Corrections Bill

The National Party in Opposition will be leading an extremely vigorous debate against the Corrections Bill today. We want to highlight to the people of New Zealand a number of important deficiencies in this legislation. We want to highlight the ideological drive behind what is being proposed in this legislation, and we also want to highlight the fact that this bill is full of potential litigation risk for the Crown. This Government knows that, but it is continuing to push the bill through.

In the next while numerous speakers from the National Party will be taking calls in this debate, and will be covering a number of issues. We will be drawing the attention of the Committee to the fact that the liberal people opposite are proposing to bring into this bill the woolly definition of “family”—which it tried to shove down the throats of the people of New Zealand with the Families Commission Bill—that provides that any prisoner is guaranteed visits from anybody he or she has a “psychological attachment” to. That means every gang member is going to have a right to be visited by every member of his or her chapter, because that, apparently, is part of a gang member’s family group. Mrs Judith Collins from our side of the Chamber will be spending some time debating that, as well.

Led by Mr Brian Connell, we will be spending some time talking about the purposes of the corrections system. The purposes highlighted by this Government are completely wrong. Where is the word “punishment”? Where is the word “incapacitation”? Where are the words “reintegration into the community”? Those words do not jump out from the face of the legislation, because they simply are not part of what this Government is on about. Where is “prison to work”? Where is “punishment”? Where is “just desserts”? Where is “being incapacitated”? Where is “being off the street helps prevent crime”? None of that is mentioned in this legislation.

Our other speakers in this debate, including Richard Worth, will talk about why the principles of this bill are all wrong. The principles of this bill are all wrong because they give lots of new rights to prisoners that they do not deserve. This bill gives prisoners the right to go to court and litigate their treatment by the Department of Corrections. I want to give one example of a provision that we would remove from the bill, and we have tabled an amendment to do so. That example is the principle in clause 6(1)(c), which states that in order to reduce reoffending, the sentence planning, where appropriate, has to take into account the cultural background, ethnic identity, and language of offenders. Well, that is all motherhood and apple pie, but what does it actually mean, and what are the new legal rights that will be created because of what is in this legislation? That principle has never featured in the law before. What it means, together with clauses further on stating that prison treatment has to be culturally appropriate, is that prisoners on legal aid will be able go to the courts and say that they have not been treated in accord with their cultural background, ethnic identity, and language.

💬 Judith Collins: What about the victims?

Mrs Collins is right. What about the victims in these crimes? They get, in this bill, three lines’ reference in the principles. So we have a section of the bill that is over a page and a half—75 lines—and how many lines do the victims get? Three. That indicates what is wrong with this bill. Later, during the debate on the other parts, we will highlight the fact that the Department of Corrections is happy to have legislation that states it will tell the family of the offender when the offender is being moved to another prison but it will not tell the family of the victim if the victim wants to know whether the prisoner is being moved. This bill does not favour victims.

As my colleague Mr Ryall has pointed out, National intends to vigorously debate this legislation. We are vigorously opposed to it, and we will make our position extremely clear through the course of this debate.

I have to say that I am looking forward to going through this bill in some detail. This legislation is an absolute travesty, beginning today when the Minister, Paul Swain, put on the Table a Supplementary Order Paper that has not just a few amendments, but 45 pages full of them. Why could the Minister not accept from the outset that the legislation as drafted just was not a flyer? Why could he not listen to members of the select committee, of whom I am one, and take the advice that this legislation just does not stand the test of close scrutiny?

I want to dwell, in my first call, on the purpose and principles of this legislation. There are a number of those set out under clauses 5 and 6. Clause 6(1)(a) deals with the maintenance of public safety. That is fine; philosophically I can agree with that. But then I see that the next principle, in paragraph (b), is about victims’ interests. Who in this House—or in this country—believes that this Government puts victims’ interests first? The answer is no one. Time and time again we hear of the most horrendous offending, yet the only thing this Government concerns itself with is the rights of those offenders. What about victims? When we look at the way the purpose and principles of this legislation have been drafted, we can see that it is a nonsense. The principles provide for the “cultural background, ethnic identity, and language of offenders”. Who thought up that PC, Chardonnay-sipping language?

💬 Judith Collins: The Minister did.

The Minister in the chair, Paul Swain, did. He is totally and utterly out of date, is he not? He is out of touch with hard-working New Zealanders, who want justice. They want justice for victims, they want justice for themselves, and they want justice for offenders. They are not concerned about cultural identity or cultural background, because they believe in one rule for all New Zealanders. If people break the law in this country, despite their cultural background or their cultural identity, they pay the price; or at least they should. Under a National-led Government they will. Under this Labour minority Government, which, I have to say, with some shame, is propped up by the United Future party and, of course, the Greens—

💬 Stephen Franks: I’m not responsible!

No, no. I know Mr Franks is not responsible. I am not looking at him; he just happened to walk past. But I have to say, with some shame, that this Government is simply not concerned with what is right or wrong.

Paragraph (d) of clause 6(1) deals with the role of the offender’s family in sentence planning and management. Why should the offender’s family be consulted? I could understand if it read “the role of the victim’s family” in sentence planning and management, but, no, I am not misquoting it or misreading it. That is what it states. If this Government was really concerned about rehabilitation and sentence management, it would not be—I repeat, it would not be—doing away with the private management of prisons in this country. As this debate progresses, I look forward to taking a call on that issue, because the way those provisions are drafted is the greatest travesty in this bill.

Clause 6(1)(e) concerns the fair treatment of offenders. On balance, we would say that is fair. But why stop there? Why would the Government not also say that it is concerned with the fair treatment of victims? The Government should talk to the families of the victims of the Returned Services Association murders. It should talk to them about the rights of offenders and see what sort of response it gets.

