Corrections Bill

I wish to refresh the House that it is New Zealand First’s intention to vote against this bill. Our reasons have been outlined in my previous 8 minutes’ speaking time, and also in the minority report within the bill. I have to say that one of my greatest concerns, and a mounting and rising concern, is the portion of the bill that seeks to bring into statutory existence the integrated offender management system, which I believe has all the potential to become Labour’s INCIS.

I say that because the integrated offender management system, which we will legislate into being in this Corrections Bill, is doomed to failure. The reason I say that is that in all the annual reports I have read from the Department of Corrections I cannot find anything that gives me confidence that the rehabilitation programmes that are currently being run by the Department of Corrections work to the extent that we would throw $30 million at implementing a computerised management system to further promote them.

I do not believe in any way, shape, or form that the integrated offender management system is currently working. Despite all the rhetoric that seems to pour out of Mr Byers’ and Mr McCarthy’s mouths as to what a wonderful job they are doing at rehabilitating offenders, the information I receive tells me that inmates do not receive a sentence plan. Some do, but many do not. This legislation seeks to make it law that inmates will receive an integrated offender management plan, a sentence plan, that is designed to take care of their criminogenic needs, to identify pathways to their successful integration back into the community. However, these plans are not able to be put together in the time frame specified; and at the end of the day, when they are, they do not work.

I raise the case of Mr Jarden as a classic example of how all the rehabilitative processes within the State’s Department of Corrections failed. Not only did they fail, but the Parole Board then further failed and Mr Jarden went on to create three more infant girl victims.

Look at Mr Carroll. Look at a number of others. The warning is here and it is very clear that this bill is fatally flawed and will run the risk of incurring great cost to the taxpayer, and liabilities as well.

The Green Party, of course, is supporting this bill. My colleague Nandor Tanczos sat in on the select committee hearings on the bill. Unfortunately he cannot be here tonight to give a presentation so I am presenting these comments on his behalf. It is interesting that the self-styled “tough on crime” fundamentalists, such as Tony Ryall, Ron Mark, Stephen Franks, and Marc Alexander praise the Australian correctional services for the humane and caring way they incarcerate prisoners, while climbing over each other to savage the public service whenever it shows a similar approach. The Withers referendum, which they are all so fond of reminding us about, called for hard labour. That is the direct opposite of what the Australasian Corrections Management general manager at the remand prison, Dom Karauria, is trying to implement there.

💬 Richard Worth: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is very hard to hear the member. I think it is probably because he is reading from his notes and mumbling. I wonder whether he might speak up so we can hear him.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): That is not really a point of order but I ask the member perhaps to speak closer to the microphone so that other members are able to hear.

Mr Dom Karauria and his supporters claim that the greatest strength of the Auckland Central Remand Prison is the involvement of tangata whenua in decision making, which is exactly what ACT and National criticise the Government for. So it is good if corporations do it, but bad if the Government does it! It all seems a little contradictory. Why support a facility that is the antithesis of their vision for prisons? It is not about what the prison actually does: as with education, health, and utilities, for most of those members it is their blind ideological commitment to privatisation.

As the Hon Paul Swain has indicated, the Greens have been engaged in negotiations with the Government to progress the bill, and we thank the Government for its willingness to meet our concerns. We want to see an end to the private management of prisons in this country, which has been the Green policy since 1999, and we want to improve the bill and improve the prison service by ensuring, firstly, explicit reference to the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners to ensure that all regulations comply with such rules, improved transparency of the complaints procedure by providing that all reports by the prison inspectorate are itemised in the annual report of the Department of Corrections, inspectorate reports will be publicly available, and then tightening up restrictions on the use of segregation. Prison policy says that segregation should not be used as a punishment, but in his submission Tony Ellis made a strong case that it is so used at times. We would like decisions to be reviewed monthly, and segregation should cease altogether at 3 months unless authorised by a visiting justice. New rules around how those justices are selected, trained, and rotated provide further safeguards.

We also want some protection for whistleblowers by ensuring that the section 140 offences of having unauthorised communications or recordings of inmates apply only where there is a specific threat to prison security, rather than where, for example, it is in the public interest to draw attention to abuses within the prison system. We also wish to ensure that the chief executive at the national level, and local prison managers, engage with local ethnic communities in developing local prison practices and programmes, and that the obligation to consider cultural identity and language when planning individual management plans should be extended to macro level planning of services and programmes.

Let me say the Greens do not, and have never, defended the shortcomings of the public service, but we believe we have a responsibility to try to address those problems across the whole prison system. The answer does not lie in defending the profits of one company and ignoring the need for reform in the public service. The State’s coercive power is at its most extreme in a prison. Guards have very serious control over the lives of inmates. With reasonable force but relatively little justification, they can inspect orifices and generally humiliate other human beings. We should not give those powers to a multinational corporation, because that obviously carries dangers. The only other comparable group in society is the police, and most people would not support Securitas policing them. Privatising prisons is quite different from the commercial provision of health or other kinds of social services. The “private good: public bad” mantra cannot apply here. As the Hon Matt Robson stated in his speech earlier, this is about a foot in the door for the wholesale privatisation of prisons.

