as in seatbelts; we are talking about cuffing all prisoners’ wrists to their waists when in vehicles. This is directly contrary to the report’s recommendations. The Ombudsmen are explicitly critical of policies to restrain all prisoners in vehicles. Chubb currently handcuffs all prisoners in transportation, in respect of which the Ombudsmen say: “We consider the practice of Chubb to handcuff all prisoners is wrong. We recommend the Department review the different usual practices of handcuffing in prisoner transport vehicles, and establish clear national guidelines that will ensure consistency of decision-making.”

The Ombudsmen’s concerns around safety will be exacerbated when prisoners’ wrists are cuffed to their waists rather than in front of them together, as they are currently, because the ability to use one’s hands to protect the head is entirely removed in that case. What response will the Minister have when the first prisoner suffers brain damage because that prisoner neither is seatbelted nor has the ability to use his or her hands to protect his or her head in an accident? I think that in that regard, the Minister has ignored the report.

So what does the report actually say? It represents a major criticism of the Department of Corrections; almost every page contains criticism. It outlines a number of failings in the area of prisoner transportation. It states that conditions are inhumane for journeys, some of which may last up to 7 or 8 hours. Temperature extremes create significant discomfort, while ventilation and heating are virtually nonexistent in many cases. Access to food, and especially water, is a problem and often is according to the whim of staff. When we are talking about long journeys such as I have outlined, that is entirely unacceptable.

On the issue of safety the report is equally damning. The lack of seatbelts and inadequate access to emergency exits mean that transportation is often physically unsafe, a condition that will be made much worse by the universal use of waist restraints, because not only will prisoners be unable to protect their heads in an accident but they certainly will not be able to get out of an escape hatch, even if the staff can open it.

I want to highlight one area that was repeatedly mentioned by the report. This was an issue that was raised by the Green Party at the time of Liam Ashley’s murder. The report makes the point that resolution of this one issue would help resolve a number of secondary concerns. The issue is the inability in almost all transportation vehicles to adequately monitor all of the prisoners in them. It seems to me just incredible—absolutely incredible—that prisoner transportation vehicles do not already have the ability to monitor the prisoners in them. One would think it was kind of “Corrections 101”, really. First of all, there is a public safety issue. How do staff know that prisoners are not trying to escape, if they cannot see them and they cannot hear them? How do staff know that prisoners are not beating up on each other, if they cannot see them and they cannot hear them? How do staff know that prisoners are not trying to commit suicide, if they cannot see them and they cannot hear them? How do staff know that prisoners are not suffering a heart attack? I say that because the time lag between a heart attack occurring and the staff stopping at a secure facility and seeing what is going on with the prisoners inside could be the difference between life and death. I know cases of people who have died in Department of Corrections custody—not in transportation, but at a remote prison—where the time lag was an absolutely crucial issue, and it just seems to me extraordinary that we do not already have vehicles set up so that the guards can see and hear inmates, and thus check up on them.

My final word is one for the staff, and I echo some of the comments of Ron Mark. Like all professions, there is a mix of good and bad staff, and I would be very concerned if this was seen as a general attack on Department of Corrections staff, who I think have an enormously difficult job—a very difficult job. That is not to say that they all do their jobs well, but some of them do their jobs extremely well. I have met a number of conscientious, excellent Department of Corrections staff, who I think are genuinely committed to the work, to doing a good job, and to the rehabilitation of the people they are overseeing. I do not want to tar them with the results of this report, but the report does outline systemic problems of such magnitude that I strongly urge Department of Corrections management to get serious about communicating with its staff and to get serious about engaging with its staff—listening to them. These are the people on the front line. That is not to say that everything staff say will immediately be put into practice, but the management has to get better at listening to its staff, engaging with staff ideas, and using the ideas that have merit.

Management also needs to support staff to do the job to the best of their ability. There is a strong thread in the report that indicates staff are loath to take decisions that may result in more humane treatment because they are scared that if they make the wrong decision, they will be out on a limb and that will be them—they will be gone. So management needs to support staff when they are doing a positive job, while being unafraid to require accountability where necessary. It is hard to see how these problems, which run through the hierarchy of the Department of Corrections, will be easily resolved. I think it is an enormous job, and I congratulate Damien O’Connor for even taking it on—it is a hell of a job. I am convinced that an independent prison inspectorate, as advocated by the Green Party, is an absolutely crucial part of the answer. I look forward to the introduction of that legislation.