I have seen withering attacks in this House before, and I am not looking at one just at the moment. Looking at a couple of things the speakers have raised, firstly, there is an issue about the importance of victims in this legislation. I want to point out that victims have their own Act. It is called the Victims’ Rights Act, which was introduced by this Government. It is specific legislation that was not in place when the previous National Government was in power.

I come now to clause 6(1)(c), which is about the issue of rehabilitation, and I see that the National Opposition spokesperson made a speech recently about the importance of drug and alcohol rehabilitation. But some issues were raised at the Law and Order Committee, as I understand it, about risk, and that is why clause 6(1)(c) has been amended in Supplementary Order Paper 213, on page 5, to include the words “… where appropriate and to the extent practicable within the resources available, …”. That phrase is specifically designed to address the issues that that member raised, so I hope the debate will be a little bit sharper, more focused, and more withering—honouring the promise made by Mr Ryall at the start.

I will look at this stage at the issue of family in the Corrections Bill, and in particular at the extended definition given that term by this Minister. With regard to clause 3, not only does Supplementary Order Paper 213—50 pages long—deal with a constant revision of the term “prisoner” and refer to him or her now as being any “person” or occasionally any “person under control or supervision”, but there are definitions of “family” and “family group” that I am sure members of this Committee probably have not seen. Not only does the “family” include any person to whom the prisoner is related—or now, the “person” is related—but the person’s spouse or de facto partner, and the person’s family group.

We have no particular issue with that, but going on to what this “family group” is, one finds it is anyone “… to whom the prisoner has a significant psychological attachment …”.

💬 Stephen Franks: Kylie Minogue.

As Mr Franks said, will it be Kylie Minogue next? Who knows? “Significant psychological attachment”, as Mr Ryall correctly said, means gang membership. That is exactly what it means. Many of us know that it is stated that prisons in this country run by the Department of Corrections are really run by the gangs. To survive in those prisons, it is often found necessary for new inmates to become attached to gangs and gang members. Otherwise, they are unlikely to survive, in the worst conditions.

This has not been the case until now at the Auckland Central Remand Prison, which has been able to deal with the situation by using a very firm and fair method. But that prison is working, so the Government has to get rid of it, does it not? A Minister stands up, day after day, being asked the same questions from members on this side of the Chamber—and from United Future, to give those members their due—and saying that the Government has to get rid of private prisons because of its policy and ideology. It has nothing to do with the fact that those prisons constantly outperform the Department of Corrections.

So now there is this particular clause that states that family is any group “… to whom the prisoner has a significant psychological attachment …”. That has to be patched gang members. This group will now have all sorts of rights attached to being a family. What a travesty of the term “family” for those people who try to keep their kids on the straight and narrow! What a travesty to have families who are really trying their best, often with very limited support, to do the best by those prisoners who do still have families. Or is this simply a recognition that so many of the people in prison have no significant family involvement, and have not had it for most of their lives? Is it simply a reality check from the Minister? If it is, how will this be viewed? Prisoners will be asked what their significant psychological attachment is and whom they feel closest to, and it will be to the gang.

This is an absolute abuse of the terms “family” and “family group”, and it is another example of this Government’s politically correct dogma coming all the way through and destroying something that works. Families, for the most part, work. Gangs, for the most part, are very good at involvement in methamphetamine production, violent crimes, bank robberies, and the like. They are very good at controlling prisoners.

This bill is simply giving them another step up, and giving them—not just another sort of position—but the same position as fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters in the lives of prisoners, who are not now referred to as prisoners, but as “persons under control or supervision”. They cannot even be called what they are—criminals. The term cannot even be watered down to “inmates” or “prisoners”. No, now they are “persons under control or supervision”, which actually relates to all sorts of people, including schoolchildren. They are all under supervision, too. This legislation will now say that prisoners are the same as them.

What balderdash! The suggestion that anyone in this Parliament would legislate so as to include gang affiliates in the definition of a family group is so ridiculous and absurd as not to be credible. The definition of “family” in clause 3 states: “(a) any person to whom the prisoner is related; and (b) the person’s spouse or de facto partner … and (c) the prisoner’s family group”. “Family group” is then defined to include “a family group or extended family”, and gives situations where those people might be members of a family group or extended family. That obviously includes biological or legal relationships, but sometimes a biological or legal relationship alone is not the defining characteristic.

For example, a person could have a stepbrother or a stepsister to whom they would have neither a biological nor a legal relationship. Therefore, a person who is not biologically or legally related to a stepsister or stepbrother has to be included in paragraph (a)(ii) under the definition “family group”, which is a family group or extended family to whom the person “has a significant psychological attachment”. The idea that that provision is intended to extend to gang members is a nonsense. If there were any doubt as to that being the position, rather than it being just hot air from the Opposition benches, we would amend that definition to make it clear. There is no need for an amendment, because the provision is clear already. What the Opposition says is an absolute nonsense. It is the sort of tripe that members hear trotted out from Opposition members when they have nothing substantial to say about a very good bill.

The idea that we in the Labour Government would define the family group so as to include members of gangs because of their gang affiliations is absolute nonsense, and the concerns that that member raised can be safely ignored.

I rise to put on the record that New Zealand First will be opposing the Corrections Bill in its entirety, for a number of reasons. I will flip through briefly and point out some of those reasons.