Australasian Correctional Management, which runs New Zealand’s only privatised prison, is a subsidiary of the GEO Group. In 2000, in its former incarnation as Wackenhut Corrections, the GEO Group was singled out by the Observer newspaper in England for, among other things, sadism, greed, and frightening incompetence, and has been subject to allegations of sexual abuse, physical violence, and unsafe work practices. The Australian Medical Association and others have called for an independent inquiry into Australasian Correctional Management’s immigration detention centres in Australia based on staffing problems, substandard service, and child abuse. At least one court case has found Australasian Correctional Management guilty of unsafe work practices in its prisons, so Ron Mark’s view that we can end abuse in prisons by getting multinational corporations to run them is just naive.

Of course, Australasian Correctional Management is on its best behaviour in New Zealand. The Auckland Central Remand Prison is Australasian Correctional Management’s glossy sales brochure, selling the privatisation of the prison system. This is all about market share. All this is no criticism of the former manager, Dom Karauria. It is primarily due to his excellent work that the remand prison has satisfied its community stakeholders. It is also a brand-new facility and, being a remand prison, is without the same pressures and obligations found in the main penal system. There is no easy way to compare the rehabilitative function, because this Australasian Correctional Management prison deals with accused prisoners in a remand situation, not convicted ones.

Claims have been made by some MPs that the per head cost is less at Auckland Central Remand Prison than in the public system, but this is a false comparison because the infrastructural costs such as the building and the IOM computer systems were publicly funded. The public service is cheaper when a true comparison is made. Our prisons are not effective at rehabilitation, and the Greens do not defend the status quo within the public system. Disturbingly, with new, tougher sentencing laws in place, the Government has boasted in Parliament that the prison population will soon increase by 20 percent. But the challenge for the Green Party has been to negotiate corrections legislation that will improve the prison system, and to promote policies that will lead to a more inclusive and just society that makes prisons less important.

It is disturbing that New Zealand is up near the top of the table internationally in terms of per capita membership of prisons. It is still a fair way behind America, which tops the list—America has over 2 million people in prisons. But when one takes a vindictive approach to crime and puts more people in prisons and in for longer times, all that happens is that there is more crime and a higher prison population. This is the vicious cycle that is operating in the United States, and that can happen here if we are not careful. I think we need to—

💬 Hon Harry Duynhoven: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Sorry for interrupting the member’s speech, but I do think it is not on for a member of Parliament sitting nearby to interject, or for him to interject to say the member is lying.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Can I thank the honourable member for that. I had noted that, and I would like to point out Speaker’s ruling 57/5—that backbenchers’ interjections on each other in close proximity to each other have an effect on the live microphone. The member will desist, withdraw, and apologise for implying that the member is not telling the truth.

💬 Stephen Franks: I withdraw and apologise.

While this bill does not address the rehabilitation question in any depth, it does provide certain greater rights for prisoners, which I think will help in their rehabilitation. It is important to treat prisoners as human beings and help their rehabilitation into becoming good members of society. It is good that the complaints procedure is being strengthened up a bit, and hopefully, when the Supplementary Order Paper comes forward from the Minister, there will be an allowance for the Human Rights Commission to enter the prison, as suggested in the report. It is good that the bill does retain that guarantee that people like MPs and, hopefully, the Human Rights Commission, can come in to check prison conditions. I have found it myself a good restraint on abuse within the prison system, and I have used it on many occasions.

I rise on behalf of United Future to address the second reading of the Corrections Bill. Although the bill addresses numerous issues, I wish to concentrate on our concern that, in spite of 30 of the 33 submissions that dealt with the provisions ending the private management of prisons being in favour of maintaining the status quo, this Government has chosen the fool’s path of ideology over credibility.

Clause 194 prohibits the extension of the existing management contract for Auckland Central Remand Prison, and clauses 185 and 186 prohibit any new contracts being entered into. United Future rejects the stated rationale for these provisions as being in keeping with the so-called “core functions” of the State. It is not a rationale at all, but is the replacement of common sense with an ideological harlot—a triumph of socialist irresponsibility.

This Government is utterly bereft of consistency. It conveniently overlooks the privately managed and outsourced correctional services, such as escort and courtroom custodial services, home detention, and external providers of programmes for offenders. Chubb has been allowed to escort and perform courtroom custodial sentences—up to 26,892 prison escorts and 8,021 court custody tasks were undertaken in 2002 alone. Some of these inmate transfers are conducted on commercial flights—also creating profits for somebody—for inmates to attend court appearances and rehabilitation programmes, and to ease overcrowding. Since August 1999, Chubb has also provided services related to the administration of home detention throughout New Zealand. Chubb provides electronic monitoring and manual surveillance services to the Department of Corrections for those offenders serving home detention orders.

