Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill

We now move to Part 2, which is debate on clauses 90A to 125, on the schedule, and on the Minister’s typescript amendment to the schedule.

I just really want to pose a couple of questions along the lines of Part 2, which is substantively a procedural, administrative, and miscellaneous section to the bill. It does go into some detail in Part 2 under clause 97 around the reports that are to be provided to the review panel for the purposes of reviewing a public protection order. This is, I think, an important clause given that we have only just recently debated as a select committee at the Justice and Electoral Committee the information that is provided to parole boards as a matter of course when considering a parole. It is a useful comparison to make, I think, because although this schedule sets out information that should be provided to a review panel, it states under clause 97(f) in Part 2 that this includes “any further or supplementary reports requested by the review panel, to be provided by any person, including the chief executive, the manager of the prison or the residence in which the person is detained, and any health assessor”.

The issue that we have discovered when it comes to reports provided to the Parole Board, and would likewise be an issue with the review panel, is that you know what you know. You can request information that you know might be available, but, for instance, we have seen with the Parole Board that orders that are made in a civil regime were not routinely being provided to the Parole Board. A privacy agreement under the Judicature Act, I believe it is, is going to allow an agreement between the Ministry of Justice and the Parole Board to ensure that, actually, rather than having to request information, it is provided as a matter of course. This may not be an issue when it comes to the review panel. I have not spent enough time looking at it, but it is just something I would flag with the Minister of Justice. When we do have a case of requiring a review panel to ask for information we actually need to put the responsibility on those who hold the information to provide what they consider to be important, because it is very difficult to make a direct request for information you do not know exists.

I also want to just briefly ask a couple of questions on some other functional parts of the bill, such as how the residences will be established and who will be employed to run them. Is it anticipated by the Government, given that we are likely to have only five to 12 offenders held under this legislation, that there will be the establishment of simply one residence on prison grounds; if so, has consideration been given to which prison grounds that would be and what effect that would have on the footprint of the prison ground? Obviously, some of our more modern prison facilities have been constructed in such a way that there are work programmes on site and various other rehabilitation programmes. To what degree would that be interrupted by having to partition off a piece of land in order to allow one of these residences to be established? Could the Minister perhaps share whether or not there has been any specific thought given to one site or multiple sites?

Also, for instance, if there is one site, that obviously would save a significant amount of money. Cost, based on the regulatory impact statement, was a consideration for the Government. I want to know whether or not having one site would breach any of the policies that are held by corrections around allowing offenders to try to be as close as possible to family. If, for instance, they have served their sentence in an Auckland prison but actually the one site in which these residences are constructed is in Christchurch, I want to know whether or not we are going to have any ongoing issues with that, given that this is a civil regime rather than part of a punishment, as it were.

Equally, obviously, there are some issues in clause 100. It talks about establishing residence managers. I am wondering whether or not these will be Department of Corrections staff, because it states that a person must not perform any functions under the Corrections Act while that person is a residence manager. So obviously it is stipulated here that they will not have powers as given by the Corrections Act, but is it anticipated that they will have the same degree of training that a corrections officer or staffer would, or would they be, for instance, more in line with a social work qualification? What threshold test would we like them to meet, because obviously a corrections officer or staff member has a particular set of thresholds that they must meet?

I also wonder, given that this is not strictly going to be considered in the same way that a regular corrections facility is, whether or not the same powers of inspection that are held by a member of Parliament, for instance, will apply. That is the ability under the Corrections Act for us at any time to visit a corrections facility. Will that power under the Corrections Act apply to the residences for us to at any point visit in order to inspect and ensure conditions are appropriate and that the legislation is being met? Will that apply to these residences in the same way? I think that is an important point. We provide an inspectorate function, particularly given that this regime is not intended to be the same as a prison. Making sure those checks and balances are in place is important. That may have already been considered, and my apologies if that has been stipulated, because I see that during the debate on Part 1 actually there was some discussion around Parliament being provided with reports on those who are covered by these public orders. So I am equally interested as to whether or not we have that ongoing role of inspection.

I also would like to know whether or not the residence would be covered by our public corrections management. Will these residence managers be contracted out? Would we see the likes of Serco operating these residences, or will they be held within the public regime? That is an important question for us on this side of the Chamber because we have very strong views about any form of our justice system, even this element that falls within the civil regime, being contracted out. We see it as a money-gathering exercise by third parties. We do not think it necessarily leads to any better outcomes. In the end, we think the taxpayer ends up footing the bill.