HONE HARAWIRA (Māori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) Link to this

Kia ora, Madam Assistant Speaker. Kia ora tātou te Whare. Three years ago an 11-year-old indigenous boy was arrested for burglary, held in custody overnight, and then transported 500 kilometres in a police cage. The cops told his mum that they would not let him sit in the empty back seat, but that he would be comfortable lying on the floor of the “dog box”. Even though tribal leaders, elders, and civil rights lawyers condemned the action, the Minister of Police said the officers had followed all protocols.

This is one of the many true stories that came out of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, and although it is about our Koori relations in Australia, it could just as easily have come out of the Belgrave-Smith investigation into the transportation of prisoners here in Aotearoa. Just like here, the ever-increasing imprisonment of indigenous people is reflected in Canada, Australia, Hawaii, Tahiti, and other places where colonial ethics still dominate. And folks, it is not a good-news story.

The 2003 Census of Prison Inmates and Home Detainees stated that 60 percent of female inmates and nearly 55 percent of male inmates on remand were Māori. That means there is a better than even chance that prisoners in transit will be Māori, as well. So when the Ombudsmen talk about the inhumane treatment of prisoners in transit, that means overwhelmingly Māori. I quote his concluding comments: “… needs are not being met. There is a lack of national standards for food, water and rest breaks. Some practices fall significantly short of meeting what we would consider reasonable standards.”

I had included this next comment in my speech notes and then thought: “Nah, things must have changed.” But I had written down that prisoners were urinating in the vans and not being fed because the escorts could not be bothered stopping, and that prisoners were being moved in the evening because there were not enough beds in prison. However, the reality is way scarier than the report lets on. I was going to take that comment out, because that is the way it was the last time I was in a police truck, back in about 1983. So it is not just about chucking rocks at Damien O’Connor; nothing has changed at all. In fact, it has become worse.

The previous speaker Nandor Tanczos said there is no way of knowing what is going on in the back of the truck, yet way back in the mid-1980s they had all of us sitting in one cage, and in another cage—before they had the cab with the truck—they had another officer sitting in there. So they knew all of the time what was going on. It seems things have gone backwards in the last 20 years. I do not know where, but I am not surprised, I have to say.

Not only are the basic needs not being met but also the report states: “Hard wood or metal benches for journeys of many hours in small cages without proper windows does not constitute a humane standard of transport.” We do not expect inmates to get the celebrity treatment that Paris Hilton is getting, but we do expect that their basic human rights will be met.

We do expect the Department of Corrections to ensure that custodial sentences “are administered in a safe, secure, humane, and effective manner” in line with its legislation. That was the standard in section C.O1 of the Policy and Procedures Manual, which was breached when Liam Ashley was killed in the back of a prison van. No doubt, it has been breached on countless other occasions all around the country before then and since then. That is a clear case again of corporate manslaughter going unpunished, because we do not have a law to deal with such poor behaviour by departmental officials.

Another section of the same manual states that prisoners on escort should not be placed in “unnecessary discomfort”, yet prisoners are transferred in small, closed-in cages, with poor light, bad ventilation, wooden seats, and metal floors. When people go to jail they should not have to forfeit their human rights, suffer the inhumanity of others, or be subjected to a life of perpetual and unrelenting cruelty. Yet, clearly, the Government has allowed that to happen during a time highlighted by this country’s continual dishonouring of international laws and conventions on human rights.

In fact, this Government’s failure to protect teenage prisoners from violent adult offenders was criticised in 2004 by none other than the United Nations Committee Against Torture—for heaven’s sake! It recommended that the Government take immediate steps to make the necessary changes.

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) Link to this

I want to begin by expressing my congratulations to Mr John Belgrave and Mr Mel Smith on what, I think, is an excellent report. It is clear, it goes to the heart of the issues at hand, and it provides a set of recommendations that deserve to be implemented in their totality. I think that is what we should expect of public officials of the calibre of our Ombudsmen, and it is one of the tributes we can pay to the strength of the ombudsmen system in New Zealand—the ability to be independent, to be clear, and then to make recommendations of the type that have been presented in the last 24 hours.

I want also to express my admiration to the Ashley family for their dignity and—really—their serenity, in the wake of this report, bearing in mind the events that precipitated it. I thought that it would have been understandable had they reacted by expressing a form of vengeance, seeking some retribution, and some, dare I say, revenge, but I thought their quiet dignity last night showed that here were a family who were accepting of the situation, who were determined to see good come from something that had deeply, deeply cut at their core, and who realised the futility of ongoing anger, when a constructive solution was at hand. So I salute them for the way they have reacted.

On the face of it, it is absurd, in the most perverted sort of way, in any civilised society to suggest that a person who is under police detention, and is being transported from one point to the other, is at risk of his or her life. It is simply absurd to suggest that that is even a possibility; yet that is what happened in this case. I do not know very much about Liam Ashley, I am not going to defend, or attack, the circumstances of his detention, but he had a right to expect, during that fateful ride, that he was at least going to be safe. He may not have been comfortable, he may not have been happy, but he had a right to expect some safety. The system failed him woefully in that regard.