It is fair to say that the Department of Corrections is seriously in need of an overhaul. We in New Zealand First have been trying to make that clear to the Labour Government for the past 5 years. In particular, I congratulate Tariana Turia—the honourable Tariana Turia—because she was one person in Labour’s ranks who truly knew what was going on inside the department, and she had the tenacity to say something about it. On the other hand, there are people like Mr Matt Robson, who was the Minister responsible for allowing the activities of the “goon squad” to go on and on without investigation. That is quite ironic, given that that member is such a champion of human rights and civil liberties. One might suggest that those qualifications are somewhat tarnished today. The high ground is not held any longer by that man—a man who has things to answer for. [Interruption] Well, Hungarian refugees and immigrants will be treated in prisons run under New Zealand First in the same way as everyone else. They will not be given any special cultural privileges catering to their language or special needs. If “they’re crims and they’re in”, they will be dealt to like everybody else. No special treatment for Hungarian immigrants—as Mr Robson seems to be requesting from the other side—will be allowed.

So what does New Zealand First object to? We object to what has proven to be an outstanding prison facility, when compared with the State-run organisation, being gotten rid of, wound up, and handed back to the State, simply because of ideology. New Zealand First has taken a quantum shift on this issue, on the basis of evidence. Our party had a similar policy to Labour’s—State penal institutions should be run by the State, not by profiteers. But the facts are the facts, and after 3 years one cannot, in all conscience, ignore the track record of the Auckland Central Remand Prison when matched up against Paparua or Pāremoremo. We opposed the ideological shift there.

We oppose the definition of “statutory visitor” in clause 3, because it is too wide. We have our fears, but these issues will be dealt with and canvassed No doubt, amendments will be proposed. For example, does the Minister know that as a member of Parliament I have very tight constraints within which I can go and visit inmates? I can go into prisons and hear their complaints about their service, but unless I register myself as a personal visitor I cannot go in and hear their concerns about their families and how they are coping out in the community. To do that, I am required to sign a form that gives the Department of Corrections access to my personal confidential information. Well, “Excuse me, Minister!”. I am sorry, but I do not trust some of the people in the Department of Corrections to handle my information confidentially. I have already had a bad experience in that regard, with the military. I suggest to the Minister that it is right and proper for a member of Parliament to be able to go into a prison as a member of Parliament and see inmates on any issue pertaining to their families—in particular, if their families are constituents of that member.

I ask the Minister to talk to his officials before this bill finally passes through, and to look at that issue. I think it is an area we can tidy up, and at no great loss to anyone. Everybody’s rights are protected. Indeed, I do not understand why a member of Parliament should have to sign a form that gives the Department of Corrections the ability to check out John Tamihere’s five drinking convictions, Ruth Dyson’s drinking conviction, or my conviction as a 17-year-old for carnal knowledge. What is the purpose of that? I suggest there is no purpose, and there is no need.

In terms of minimum entitlements for prisoners, I would love to see something in the legislation about victims’ minimum entitlements. Any reference to the Victims’ Rights Act is spurious, because that Act is already proving to be unenforceable, or not enforced, and victims are complaining about that every day. We will be studying the clauses on the information and education needs of prisoners very, very closely, because some information about prisoners should be handed from one area of the department to the other, but that has not been the case. That is why the Parole Board often makes decisions it should not be making, and I want to raise that issue in this debate. In my next call, I will come back to the issue of a sentence planner.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): Before the next speaker, I remind members to keep to the parts. The reference to the change of prison management is actually in Part 3, and we have had several references to that already.

I believe that this bill, and the credibility of this bill, is undermined by the lack of support from every party in this Parliament except for the underwhelming Labour Party and the underwhelming Green Party—two parties that are certainly not noted for being in favour of supporting victims’ rights, but that are incredibly—[Interruption] Does that party even exist any more—the Alliance leftovers, the Progressives? We are talking about parties that are not well known or well regarded as far as victims’ rights are concerned. In fact, they are the very parties that are offender-focused more than anything else.

I would like to have a look at the principles in clause 6. Let us have a look at the first one: “(a) the maintenance of public safety is the paramount consideration …”. Well, we should tell that to Tai Hobson. Stephen Franks and I were at the court yesterday. I did not see any member of the Government standing there in support of Tai Hobson. If it were not for the Department of Corrections, the probation service, the issue of parole, and the lack of common sense of this Government, I can tell members that he would not be there trying to claim his rights in respect of the death of his wife. It is because of the failure of the Department of Corrections.

If we look at subclause (b) in clause 6, we see that “victims’ interests must be considered”. How? What victims are being talked about? This Labour Government has turned its back on seven northern Māori iwi who want to take part, and take ownership of the problem in prisons—

💬 Hon Matt Robson: Ha, ha!

The Progressives can laugh, but they are immaterial, anyway. There are the Greens, who once championed the rights of Māori but who have now turned their backs on them. I tell members that Māori will not forget their betrayal at the ballot box. The Greens will be held to account, as will the Labour Party. They have turned their backs on Māori, and they have turned their backs on common sense.

If we consider the phrase “in order to reduce the risk of reoffending,” in subclause (c), we can ask how the Government is going to do that, with an 87 percent recidivism rate. We are not talking about a huge success rate for this Government, are we. The only correctional facility that has a chance of actually stemming the tide and being the light that the rest of the corrections’ facilities can bathe in and take lessons from, is being got rid of by this Minister. I have never seen him stand, hand on heart, and say he actually believes that this is the right decision. He always retreats into ideology or principles—ideology and principles that were made well before this corrections facility. The private prison’s management had a chance to actually succeed and show what it could do, in contrast to the defective Department of Corrections that this Minister is supposedly in charge of. That is shameful!