We have seen numerous examples where Serco has inappropriately managed the facilities that it has been running offshore. We have seen some debacles around the way facilities have been managed. Even in New Zealand we have our own examples where we have higher numbers of prisoner-on-prisoner assaults within our private prisons, where they are not subjected to the same information-sharing regime so it is not as transparent. We would be interested to know whether or not it is the intention of the Government to contract out the management of these facilities in the same way it has some of our previously public prisons or even the prisons it is building such as Wiri. It would not surprise me if, for instance, the Government has already decided that the site where the residence will be is in one of these new facilities, given that they are currently under construction and it would provide an ability to do that. That is a piece of information that I would like the Minister to clarify. I think it is incredibly important to the way these residences will operate in the future.

Thank you very much, Mr Chair, for a chance to speak on Part 2 of the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill. I just wanted to hone in on clause 112, which pertains to inspectors. Within the clause it says that the chief executive may designate one or more lawyers to act as independent inspectors. I think the point that my colleague Jacinda Ardern made just before she finished her contribution to this debate around the role of inspectors in this specific case where we are dealing with a very small number of people is a very pointed one. We do want to make sure that this small group of offenders—people who pose an extreme risk to the public—are managed, and managed properly. Because it is such a small and sensitive group of offenders and potential offenders, we want to make sure that it is the duty of the State to manage them.

The appointment of inspectors in these residences that are being proposed under this legislation is a very important one. The people who will come under these types of public protection orders will still continue to have the rights of prisoners and inmates as they probably would have had under the sentence that they previously were on. I do note that in Part 1 they will still have the ability to make phone calls, but those phone calls will still be able to be monitored. I think that is one of the things that an inspector will monitor closely—whether or not that has been done properly.

I guess in the context of recent events around Phillip Smith and his management before his escape from prison or detention, you would hope that the inspector, in cases where we are dealing with public protection orders, is given the right tools and the right resources to make sure that any arrangements that are made—or any details that are within this bill—to allow the monitoring of phone calls or any other communications are done properly so they can do their job. We have seen in the last month what can happen when things are not monitored properly. Someone who was in prison for a very serious crime was able to go on unmonitored leave, was able to organise a trip to South America, was able to obtain $10,000 for that trip, and I understand during his time in prison he was also able to use some student loan money to fund some of his operation.

We hope that the inspectors described in clause 112 will be given the freedom and the ability to do their job properly, because at the moment we question the confidence that the public would have in their ability to monitor things like this if we have serious cases like this. We are very happy that Phillip Smith is back in New Zealand. He should never have been out in the first place. But if the job of the corrections service was done properly and if it was run properly by this Government, the likes of Phillip Smith would not have had the ability to be able to leave detention, to be able to board a plane to South America, to be able to get a passport. It is one thing for us to put in this legislation the ability to monitor or the ability to inspect, but that actually has to be done at the front line. We question whether or not this Government has the ability to do that, although we may commend the fact that this piece of legislation does build those things in.

These are very serious offenders. We do realise that we are taking away a degree of their freedom, but there is the ability to review that in here. But as it pertains to clause 112 in Part 2 we do ask, and will continue to ask, questions of the Government while it is building these safety systems into the legislation about whether or not it is actually able to carry them out and able to monitor some of the behaviour of some of our serious criminals who are in prison here in New Zealand. It is a sad state of affairs. We have got a recent example of someone who was not monitored properly and who was able to gain a passport and to board a flight to South America and make a laughing stock of the Department of Corrections. That simply is not good enough. We recognise that in this legislation there is a degree of safeguard in there with inspectors and with the ability to monitor phone calls. We would ask whether this Government, if it is willing to put these kinds of safeguards into this legislation, as it does with other areas of corrections, is able to staff and resource that properly.

I do notice that there can be the appointment of one or more lawyers. My understanding is that there is going to be a very small number of inmates who may come under the close inspection of this piece of legislation. But we would hope that that inspectorate role is taken seriously, because we do not want to get ourselves into another Phillip Smith situation. If this Government is going to stick true to its word and true to its word to members of the public that it is going to keep them safe—that is the purpose of this bill, because these are serious offenders who we think would have a high degree of probability of offending as soon as they are released. This inspectorate role should be taken seriously if there is the ability for corrections—and I hope it is that department that will be monitoring these inmates—to be monitoring mail, monitoring phone calls and any other communication that inmates may have so that they would not be able to go and book a flight to Chile, they would not be able to go and renew their passport under their first name, and they would not be able to go and get their hands on $10,000 so they could sustain themselves if they were to escape from prison.

If the Government could answer any questions around the resourcing of the inspectorate role, we would welcome that because, as of recently, we have seen an example that does not fill the public with much confidence.