The Community Probation Service has contracted external private providers for both residential programmes and non-residential programmes for offenders. These programmes include alcohol, drug, and violence prevention, and sex offender treatment programmes. The only private prison in New Zealand is the Auckland Central Remand Prison, managed by Australasian Correctional Management Pty Ltd, and despite its exemplary performance, this Labour Government wants to terminate the company’s contract. Why? Because it does not do a good job? Because it costs too much, or does not deliver on its promise? Not at all. It is simply because the prison is privately managed. We all know that this Government has a huge problem with anything that resembles a successful enterprise in which it plays no part.

Normally the Government would tax the company to death—a slow, economic euthanasia—but in this case, it is a matter of removing it, and damn the taxpayers who are presently benefiting. The facts are clear enough: where a comparable State facility costs $72,000 per year per inmate, the Auckland Central Remand Prison costs $43,000. Despite these cost efficiencies, the remand prison provides higher levels of services than State managed providers, including having a New Zealand Qualifications Authority accredited training area for the kitchen; a drug reduction strategy, resulting in more long-term drug users choosing to become drug free; on-site health provision, including diabetes screening, 24-hour medical coverage with a registered nurse, a psychiatric service, staff testing for cholesterol and diabetes, and a whole range of other medical benefits; offender services, including full-time psychologists and assessors; the provision of 60,000 programme and vocational hours; the provision of 10,000 cultural activity programme hours; and employment and programmes provided for 75 percent of the inmates.

The prison provides National Certificate of Employment Skills training, which is available to all inmates. This includes literacy and numeracy skills, and focuses on enhancing the future employment possibilities of the inmates. It is the only prison in New Zealand to deliver New Zealand Qualifications Authority alcohol and drug unit standards, and it has successfully passed the integrated offender management implementation final review. It is also the only prison in New Zealand to provide reintegration programmes to remand inmates.

In the Law and Order Committee’s report on Vote Corrections, in the 2001/02 estimates, the Minister of Corrections asserted the view that privately run prisons could not integrate with the approach the Government wanted in publicly administered prisons. Given the superior outcomes of a privately managed prison, what that really means is that the Minister could not have confidence that State managed prisons could measure up. In other words, get rid of the competition, because it embarrasses us. Bluntly, the Government’s determination to exclude the private management of prisons is motivated by the prevailing political ideology, the prospect of comparisons with inadequate outcomes, and the influence of unions amongst correctional staff and State-run prisons.

The Government’s assertion that coercive powers to restrict the freedom of inmates should be applied by no agency other than the State is weakened by the fact that the courts, not the prisons, impose this restriction. The ideological distaste for the private management of prisons is based on the assumptions that a private provider should not generate profit from crime. But the attack on the profit motive fails to stand up to scrutiny when lawyers and law firms profit from their representation and prosecution functions, construction companies profit from the construction of prisons, and suppliers of a range of products, both material and educational, profit from their service to prisons.

What this intellectually lethargic Government steadfastly refuses to understand is that the administration of a custodial sentence is distinct from the State’s power to enforce the law and impose the sentence. At no time can private management undermine the State’s authority. The provisions are set out in a negotiated tender advanced by the Government. There is an independent monitoring of practices and standards, and there is a high degree of scrutiny from visiting justices, prisoner aid and rehabilitation organisations, and Ministry of Justice prison inspectors. Having both State and private providers of the management of prisons competing for tenders promotes accountability. To have both will be the best assurance of the highest quality standards at the best possible price for the taxpayers and victims of New Zealand. This Minister is now trying to snuff out the candle, only to be left in the dark, groping like a blind bat looking for a match.

This Government has listened to the people of this country with Van Gogh’s ear, acknowledging only the Corrections Association, and the faint, distant heartbeat of a discredited social philosophy that distrusts anything other than the bloated State bureaucracy. This Government is hell-bent on enshrining ideology by courting the Corrections Association at the expense of inmates, at the expense of New Zealand taxpayers, and at the expense of common sense. Worse, this pragmatically impoverished Labour Government is insulting the very victims that it pretends to care about. Not only have the spiralling numbers of victims paid a heavy price, due to the offences perpetrated on them, but they now have to pay more than they need to, to keep those offenders behind bars. The fact is that if State-managed prisons were as economically efficient as our privately managed prison, we would save nearly $400 million a year. That would mean more resources for frontline police, more for restitution to victims, more for drug and alcohol rehabilitation programmes, and better resourced early interventions.