If we read further down in subclause (c), where it refers to “the cultural background, ethnic identity, and language of offenders:”, again we see that this Labour Government, complicit with the Greens, is turning its back on Māori. We have something that works, the Auckland remand centre, and those parties are turning their backs on it because of a piece of paper they wrote before it even began. It is the “Flat Earth Society” in action. Its members had a policy to believe in the flat Earth and not to let the facts get in the way.

Clause 6(d) states: “an offender’s family must, so far as is reasonable and practicable in the circumstances and within the resources available, be recognised, provided for, and engaged in—”. We should tell that to Ken and Rita Croskery, who never had the opportunity, until intervention by members of Parliament to help them, to go to parole hearings. But what of the families of offenders? Well, they are catered for nicely and handsomely in this bill. It is pathetic and woeful, and it is a slap in the face of the victims of this country.

Clause 6(e) states: “the corrections system must ensure the fair treatment of prisoners, and offenders who are subject to community-based sentences,”. In the public system that this Minister is responsible for, he is trying to delay the possibility of looking at the “goon squad” activities. Finally, when push came to shove and he did not have a choice, we have now an inquiry and there is the matter of 17 sexual liaisons between inmates and female corrections officers that he has finally admitted after misleading the House beforehand. We have high rates of suicide, and drugs and alcohol in the corrections system, but that is not so in the private system. But this Minister will not stand up, put his hand on his heart, and claim—and I want to see him do this—that shutting down the privately managed prison is the appropriate thing to do, other than responding to principles that pre-dated and existed before that prison. This bill is a flaw from beginning to end.

I rise for the ACT party on the Corrections Bill. This bill was introduced more than 2 years ago, I believe. Submissions on it closed in May last year, but were extended to June. They were all heard in order to allow the committee to report by the end of last year, and since then the Minister has sat for nearly 5 months with absolutely no indication to this side of the Chamber or to the people that we would be hit today with 44 pages of fine-print amendment.

Why has the Minister decided to amend, I think, six of the definitions and the crucial principles and purposes statements in an amendment that could have been provided to the Law and Order Committee and could have been considered by the people? Instead, he dumped it on the Committee just before we started to debate the bill. What are the reasons? It could be shame. It could well be that it minimises the time the public are exposed to the fact that this is the final nail in the Withers referendum, voted for by 92 percent of New Zealand voters.

Paul Swain thinks that the Withers petition is now back far enough in history that he can scoff at it and bring this bill through. He thinks that the Government has waited long enough that people, who are stupid, will have forgotten what they petitioned for in 1999.

There may be another explanation for all these changed definitions, for why, in clause 5, our New Zealand corrections system is now subjected to United Nations rules, and for why clause 6 has a series of silly amendments instead of those that are really needed. For example, there should be an amendment to state simply that punishment is one of the purposes of a corrections system, that denunciation of crime is one of the purposes of a sentence, that prisoners should not be able to gamble on the rewards of crime exceeding the likely punishment cost to them, and that, obviously, prisoners should be kept safe and provided with adequate food, shelter, and sanitation, but that prison is a place is for punishment.

My amendment in Supplementary Order Paper 208 would omit most of the Minister’s principles and replace them with five simple principles that would record that prison is supposed to be unpleasant. Prison is supposed to be a place that no one wants to go back to. Prison is not supposed to be a place of comfort, or of all the statutory assurances of rights to protest and interfere, to bring lawyers in, and to tangle up prison officers. It is supposed to be a place where prisoners cannot be bullied or assaulted, but where, otherwise, authority rules. It is a place where prisoners learn that the community is not a mug, and that it cannot be tossed around by offenders who have learnt outside that rules are for other people. Prison is a place where rehabilitation is a proper objective, but is subordinate to the other purposes of imprisonment. There is nothing in this bill to make it plain that rehabilitation is worthy, but that no prison system in the world has managed to establish that rehabilitation can be successfully achieved.

Rehabilitation is spontaneous. No one knows how to reproduce programmes that reliably rehabilitate. So to write an entire Act around the notion that rehabilitation is the primary outcome of imprisonment is simply madness. The amendments that I propose in Supplementary Order Paper 208 would protect the proper interests that prisoners can legitimately claim—that they will not be assaulted, that guards will not abuse their lawful authority, that prisoners will be kept safe and provided with adequate food—but show that prison is a place for punishment. There is nothing in this bill that records that prison is a place for punishment. Instead, we have a new reference to the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners. Those are 40 years old. Those rules state that going to prison is the punishment, and that prison is not allowed to punish further.

During the Committee stage of the Families Commission Bill, the Government removed the definition of “family”, which has been incorporated into this bill, and replaced it with a phrase that was in no way akin to this “psychological connection”. Mrs Collins has official paperwork on that, and she will seek a call later on to remind the Minister in the chair, Paul Swain, that the Government has recognised that, because of concerns previously expressed by this party, “psychological connection” is too loose a definition and facilitates gang members being considered part of a family group.

The Minister needs to know—and he may have forgotten—that there are at least 830 gang members in our nation’s prisons. The last head count had 289 each for Black Power and the Mongrel Mob and, coming in at third, 51 from the Nomads. So there are a significant number of gang members in prison. Mrs Collins will talk about the fact that because of her concern about the interpretation of “psychological connection”, that definition of “family” was removed from the Families Commission Bill. The Minister should listen to that contribution, because I think it will be important.