So the question now becomes what to do. Is this an isolated event that this report provides potential solutions to? Or is it symptomatic of a much deeper problem within not the corrections system per se but the whole culture of correction in this country? I think it has elements of the latter, actually.

The previous speaker, Hone Harawira, made a very interesting speech, and I was supportive of most of what he said. He did say something that I disagreed with, however, and that was that everyone, even those people in detention, have their human rights—or words to that effect. The fact is, when people are in detention they have surrendered—or have had taken away from them—one of their most basic human rights: the right to freedom. What they have not lost, and should never be at risk of losing, is their human dignity. I think that is the distinction. In this instance, certainly, Mr Ashley’s dignity was destroyed. His life was destroyed and his family’s life was ruined.

In many other instances we see a much more deep-seated culture in the corrections system that produces in inmates a sense that their lives have been destroyed or ruined. Some of them are people we would find incorrigible, reprehensible, and totally unacceptable to see released into civil society. But there are many in whom we burn out all hope during that period of incarceration and treatment by the system because of the overriding culture, which is brutal. “Brutal” does not mean “firm” in terms of correction; “brutal” is “violent”. It is a violent system and it is an intolerant system.

It does not follow that the alternative is one where, in effect, there are no constraints or no limitations, because that is not the nature of incarceration. But it does follow that we have to be much more mindful of the fact that there are human beings involved here who have certain basic expectations. When they are being transported from one place of incarceration to another, be it to a court or between prisons, they have a right to expect they will be transported with a modicum of comfort—I do not mean “luxury”; I mean with a modicum of comfort, as the report identifies—and safely. Their lives should not be at risk in that process, be it from the system itself or from other inmates around them. When people are being held in prison, we expect them to be held in rigorous conditions; we do not expect to hear of examples, which we hear too often, of petty brutality and victimisation and a system that almost seems to encourage that.

It seems to me that there are immediate issues for the Department of Corrections arising from the report, and I think the Minister and his officials have acknowledged that these require their strong attention. Although correcting them will be an important part of restoring a modicum of confidence in the system in so far as this issue is concerned, what has been revealed by this incident and by many other similar incidents over the years—and there are many other questions that I do not want to go into right now relating to the behaviour of the department—is a much more fundamental problem with the culture of correction in New Zealand.

I can recall being the Associate Minister of Justice some 17 years ago. At that stage Corrections was not a separate portfolio; it came under my remit. We had a prison muster then in New Zealand of 4,800. The prison population now is 8,000, but our total population has not doubled between 1990 and 2007. We are clearly—in response to public opinion and other issues—imprisoning more people, yet every time we try to build a new prison, we all know the outcry: “Anywhere, but nowhere near me!” So we have this conflict. Our prisons are overcrowded and old. Many of them are dark, dank, neo-Victorian places. It is hardly any surprise that in that environment a crude, brutal culture of thuggery develops. I think that is at the heart of a lot of the problems we now see being manifested, certainly in the Ashley case.

I know—and my colleague Mr Tanczos will almost certainly agree with me—that we have to start to think about the basis of this system. Violent serious offenders deserve to be locked away, and I think there is a consensus around the House that they probably do not need to be shown a great deal of tolerance. But what about all the other people we are now routinely imprisoning almost up to that standard? We need to be more innovative in some of our solutions. We need to be taking the opportunities—such as the study group the Minister led to Scandinavia after the last election and the work that people like Kim Workman and those in the Salvation Army are doing—to provide a way forward. We need to be picking up that message. Yes, we have to take on board the lessons of the Ashley case, and, yes, there needs to be action arising out of the Ombudsmen’s report. But there are much bigger issues about this brutal culture of correction we have that we need to address if we are to ensure justice in this country.

Justice does not mean a soft approach. Justice is fair and justice is hard, but justice should not be brutal. I believe that is the real challenge that lies ahead of us. I hope that some of the informal discussions that have been taking place around this Chamber over the last few months pan out. Together we can start to develop a new approach that not only recognises the dignity of human beings in the corrections process and that society has a right to punish those who offend, but also recognises that the punishment—and I quote this from Gilbert and Sullivan often—should fit the crime. I think we have lost a sense of perspective over the years, and I hope that the outcome of this report on this particular incident may be part of helping to restore a fresh balance and a fresh approach on how we deal with these problems in our society.

Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay of Plenty) Link to this

I am pleased to be able to take a call in this debate, which is premised on the very sad events surrounding the transportation of Liam Ashley and his murder in a transport wagon those many months ago.