It stuns me that the Greens have sold what is left of their soul for this ideologically indulgent legislation. I hope the price was worth it. When the Greens come out with comments like: “There are some officers who have a brutality of attitude that cannot be accepted in our Department of Corrections.”, from April 2003, or: “The Corrections Department still seems to be mired in the Dark Ages.”, from November 2003, how can they suddenly turn and support the Government on this particular piece of ideology? It is unbecoming of all people who think that they want to further the interests of the criminal justice system. Such nice sentiments, but from the Greens, their sweetness is as bitter as bile. The Greens have sold out on no fewer than seven northern Māori iwi, the Pacific Island community, the inmates, the taxpayer, and the growing roll call of victims, in one fell swoop. The number of submitters from iwi who supported the Auckland Central Remand Prison as the best provider of services to Māori and Pacific Island inmates has not been given sufficient weight by either the Greens or the Labour Government. The decision to end private prison management was not based on either performance or efficiency criteria, but on ideology alone. It is noteworthy that National, ACT, and New Zealand First did not succumb to the crapulent ideological nonsense espoused by this Labour Government. It was up to the underwhelming Greens and the Alliance leftovers, the Progressives, who, with Labour, make up the troika that defines political absurdity. They are three intersecting streams of ideological bankruptcy, resembling three maggots festering on the carcass of common sense. United Future will not support this legislation.

Mr Speaker—

💬 Hon Harry Duynhoven: The sooner we ban reading speeches the better.

I would like to pick up the words that Harry Duynhoven has just offered across the floor of the Chamber, and say that that was an amazing speech. I commend the speaker for the care and trouble that he took in preparing those scripted words.

I just go back to this whole issue of reading speeches and express the hope that we might revert to previous Standing Orders, which forbade that practice.

💬 Mark Peck: Hear, Hear!

Mr Peck is interjecting. His contribution to Parliament in 2002, 2003, and 2004 will always be remembered. The only thing he has done is move closure motions. He is a man of minimal contribution, a modest man who has much to be modest about.

I pick up the comments that Mr Alexander made about the impoverished Labour Party. He offered another phrase about Labour being in the dark—if I wrote it down correctly—“groping like a blind bat looking for a match”. This is the party that Labour has decided to join common cause with. Today we saw this Government come within an inch of being thrown from office, and it was saved by Mr Alexander’s team. When the Greens had deserted it, United Future—which I judged to be a centre-right party, and a potential coalition party when the Government changes in 2005—sought to keep the current Government in office.

I have come to talk about the Corrections Bill and that is what I will devote the balance of my time to. It is interesting, is it not, that this bill was introduced to the House in March 2003. It was referred to a select committee in April 2003. A date was set for the closing of submissions, which is the normal practice. The date was then extended, which is a little bit unusual. The select committee heard a whole lot of submissions. It spent hours—30 hours and 14 minutes—considering all this evidence. Then the committee did not know what to make of this bill. Why do I say it did not know what to make of this bill? The reason is that the report of this illustrious committee—the Law and Order Committee—states: “The Law and Order Committee has examined the Corrections Bill and was unable to reach agreement on whether the bill should be passed.”

I suggest to Mr Peck that that is a great disappointment, because the Penal Institutions Act, which the Corrections Bill was planned to replace, was passed in 1954—50 years ago. There is not too much substantive legislation on the stocks that has lasted for that period of time.

💬 Hon Harry Duynhoven: I don’t know, I paid a pretty big bill for one last year.

Oh sure, there are some examples of bills that became statutes in 1908 that float around—maybe the Pawnbrokers Act, although we recently did something with that—but this is old legislation. It was to be hoped that a wise and caring Government would have had the wit to see that legislation should be implemented to pick up changes that are clearly due in respect of what is going on in the prisons.

For a start, any legislation needs to reflect modern policies and practices in prisons. Over the years there have been a whole lot of changes to the Penal Institutions Act, since 1954 when it was passed. There have been powers inserted to drug test inmates, to monitor inmate telephone calls, and new rules relating to dungfunnel searching and that type of thing, which have made the legislation complex and difficult to follow. I would also say that the law governing the administration of the corrections system needs to be compatible in its philosophy with both the Sentencing Act of 2002—much-flawed legislation—and also the Parole Act of the same year. New systems have been introduced for managing people on custodial and community-based sentences to effectively target certain outcomes.

So there was a real case—and I do not think any of us would deny that—for updating this legislation. But the Law and Order Committee, chaired by Mr Gallagher, simply did not have the drive to see its way through to produce good outcomes. I am not really surprised by that because there are some hugely politically correct and inappropriate provisions in this legislation. Some of them are sort of hidden away. They emerge, not from the casual reader’s gaze, but rather from those who are tasked to study in detail particular provisions in the bill. Some of the worst, and I would say probably the excrescence, in this legislation are the transitional provisions in Part 3. Because there, in very bald terms, in clause 194 it is stated that: “Existing management contracts must not be extended”. The legislation is quite simple in this particular area, but it brought to a close what, I think, has been a real highlight of prison administration in recent years—the management of the private prison.