Members on this side of the Chamber are particularly concerned about the Minister’s poor drafting of the purposes and principles of the corrections system. We think it fails to clearly reflect what the community expects from our prison system. The National Party considers that prisons work most effectively in two ways. The first is that they incapacitate criminals. We know that most crime is committed by a hard-core group of repeat offenders. By putting those people away, we remove the opportunity for those offenders to commit further crimes. By taking them off the streets, the justice system punishes the offender, and protects and serves the community. That is not reflected in either the principles or purpose clauses of the bill.

The second reason prison is effective is that it has an important role in deterring potential offenders from committing other crimes. Most people who may be contemplating, for example, a burglary, a car theft, or violence will weigh up the costs or benefits of their offending to some extent. Like any other money-making activity, that requires some sort of rational calculation, and the greater the risk of being caught and punished, the less inclined people are to commit an offence. Again, that basic precept—that tenet that makes prison effective—is not mentioned in this bill, so National has moved a number of amendments to better reflect that.

What is mentioned time and time again in the principles and purposes of the bill is the one function of prison about which there is greatest debate—that is, rehabilitation. The debate has been going on for years about whether prisons rehabilitate. From the New Zealand experience, it is clear that some programmes lower the reoffending rate, but, as a whole, the reoffending rate of people released from prisons under this Labour Government is appalling. Forty percent of offenders released on parole will reoffend within 1 year of release; within 2 years, 55 percent will reoffend; and within 5 years, 86 percent of people will reoffend. So the question is whether that indicates rehabilitation. No, it does not indicate rehabilitation.

The Government is spending $43 million a year on that and, frankly, I think that is ineffective. What has been shown around the world to be effective is the use of prison work and study to better prisoners. Neither of those is mentioned at any length in the purposes and principles of the legislation. If the Government wants to promote rehabilitation, one would have thought that the bill would back that up. Instead, the bill is full of a whole lot of woolly stuff about rehabilitation being based on cultural background, ethnic identity, and the language and religion of the offender. None of that stuff is important in terms of the principles and purposes of the bill.

I want briefly to finish what I was saying before my previous 5 minutes’ call concluded. I was talking about the bill’s coverage of information sharing, and I say most sincerely to the Minister—I plead with him—that the area in the Department of Corrections where information sharing needs to occur is in the department itself. Although we all know it is helpful to the community if the police are given information about offenders who will be paroled—be they dangerous people, sexual predators, or whatever—what is failing inside the Department of Corrections right now is that the very people who are designated sentence planners, who write the reports and put together the rehabilitation programme that this bill puts into statutory law—the integrated offender management system—are also the jailers.

There is a serious problem when a jailer feels that he or she can be intimidated, or feels intimidated, by an inmate. Will the jailer write a sentence plan that the inmate dislikes? Will the jailer write a report that goes on to the Parole Board—one that the offender dislikes? Not on your nelly! It is a fundamental fault and flaw to have the people who turn the keys responsible for writing the report that recommends whether an inmate should be paroled or released. It is a fundamental error. The keyholder needs to be totally separated from the responsibility of putting together the sentence plan and from the responsibility of writing reports to the Parole Board. What I know, and what I am telling the Minister again—and today I was proven right; I have been proven right on everything I have brought to this Minister—is that the biggest problem with information sharing is within the Department of Corrections itself. The reason is that its processes are fundamentally flawed, and this bill legislates them into being. That is what it does.

I will deal with the notion of rehabilitation. I hope I have the time to read this: “The correctional rehabilitation ethic is a child of this century, born with the rise of Progressive ideology and reform in the early decades, growing strong with the development of social science in the thirties and forties, reaching maturity in the fifties when the medical model was at its peak, suffering a mid-life crisis and a loss of faith in the sixties and seventies, and essentially gone and forgotten by the eighties. As we enter the nineties the rehabilitative ideal is showing signs of revival as some researchers employing a new technology called ‘meta-analysis’ believe they have detected life in the old body still. Were the rumours of the death of rehabilitation premature, or is it time to give rehabilitation a decent burial and to consider a definition of penology without reference to ‘corrections?’ ”. This is an article from the United States, written by some very learned gentlemen who would tell the Minister that rehabilitation does not work. I am sorry, but the only inmate who will rehabilitate is the inmate who wants to.

We are in a situation where we believe everything we are told. There are inmates who know that their one goal is to get out of jail, and to get out as quickly as they can. They will sit there and say anything the sociologists want to hear. They will tell the sentence planner anything. There is a case of one released inmate who did five courses on anger management. He did the course five times, so of course he puts the ticks in all the right boxes. When it comes time for parole, it all looks good. One needs to sit with some inmates—those who are prepared to be honest and frank—and listen to the games they play. The situation has never been more evident than what is happening right now to female prison officers, some of whom should never have been in the job in the first place because of being vulnerable to the manipulations of these people who have doctorates in manipulation. That is what got them into prison in the first place. These prisoners spend 24/7 figuring out how they can get over, under, and around the system. The whole country has been sucked into this idea of rehabilitation. We implemented rehabilitation based on spirituality, and within the first month one of the people on the spirituality programme was murdered by another inmate on the programme who shoved a garden fork through his throat.

It is interesting that to correct all the mistakes in a 158-page bill, the Minister has tabled a 50-page Supplementary Order Paper. Given that we have to make so many corrections to correct the original bill, I want to ask about the process that the select committee has just gone through. To me there is something radically wrong—and it is an insult to Parliament—when so many changes have to be made after the select committee has reported back the bill, and when we now have to front up in the Committee stage to make the corrections that have been identified as being problems.

💬 Brian Connell: That is why it’s called the Corrections Bill.

There we have it—the Corrections Bill. We are not on the title debate yet, but I guess if it was the title debate we could say that it is aptly named. I will not put up an alternative to the title.