Like all New Zealanders, I was shocked that such a thing could happen to a 17-year-old. He was someone whom the rules said should have been transported separately, but he was not transported separately. Those were the questions that were brought to Parliament, and I must say that the Minister of Corrections handled them appallingly, with a lack of sincerity and a lack of action.

It is clear that this is a Minister who, without question, is prepared to accept the word of a department that this report shows has lied to the Ombudsman, an Officer of Parliament. In my experience of overseeing the Department of Corrections on the previous Law and Order Committee, that was par for the course with that Government department. The people who led the department did everything they possibly could to never tell the whole story and to never fess up when something went wrong, and it has continued under its current leadership.

How can Barry Matthews and Damien O’Connor hold their heads high with this report? How can anyone in that department hold their head high with this report? There comes a time in a Minister’s career when trying to whitewash everything and blaming everybody else have to come to an end. For Damien O’Connor to try to use this report as some sort of justification for his appalling leadership of the Department of Corrections is something that should be severely criticised.

That is the reason why New Zealanders are worried about this Department of Corrections. It is a department that fulfils an important role in public safety. It incarcerates people who, if they were out of prison, would more than likely be committing more offences and harming the people of New Zealand. It is vital that they be maintained safely and securely. But we know that it is failing in that responsibility. And how can it be that a department charged with teaching criminals to be honest and to rehabilitate could be dishonest itself? What sort of example does it set for prisoners when the people who are charged with rehabilitating them and teaching them to be truthful are not truthful themselves?

The lies of the Department of Corrections contributed directly to the tragedy that happened to Liam Ashley. If that department had done what it told the Ombudsmen it had done, then this tragedy may not have happened. This tragedy may not have happened if it had done what it told the Ombudsmen what it had done.

Hon PAUL SWAIN (Labour—Rimutaka) Link to this

I will start my speech, as other members have started their speeches, by offering my condolences to the Ashley family. As the Minister has said quite correctly, this death should not have happened and that young man should have been separated from the older prisoners. I will say in defence of the Minister—and I congratulate him on this—that, not long after that event, he issued an instruction that all over 18-year-olds should be separated from all under 18-year-olds. I think that this one instruction targeted the critical issue that was identified at that particular time, and I congratulate the Minister on doing that. There was some obscurity about a lot of the instruction before then, because I think it stated “where practicable”. The Minister has now made it quite clear that it must be done in all circumstances. Again, I congratulate him on doing that.

We are here really to debate the Ombudsmen’s report, but people have said a couple of things that I would like to address, and I do this as a former Minister of Corrections. The first thing is that this area is a particularly difficult area of Government responsibility. With all due respect to my friend Ron Mark when I hear him talking about what he would do if he were the Minister, I tell him to be careful what he wishes for, because one day it may well come to pass. The important thing to remember is that this is a difficult area, because the Department of Corrections deals primarily with people whom other people in society do not want around them; they want them locked up and kept away from them. We designate a department to look after that group of people, and it is extremely difficult.

I agree with quite a lot of what Peter Dunne said, but I disagreed with him fundamentally when he said there was a climate of thuggery in our prison system. When I was Minister of Corrections, I went to every single prison. The vast majority of Corrections officers, who are often in charge of prisoners who are serving life sentences, are doing their damnedest, day in and day out, to try to turn round some of those lives. They are doing it humanely and with good humour, and are providing role models for those prisoners, many of whom have never had role models in their past. So I pay tribute to the vast majority of good, hard-working, and honest officers in the Department of Corrections.

As has been said, the Department of Corrections has two major goals: keeping the public safe—because that is what the public demands—and reducing reoffending. Of course we must do that, as Nandor Tanczos says, within a climate of dealing with people humanely, because that is what the Corrections Act rightly states. But the musters have doubled since Peter Dunne was in charge of this area, 17 years ago. It is due to the public’s response to crime, particularly serious crime, and the Labour Government has listened to that. That is why the musters have risen now to over 8,000. But we do have to explain why New Zealand as a country has the second-highest imprisonment rate in the OECD. I think that the biggest shame in New Zealand—one that is still not known widely enough—is that Māori, who represent 15 percent of the population, make up 50 percent of our prison population. We need to do more work on that issue.

However, the area is a difficult one, and Labour has done some pretty good things. For example, let us get some of this stuff out. In the last 10 years prison escapes have fallen 78 percent. I heard Mr Ryall dribbling on before. It is all very well to try to run this department from the Opposition benches, but the truth is that when the National Government had its chance back in the 1990s, the prison escape rate was 78 percent higher than it is today.