I am privileged to represent the constituency of Epsom, which some say in numerical terms has within it the highest socio-economic grouping. I watch with bemusement as people fight against the location of prisons in their particular constituencies because in my constituency of Epsom we have three prisons and we seem to be able to manage that issue without rancour or difficulty. These are, of course, the great prison of Mount Eden—that forbidding stone castle—the women’s prison, which is just next door, and a little bit further down the road is the remand prison. I do not forget being sent as a candidate, prior to my selection for the seat of Epsom, to give a briefing on behalf of the National Party—ill-prepared as I might have been as a novice in these areas—to the prison guards at Mount Eden about the benefits of private prisons. I am not sure that they altogether accepted the argument. I guess I did not expect that they would, but I hoped that they would be prepared to listen. They were, and many moved across to be valuable contributors at the private remand prison.

I will highlight National’s principal concerns in connection with this legislation. I have obviously foreshadowed the first point, which is the whole issue of private prisons. National has made its position clear in the committee’s report as to where it stands on this particular issue. A series of questions have been asked in Parliament of the Minister and others as to what the objection is to private prisons. When this bill was introduced, the current Attorney-General, Margaret Wilson, gave only one reason for abolishing private prisons. She said: “Prisons by their very nature involve the use of highly coercive powers against individuals. This Government believes that it is inappropriate for private sector organisations to wield such powers.” So it is an ideological objection. It is not in any basis well founded in science. In the context of what has gone on around the world I think it is fair to say that privatisation of prisons is one of the few illustrations where privatisation has truly worked. [Interruption] It is really helpful to hear the interjections made by Mr Peck, because I sense that in Mr Peck’s interjections there may be the faint possibility that he will make a contribution. I doubt it. He does not contribute, but these early signs of interjection may hint at a substantive comment that may arise.

I rise for the ACT party to speak on the Corrections Bill. As Mr Richard Worth explained, this bill has been long in gestation, was much trumpeted in its early days, and has now become a serious embarrassment to the Government. The Government has managed to procure a majority to get it through, with the help of the Greens. The Greens and the Labour Party also pushed through the last bill we were talking about—the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Bill—a few moments ago.

The bill has attracted a lot of attention because of its attack on the private prison managed by Australasian Correctional Management Pty Ltd in Auckland, the Auckland Central Remand Prison. It has attracted that attention because the select committee could not find any good reason to terminate the private contract. Former Minister Robson, who was first responsible for this bill, had the grave embarrassment of sitting in the select committee and hearing witness after witness praise the management of the Auckland Central Remand Prison and express their fears about what would happen when the State sector took it over again.

Although most of the Labour members were whipped to stay silent so as not to prolong the embarrassment and agony of listening to that evidence—a castigation of their policy—Mr Robson could not contain himself. He kept challenging witnesses and expecting them to crumble with his withering questioning. Instead, they got stronger and more strident. The more he asked, the stronger the evidence was of just how feeble his reasons were for trying to close down the management of Australasian Correctional Management Pty Ltd.

But I do not want to spend my time talking about what is after all a very small, though telling, change. This Corrections Bill is the triumph of the philosophy that criminals are really victims. This bill is the final flowering—and I say it will be the final flowering, because it will be one of those things that will have to be swept away when we get on top of criminal justice. This bill is the absolute acme of the view that if we are just nice enough to nasty people, they might turn around and stop being nasty and be nice back.

This bill encapsulates in its principles section—and I will quickly refer to them—the playway system of punishment. Of course, it does not use the word punishment. That would be far too direct and inappropriate, offensive, or unacceptable—whatever other word is used as a criticism by the politically correct left. The principles start with the maintenance of public safety. Clause 6 (1)(b) states, in a pious little reference: “victims’ interests must be considered …”. It does not say “taken seriously”, but just “considered”. There is no definition of victims’ interests. That would be far too dangerous. Something like victims’ interests in seeing the sentence performed, or the purposes of sentencing, might have to be looked at, because one of the interesting features about the Corrections Bill is that it has absolutely no connection with the Sentencing Act. The Sentencing Act tells us that the purposes of sentences are to denounce, to hold accountable, to protect, to incapacitate, and to rehabilitate. This bill chooses only one of those, and it becomes the entire philosophy for the corrections regime—that is, rehabilitation.

Now, it is strange that rehabilitation has been picked, because it is the one thing that criminologists around the world agree is not achievable by prisons. Despite what we would all like to be the case, and despite the hopes of literally 150 years of inspired, very decent, well-meaning attempts, we have no real evidence—in fact, we have a lot of evidence going the other way—that prisons can reliably rehabilitate. We know that they can incapacitate.