What I will spend time on is the definition of “Visiting Justice” in clause 3, which states: “Visiting Justice, in relation to a prison, means (a) a District Court Judge; or (b) a person appointed under section 19(2) to be a Visiting Justice for that prison”. One of the concerns that has been expressed—and the Minister in the chair, Paul Swain, may like to take a call on this—is that justices of the peace have in the past been visiting justices. In this bill, that provision is taken away. I do note, however, that an amendment to clause 19(2)—which is in Part 2 but still relates to the definition in Part 1—set out on Supplementary Order Paper 213 states that: “The Governor-General may, on the recommendation of the Minister of Justice, appoint any Justice of the Peace or barrister or solicitor of the High Court to be a Visiting Justice for every prison.” The Minister acknowledged that that has now been brought back in, and we applaud that. It is our view, of course, that it should never have been taken out. The Minister has acknowledged that justices of the peace are now back in the bill. That will satisfy the thousands of JPs around the country who have been quite concerned about the fact that JPs were excluded in the bill as introduced. That is certainly an area we support.

I also note that if we were to look here in Parliament—I have here the parliamentary telephone directory for April 2004—for the justices of the peace who are MPs or who work here, there are three Labour MPs, and Madam Chairperson is one of those. The Hon George Hawkins, Janet Mackey, and Lindsay Tisch are mentioned here as well. There are also six other JPs who work in Parliament.

While some members may carry out only ministerial duties, which is a function that I have had for many, many years as a JP, there are many who have undertaken the judicial course and have sat on the bench in various courts around the country. The demise of JPs sitting on the bench came when the move to community magistrates came into force. I do not know how many community magistrates there are around, but I know there are still some in Hamilton. There was concern when community magistrates were introduced that JPs who had done judicial training and who had experience in courts were sidelined.

The point I bring forward for the Minister is that, although his Supplementary Order Paper corrects what the bill states concerning visiting justices—who will now include JPs and barristers and solicitors of the High Court—it has to be asked who will pay for this service. JPs, at the moment, give their time voluntarily. They are the leaders in the community. They have got there because of their standing in the community, but who will pay the barristers and solicitors?

I move, That the question be now put.

David Parker, who spoke after me in my previous speech, said that no sensible Government could possibly expect anyone to believe that the definition of “family group” could include gangs, and he quoted from the bill. I have just had sent to me a copy of the Families Commission Act, which was passed by the House last year. The definition of “family group” in that legislation as introduced was exactly the same as that given in this Corrections Bill, and it had to be changed because an awful lot of very sensible people realised that the words “a significant psychological attachment” could include gangs. The wording was changed to what appears in section 10(1) of the Act: “In this section ‘family’ includes a group of people related by marriage, blood, or adoption, an extended family, 2 or more persons living together as a family, and a whānau or other culturally recognised family group. Subsection (3) goes on to state that “persons are not members of a family for the purposes of this section solely because they have as their common objective or 1 of their common objectives the achievement of some outcome of a community, domestic, professional, recreational, social, vocational, or other nature (for example, the commission of offences against any enactment …”. In other words, gangs and all other groups that could be called groups of a social nature were excluded. So the House in its wisdom amended the Families Commission legislation to take out the gang connection. However, the Corrections Bill does not do that.

I know that the Minister does not really believe in this bill. I can tell that, because every time he stands up to defend it he comes out with lines, such as: “Well, this is Labour Party policy.”, and “Nobody should do this other than the Government.” I just know that he does not believe in it. I would like to know whether he would consider changing the bill at this stage to reflect the changes brought about by the House in the Families Commission legislation. Quite clearly, it is wrong when different definitions for the same things, and for the same sorts of purposes, are contrary. For a start, it makes for very bad case law. Secondly, it makes far better sense. It is just silly nonsense from Mr Parker to say that nobody could ever think that “family group” could include gang members. Of course, it could. That is why he had to stop quoting during his earlier presentation.

The Committee stage is an opportunity for the Government to try to fix some of this. Unfortunately, the Minister has not looked further at the legislation. It has been floating around for a long time, and one of the problems is that it has not had the benefit of the changes made to the Families Commission legislation. I would like the Minister to look at the bill in this regard. We would certainly facilitate whatever change needs to be made to bring it into line with the Families Commission Act. At the end of the day, we know that the Government has the numbers on this, no matter how few they might be; but we do want the law to be as good as possible, given the appalling situation this legislation will render.

I would like to take up the issue of the purpose of this bill. The purpose of prison should be, first and foremost, to punish. Second, it should keep people out of society, locked up in prison, so they cannot offend against society and victims. Rehabilitation will not work unless a person wants to be rehabilitated. That is the truth, first and foremost. One cannot take any adult and say: “I’m now going to rehabilitate you and take you out of the criminal environment.” That will not happen until the person is ready to be rehabilitated. When I looked at the purpose of the legislation, I asked myself what it says about the people who signed up for tougher sentencing It says to the 92 percent of people in this country who signed a referendum for tougher sentencing that they are not important. As we have said, and we all know, rehabilitation does not work.

I intend to take a fairly short call on Part 1 for the simple reason that many of the substantive issues that we want to address come up in the next part. I wanted to raise and address some of the questions brought up by previous speakers, because I find it really curious that so many members have such a strong aversion to the concept of rehabilitation—an issue that was brought up by Mr Franks, Judith Collins, Ron Mark, and Marc Alexander who is interjecting to the side of me. I found that curious, and I have two points to make. The first is that the hero of all of those members—of the “privateers” of the prison service—the General Manager of Auckland Central Remand Prison, Dom Karauria, said that rehabilitation was his central focus. In fact, he pointed to that focus on rehabilitation being the success of what he has been doing at that remand prison, rather than punishment. I find it curious that the members in this Parliament who are the champions of Mr Karauria are the very same people who ditch the basic assumptions that underpin his work.

My second point is that members who call themselves the friends of the victims of crime are so focused on punishing people after the fact that they seem to have absolutely no interest in stopping future victims. The only way we will stop people becoming future victims of crime, and the only way to make it less likely that people are victims of crime, is if offenders are rehabilitated. It is an obvious equation that seems to have escaped members of the National Party, New Zealand First, ACT, and United Future. Of course, that should not surprise us at all.

I draw attention to two points in the Supplementary Order Paper that relates to Part 1. The first is a particular role in rehabilitation, and I commend Matt Robson in particular for the amendment in clause 6(ca), which states: “offenders must, where appropriate and so far as is reasonable and practicable in the circumstances, be provided with access to any process designed to promote restorative justice between offenders and victims:”.

We know that one of the most effective ways to promote rehabilitation is through restorative justice. It tends to promote genuine remorse and a genuine desire to address and right the balance, when offenders come face to face with the human face of their victim. We also know that in terms of victim satisfaction, restorative justice is an extremely important and powerful way to meet the needs of victims, and, as I said, a way of touching offenders and moving them to a rehabilitative impulse.

The other amendment I would like to address is to clause 6(c)(i). The original bill clearly stated in clause 6(c) that in order to reduce the risk of reoffending, decisions relating to sentence, planning of management, and the rehabilitation and reintegration of offenders into the community must, where appropriate, take into account the cultural background, ethnic identity, and language of offenders.

It is absolutely vital that it do so, and the Greens—in negotiations with the Government—are keen to ensure that not just the individual management and sentence planning addresses those cultural needs and the ethnic identity and the like, but also that in the development and provision of rehabilitative programmes and other interventions, those things were taken into account. It is not enough to address simply the cultural needs of offenders at an individual level. One crucial thing we can learn from the Auckland Central Remand Prison in Mount Eden—and the Department of Corrections is trying to do that as well, and has had varying degrees of success, depending on the place and the personnel involved—is that those cultural perspectives must be integrated at a systematic level through the institution.

It is not something that is applied just to the individual, but the way in which the facility develops has to address those questions of culture, ethnicity, and language. The two amendments in the Supplementary Order Paper are extremely useful, and ones that I would draw the Committee’s attention to. I cannot wait to move on to the next part.

I move, That the question be now put.

Initially I was not going to take a call on this legislation, but when I came into the Chamber and spoke to our spokesman on the issue, Ron Mark, and went up to the Table and looked at the amendments—I was looking for a small piece of paper, perhaps a couple of amendments from the Government, and amendments put in by the National Party and Marc Alexander—I thought there would not be many amendments to this bill; after all, it has been around for a while and the Government’s policy keeps on being stated. But what did I find? I found 45 pages of amendments, which is quite amazing. Does this Government not know what it is doing? That is all I have to say on that particular issue. Where is this Government going? There are 45 pages of amendments!

When we start to read the amendments we start to ask what they actually mean. First of all, can the Minister take a call and tell us whether the Sensible Sentencing Trust has been contacted, consulted, and had these amendments discussed with it? What other groups in society have had the opportunity to be consulted on these amendments? The Greens are very strong on consultation, getting together, holding hands, and having a little cuddle to decide what they will do. There is a name for that type of thing. Mr Nandor Tanczos laughs, but I would have thought that if one had 45 pages of amendments, and one was a Green Party member, one would want to have one’s little group huddle to decide whether these amendments were satisfactory. However, on this occasion Mr Tanczos laughs.

This bill is supported only by the Progressive Coalition member, who made his usual contribution just now, and by the Greens. Again, this bill is likely to get through this Parliament on the slimmest of majorities, yet it is of vital importance to society in New Zealand. Of course, it was Mr Robson who, as a Minister, was responsible for the “goon squad” cover-up. All he can do today is to jump up and move a closure motion. He was responsible for the “goon squad” cover-up. I would have thought Mr Robson of the Progressive Coalition would have stood up and given us an explanation as to how this bill resolves that problem. But, no, all he can do is repeat a few words from the Labour Party, which just wants to ram this legislation through.

I have looked at these amendments in so far as the first part of the bill is concerned. I looked at the meaning of “offender”. There did not seem to be any meaning of “offender” in the bill originally, and I would have thought that to put in the meaning for “offender” would be particularly important. If one has a Corrections Bill, then the people who will go into prison are offenders; therefore one must make sure that if one is to define them, one defines them clearly.

The bill refers to a person who is under control or supervision. It states that a person who is dealt with is liable to be dealt with for non-payment of a sum of money, disobedience of a court order, or contempt of court, but it does not include a person who is under control or supervision by reason only that the person is in custody awaiting trial. That is the sort of person who should be called an offender. If people are being dealt with in a Corrections Bill and are put on remand in a corrections facility, surely they must come within the definition of “offender”. Maybe I have read it the wrong way round because it has only just been put in the legislation. If that is the case, then it suggests that we need more time to consider these amendments. Can the Minister explain why it is that on the face of it, people who are on remand in terms of this amendment are not offenders in terms of the bill? They are the major types of people in the Auckland Central Remand Prison whom we are dealing with. Are they to be excluded from this particular legislation? Is that the reason for the view the Labour Party is taking on the closing down of the Auckland private facility?