We had a rather fantastic speech from Mr Locke, who managed to tell us that the Americans now have 2 million people locked up, and that they are in a vicious cycle of locking up more people and experiencing more crime. Mr Locke must be the only person who has ever studied the topic who is unaware that even the least successful state in the United States has dropped its serious crime by 33 percent, its youth crime by a similar amount, and other less serious crime by less. As an ordinary United States citizen, one has about half the risk of being burgled that one has in New Zealand.

Mr Locke could tell us, because he feels he has no fear of contradiction—people like Mr Locke do not need to reason from facts; they reason from feelings—that the Americans must be in a vicious cycle of increasing crime simply because they are getting tougher on punishment. I tell Mr Locke that for the public the purpose of a corrections system is to punish. Punishment may have four elements to it—rehabilitation being one of them—but the more important ones, and the ones we know can be achieved, are to deter, to denounce, to give justice, and to assure victims that the offender is not better off after the crime than they are. This bill does nothing to achieve them.

This bill embodies the United Nations rules that New Zealand has never formally adopted. The United Nations standard minimum rules for the treatment of prisoners are, for the first time, being brought into our law. What is the most significant feature of that? It is rule 57: “Imprisonment and other measures which result in cutting off an offender from the outside world are afflictive by the very fact of taking from the person the right of self-determination by depriving him of his liberty.” It could have just said that imprisonment takes freedom and is therefore unpleasant, but it goes on and states: “The prison system shall not, except as incidental to justifiable segregation or the maintenance of discipline, aggravate the suffering inherent in such a situation.” In other words, imprisonment is punishment; imprisonment is not for punishment.

By putting these principles into this bill, this Government is giving the finger to the 92 percent who asked that crime be punished with tougher sentencing. That referendum, which Government members might not wish to remember, asked for hard labour. That referendum asked for things that this bill now puts beyond reach, because it says that the Government cannot deliberately make prison an unpleasant experience. The only thing that is legitimate is depriving a person of liberty.

Then the entire bill goes on to say what must be done for prisoners—not done to prisoners. This bill says that though the victim’s interests must be considered, and that there may be decisions intended to reduce the risk of reoffending, the offender’s family must be provided for. The corrections system must ensure fair treatment, and sentences must not be administered more restrictively than is necessary to ensure the maintenance of law and the safety of the public. In other words, one has to be as nice as one possibly can.

It is perfectly proper for a bill like this to require that there should be no torture, no cruelty or abuse of power, and that there should be fair appeal rights. All of those things would have been perfectly proper, but this bill goes on to say that one must be as gentle as one can. This bill says that one can do only what is necessary to ensure the safety of the public—not to achieve the purposes of entering, not to deter, not to denounce, and not to hold accountable.

When we get further into the detail, it gets worse. The bill of the former Minister, Mr Robson, has scarcely been changed in relation to punishment. It is very plain that lawyers like Mr Tony Ellis—well meaning as they are—will now have a field day in respect of a bill that gives, in almost every clause, an opportunity to challenge the supervision and disciplinary decisions of prison officers. That is not because they are cruel or there is callous abuse of power, but simply because they are not being nice enough or taking into account the purposes Mr Robson has managed to draw from the United Nations rules and now lock into our law. This bill should not pass.

As members of the House will be aware, the Law and Order Committee looked at this bill. The fact that there was a four-four split on the committee showed it was obviously unable to reach agreement on whether the bill should be passed. We had the interesting situation again of a degree of gridlock in the select committee, so we reported the bill back to the House with no amendments.

However, the story in the telling is in the commentary. I would certainly like to acknowledge all members of the committee for the way in which we did work together on this bill. Obviously, the commentary embraces the different views of respective parties. I certainly acknowledge the deputy chairman of the committee, Marc Alexander, and the Hon Tony Ryall and Brian Connell from National, Edwin Perry from New Zealand First, as well as my own Government colleagues Ann Hartley, Mahara Okeroa, and Georgina Beyer.

Notwithstanding that we could not reach agreement, I think the prime area of disagreement was the philosophical approach to the management of the prison service, in terms of the role of the private sector in providing prisons versus the State and public sector. In the select committee I certainly detected quite a degree of commonality on a number of issues, in spite of what a previous speaker has said.

As has been said in previous speeches to the House—certainly from the Government side; let me acknowledge two previous Government speakers when this bill was last considered, the current Minister, the Hon Paul Swain, and the Hon Matt Robson—and again to put this bill into perspective, this is a major reform of law governing the operations of the corrections system. It will replace the Penal Institutions Act of 1954—obviously, that is now 50 years old—and parts of the Criminal Justice Act 1985, and requires the replacement of the Penal Institutions Regulations 2000. The reform is clearly needed so that the legislation now reflects modern conditions and approaches to the management of offenders. In spite of what a previous speaker may have implied, the bill is absolutely compatible with the Government’s criminal justice reforms—the Sentencing Act, the Parole Act, and the Victims’ Rights Act—which is clear evidence that this Government certainly has listened to public concern.