Again, an “offender … does not include … a person who is detained solely as a consequence of a warrant or other order issued under the Immigration Act 1987”. Perhaps this is the “Zaoui” amendment. Although Mr Zaoui is being held in prison, does this bill not apply to him? What do the amendments to the definitions in paragraphs (c)(i) and (c)(ii) mean, if people who are on remand are not included, or people who are detained solely as a consequence of a warrant or other order issued under the Immigration Act are not included? Are these people not offenders? Do they not come within this legislation? That is a very important issue that the Minister must give consideration to.

In so far as rehabilitation is concerned, in my experience as a lawyer—and I have dealt with hundreds of criminals—they rehabilitate only when they get tired and slightly older. They cannot do it any more. That is the rehabilitation. We see them coming through at 18, 19, 20, 21, and 22 years of age. It drops off at about 24 or 25 years, and apart from the hardened criminal, they rehabilitate because they do not have the energy and have given up as it is too much for them—and that is rehabilitation.

I move, That the question be now put.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairman. I want to draw to your attention a concern I have, and ask for your indulgence. I know that this is a very comprehensive bill, and right now I know that you are looking for new material. A lot of people are seeking the call. We are all seeking to have an opportunity to take a call. However, I am struggling, with the time frame that we have had with the number of these Supplementary Order Papers, the complexity, and the detail, to get through this Part 1 and to get through every amendment, and their implications. I ask your indulgence to give us the time. I am mindful of the Government’s attempt by taking closure motions to shut this down, but, seriously, I have got only to page 2 of the Supplementary Order Papers, and the changes and deletions of definitions there are substantial. I ask you to give us the time to debate this comprehensively, because some of us simply will not have the time to read through this Supplementary Order Paper if a closure motion is taken.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): There will be ample time for debate. There are three parts to the bill, and I am also mindful of the proportionality of the Committee. I am giving that very serious consideration each time I take a call.

This part is just dripping with political correctness. We can tell when we have both the Green Party and the Labour Party backing this sort of corrections legislation what we can expect. Is there anywhere in this part, which deals with the principles, that uses the word “punishment”? As a common-sense New Zealander I say the reason we send people off to prison is to punish them for a crime that they have committed. However, nowhere in this part are we allowed to use the word “punishment”. I ask the Minister whether it is Government policy that we now are not to punish people who offend and break the law of the land. Is that the Minister’s position? We on this side of the Committee take a balanced view. We are not unhappy with the Department of Corrections having a rehabilitation role, but we should be up front and say: “Corrections is about punishment.” I know that it does not suit those politically correct types sitting on the Government benches to dare use the word “punishment”; we should be up front. It should be there.

💬 Darren Hughes: Like your nuclear-free policy!

The young member from ōtaki Forks who has just woken up thinks that there is no role at all, in regard to crime, for punishment. People can rape, pillage, or steal, but under Darren Hughes’ corrections policy there is to be no punishment. We are to have a touchy—

💬 Darren Hughes: Don’t be silly.

Where is the word “punishment”? We have the principles—

💬 Darren Hughes: It’s the maintenance of public safety.

That is not the word “punishment”. That is not there. Our corrections system is about more than just public safety. It is about punishment. We then come to the political correctness around family. I commend my colleague Judith Collins for exposing the politically correct dogma that we see in respect of family that is now to be recognised by this Government. The Government’s definition of family is absolutely infinite. If one has any sort of psychological attachment with anybody, one is now defined as family. So much has the Government thrown out this most basic institution that founds our society—

💬 Hon Matt Robson: No it doesn’t.

That would be typical of the politically correct party that he represents. They do not have any respect at all for the family; neither does Minister Judith Tizard. Thus we have the sort of woolly, silly presentation in the bill around that particular issue. I say to members opposite that family is important. We need to have some common-sense definition of family, yet every single statute that this Government puts through the Parliament, with the endorsement of the Greens, just further erodes families in this country.

💬 Hon Judith Tizard: What drivel!

I am pleased the Minister has at long last recognised the drivel that one must take into account in the Corrections Bill—such as “cultural background”, “ethnic identity”, and “language of offenders”. That politically correct drivel is being put into our corrections legislation. Are we saying that somehow, because of someone’s ethnic identity, he or she will have different rights? Members on this side have a very clear view: we say there is one standard of citizenship for all New Zealanders.

💬 Darren Hughes: The Opposition has been telling us how good the Māori programmes are.

Absolutely. I started some of them, and I am very proud of them. But the Opposition will not support the sort of thing that Mr Hughes wants to see—that is, a corrections policy that is very focused on cultural background and ethnic identity but not interested in punishment. We say that people who murder, pillage, and rape deserve to be punished, and they deserve far more than the politically correct—

💬 Hon Member: Which boarding school did you go to?

I never went to boarding school. The member should get his facts right. There needs to be some firmness in corrections policy.

I move, That the question be now put.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I draw attention to the foot of page 2 of Supplementary Order Paper 213, and to the spelling of “adviser”. Is the Minister really seriously expecting us to spell it “adviser”? It should be spelt “advisor”, surely. Perhaps the Chair should take a look at that.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I tell Mr Jones that that is hardly a matter for a point of order.

It is nonsense.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The matter can be debated. It is a matter for the Minister, and he has just told me that he will fix it up. I just tell honourable members that when we are voting I would like them to look at Speaker’s ruling 61/2. There is to be no comment at all during the taking of a vote.

The question was put that the following amendment in the name of the Hon Tony Ryall to the amendment to clause 3 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 213 in the name of the Hon Paul Swain be agreed to:

to omit subparagraph (ii) of paragraph (a) of the definition of family group.