We want to emphasise the central importance of public safety, so it is obviously important we update the legislation. I want to make the observation that those on the other side of the House, including members of the ACT party, had 9 long years to do something in this area. Did they do it? No, they did not.

I want to take a bit of time—which a second reading speech allows, perhaps—to deal with a couple of aspects we spent some time on. First of all, I will deal with the issue of justices of the peace as visiting justices, and also with the issue of information sharing and the need to refine information sharing with the New Zealand Police and the Immigration Service. I would like to use the remainder of my time in this second reading speech in contributing to those areas.

As the report identified, we had considerable discussion over the bill’s proposal to exclude justices of the peace from being appointed as visiting justices to our prisons. Supporting their exclusion were assertions that the use of justices of the peace as visiting justices was not working well for several reasons. The reasons included a perception of litigation risk, and most judicial review actions relate to cases where the visiting justice was a justice of the peace. It was said that such actions could result in significant costs to the Crown, particularly in legal fees and court costs, even with the small number of cases subject to review and with the complexity of cases. Particularly since the introduction of drug testing in 1998, a high proportion of cases heard by visiting justices have related to drug charges. Such cases can often be overturned on procedural or technical issues related, for example, to evidentiary and testing procedures and legal representation. Those are the issues put in favour of excluding JPs as visiting justices.

In terms of legal representation we talked about the potential for complex arguments to be raised, and visiting justice cases have increased since prisoners have had the right to be represented by counsel. In some disciplinary cases a visiting justice who is legally trained may be able to deal more confidently with the issues raised. That was the argument.

I want to acknowledge publicly what I believe was an excellent submission from the Royal Federation of New Zealand Justices Associations. Clearly, it strongly opposed—understandably, in my view—the removal of the appointment of justices of the peace as visiting justices. We certainly noted the associations’ concerns that it was not consulted about this change, and certainly was not able to understand the rationale behind the proposals. Again, we as a committee were not convinced that JPs should be excluded from the list of those who could be appointed as visiting justices. We also noted that only a small number of cases heard by visiting JPs have been overturned, and that in the last 4 years there have been only six applications for judicial review of decisions made by JPs as visiting justices. On the whole, as a select committee—and I agree with this quite strongly—we certainly do see a continuing role for visiting JPs. Let me take this opportunity to acknowledge the very good work that our JPs have done with regard to prisons. Theirs is a voluntary office and I certainly want to commend the submission and the work by the Royal Federation of the New Zealand Justices Associations.

The other issue I want to touch on is the concerns we had in respect of information sharing—first of all with the New Zealand Police. We note that the Department of Corrections and the police have identified difficulties with the current legislative framework for information sharing, which relate to the case-by-case approach required by the Privacy Act. To assist the police and the department to share information more effectively, with the aim of better maintenance of law and order, we support four information-sharing proposals with amendments to the bill as follows.

We note that the department currently discloses information about offenders to the police on a case-by-case basis, under the Privacy Act. However, for certain classes of offenders—notably sexual offenders—the information provided is not adequate to provide the level of coordination necessary to ensure public safety. So, again, we have made some recommendations about how there can be a better coordination of information between the police and the Department of Corrections to boost and reinforce public safety.

The other area of great importance to us, I will say in the brief time I have left, is to make sure we beef up information matching in terms of the provisions of this new bill with regard to the New Zealand Immigration Service. We have made certain proposals that the Immigration Service should identify individuals who are liable for deportation or removal from New Zealand. That will be conveyed to the Department of Corrections. We believe, hopefully, that that proposal for this sharing of information will largely eliminate the risk of individuals with criminal convictions escaping deportation or removal because of administrative oversights. Clearly, the prison service and the authorities should be aware of the point at which a prisoner who is not a New Zealand citizen leaves, so that people do not slip through the system. That is quite important. Obviously, there will be a number of changes in that area—bearing in mind, as I said, that we have reported a bill back without any changes. It is my understanding that the Minister will introduce Supplementary Order Papers to encompass some of the recommendations made by the Government members of the committee.

Finally, let me applaud all members of the committee for the way in which they conducted themselves. Notwithstanding that we had a gridlock, I believe that the commentary is a useful contribution to the progressing forward of this very important legislation.

I first acknowledge the role of the committee, and on behalf of the National Party I would like to thank Mr Gallagher for his graciousness in acknowledging the work of my colleagues on this bill. Certainly, the commentary shows they did their very best to try to help bring some sense to the bill.

I want at this moment to deal with an issue raised by Mr Franks. He mentioned the issue of the costs of prisons—of private prisons as opposed to State-run prisons. The dulcet tones of the Government chief whip were heard singing out across the debating chamber, along the lines of: “Oh they only have the less serious prisoners.” I invite that member, in her ignorance, to forget the words of the Attorney-General and former Minister of Corrections, Margaret Wilson, and actually go to see what happens in private prisons. She will see, contrary to the advice given by Margaret Wilson, that the private prison at Auckland, the Auckland Central Remand Prison, has in it some of the worst possible offenders. I note that in a Radio New Zealand Morning Report interview on 7 March 2003, which I will seek leave to table later, the Hon Margaret Wilson, in answer to a question from the presenter, said: “Most of the private prisoners are, of course, prisoners held there who are low security. In other words, it is cheaper to run those prisons because of the nature of the incarceration, and that’s tended to be the experience overseas, as well.” Well, we are not allowed to use the word I would like to use for that, so I will say that that former Minister of Corrections was grossly mistaken and grossly wrong.

The current Minister of Corrections put it straight to us when he told us here in the House that the reason for what is happening is that it is Labour Party policy—and that is the truth; that is what it is all about. The facts are that the privately run Auckland Central Remand Prison costs $43,000 a year per prisoner, and that cost is for a mix of low to high-security prisoners in a high-security environment. The public prison service costs $54,000 a year per minimum-security prisoner and $72,000 a year per high-security prisoner. That has nothing to do with the private prison’s building being relatively new, because there is also a new prison down in the South Island and its costs are still high—like the rest of the public service. It is all to do with staffing levels and the way prisons are run.

Staffing levels are all about cushy jobs—having all sorts of staff on duty, in accordance with the union’s directives. I went to have a look at the privately run prison and I found it had four staff in total looking after a wing containing 40 prisoners—and those were high-security prisoners. The reason is that the prison uses technology and does not have people standing around watching each other watch other people. I have also visited publicly run prisons when I was a lawyer, and I have seen what they do instead. For a wing of 40 people they have 22 staff on duty watching each other watching everyone else. That is what they do, because that is the union directive. Publicly run prisons are not run for the benefit of the people of New Zealand; they are run for the benefit of the union, and that is what this is all about.

This bill will have to have a very short life, because not only is it wrong but it is ruining our reputation as a country. We are moving away from where everyone else is moving to, progressively—towards privately run prisons, which have been proven time and time again—and proven so in New Zealand—to be better run, to have better outcomes, and to be an awful lot cheaper than public prisons. So it is going to have to go for it. Next time, we should allow not just one private prison but allow the lot. That is what we should do; there should be none of this half-pie stuff. We should get rid of the other lot and destroy the bureaucracy that is holding this country back.

I do not think that to be in prison should be a cakewalk, and I do not think it ever is. The loss of liberty is a pretty serious issue. Having said that, I point out that people who go into prisons, who have committed crimes, are volunteers. Not one of them has gone to prison because their country has ordered them to do their duty for the country. No, they have gone there because they have committed serious criminal offences. Although, when people go into prisons, I would like to think that in a humane society we will not create an environment from which they will come out necessarily worse than when they went in, because that is actually what happens in a lot of the publicly run prisons. When we look at the public prison environment and the attitudes of people, we see how the place does not really run, because programmes are not there to help those who do want to be helped, and then when we look at the private prison we see what they have done with so much less money.

For instance, they look like professionals—that is, not the criminals but the staff—in the privately run prisons. The Auckland Central Remand Prison is the only prison in New Zealand to have ISO 9001:2000 accreditation and to have its own full-time drug dog handler and dog. It is a member of the Equal Employment Opportunities Trust, although I suppose that that is not necessarily a good thing. It has a low serious incidents rate and it has a lot fewer nasty incidents happening against its staff and other prisoners by prisoners. That is because it sets rules. Its staff show respect and they expect respect. It has in place all sorts of health provisions for the prisoners, such as a dental surgery. It has all sorts of things going on there. It has a portable X-ray, sexually transmitted disease screening and treatment, and diabetes screening. It has something that is probably really important in terms of rehabilitation if there is ever to be a chance of it: it actually has literacy and literary programmes that people want to go to. The prison staff take their work seriously, so what are we going to do in this Parliament? We are going to get rid of them, because they actually do the job well.

I know that the Green members want to stand up. Mr Locke gave a very well-read speech, with so much passion that one has to wonder why he bothered. I know from listening to him that the Greens have actually been to visit the private prison. They have said they agree with all of these things but, unfortunately, ideologically they have a problem with it. Well it is not the provision of the services of rehabilitation—or in this case of punishment or anything else as deterrent—that should necessarily be run by the State. It is the State that already arrests people, prosecutes them, and sentences them; that is actually where the State’s place should be.

Why is it OK that every provision of anything to do with prisoners—things like cleaning services, building services, and transportation services from courts to prisons—can be private, but not the prisons themselves? The reason is that the unions do not want it, and this Government is doing all it can, in the few months it has left, to pay back the unions. It will not work, because we are going to get rid of it very fast—and we have to. If we allow this thing to continue, we will continue to have the reoffending rate we already have and we will continue to have the huge drain and cost on our economy.