Corrections Amendment Bill

I move, That the Corrections Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate that the bill be referred to the Justice Committee.

The corrections system exists to keep the public safe and to help keep New Zealand a just society. The Department of Corrections does this by administering custodial sentences and orders safely, securely, humanely, and effectively. The legislation governing the corrections system is generally working well. However, some opportunities have been identified to optimise the running of the system. The Corrections Amendment Bill will strengthen the corrections system by improving prison discipline and security as well as the fair, safe, and humane treatment of people in prison.

The bill contains 16 proposals, and I want to highlight several of these in this speech. The bill largely focuses on improving the treatment of people in prison. Prisons house some of New Zealand’s most vulnerable and challenging people. Many of them come through the corrections system in poor health. Around 62 percent of them enter the system with an existing mental health and addiction issue. They struggle with alcohol and drug use, have undiagnosed illnesses, and often have had violent, abusive, or otherwise chaotic lives.

Of course, nobody goes to prison without a reason. These people are in jail to keep the public safe. As a society, we hold them to account by restricting their freedoms. We must not forget that they have been sent to prison as punishment, not for punishment. And while prisons are places of incarceration, they must also be places of rehabilitation. Prisoners in New Zealand are four times more likely than the general population to have ever attempted suicide, so the first thing I want to highlight is that this bill introduces a comprehensive framework for managing prisoners who are at risk of harming themselves. It will make sure that these prisoners are assessed properly. It will make sure that whenever the Department of Corrections is required to segregate someone for at-risk harm, they are checked regularly, their needs are responded to quickly, and there is thorough planning for their care and their management.

I want to take time here to note that the Department of Corrections is investing $25 million into piloting new mental health services in a new model of care for at-risk prisoners. Combine this with the new legislative framework, and the care of prisoners who are vulnerable to suicide or self-harm will be more therapeutic and will take a longer-term approach. There is no good to society if prisoners who walk in the door with a mental health or an addiction issue leave prison with that same mental health or addiction issue without it having been addressed. These people will receive the intervention and support they need to improve their well-being so at least they have the chance to be productive citizens when they leave prison.

The second change I want to highlight is that this bill updates the ability of corrections to use imaging technology, like body scanners, in prisons. It will enable the use of imaging technology for searching for contraband. This technology is less physically invasive than rub-down or strip searches and much more accurate than basic scanners such as metal detectors. So imaging technology searches are effective at locating contraband and afford more dignity to the people being searched. This change will help keep prisons free from drugs and weapons, making them safer places for staff, visitors, and prisoners, and, at the same time, it will make them more humane places.

The Department of Corrections is, in effect, a sole provider of a service nobody wants to receive, and prisoners, let’s be honest, can be difficult clients. As I mentioned before, people often come to prison unwell, unstable, and dangerous. They can be a threat to themselves and to others. This bill will improve the disciplinary regime in prisons and therefore make it easier for corrections to manage people in prison safely and securely. Amending the definition of a drug to align with the Psychoactive Substances Act will allow corrections to test prisoners and discipline them appropriately for the use of a wider range of drugs including synthetic cannabis.

The bill will also make it a disciplinary offence to give a tattoo in prison either to yourself—not you, Mr Assistant Speaker—or to another person, or to consent to receive a tattoo from someone else.

💬 Hon Members: Ha, ha!

💬 Hon STUART NASH: I probably didn’t need to highlight that, did I? Prison tattoos pose significant health risks as equipment is improvised and often not sterile. This change will help corrections staff reduce the volume of tattooing that occurs in prisons.

In addition to establishing new disciplinary offences that will help corrections staff manage prisoners securely and safely, the bill adds a requirement for newly admitted prisoners to be given written information about disciplinary offences to ensure they know what the offences are. Knowing about the offences functions as a deterrent and also makes sure that no one can claim ignorance of the rules as an excuse for failing to comply. Obviously, this is about prisoners, but it’s also about protecting the men and the women who work for our corrections department who do a fantastic job, often unrecognised, and it can be thankless.

But, finally, the last change I want highlight is an improvement to the mothers with babies regime. One of the most unfortunate aspects of prison is that families are separated. This can be very difficult for children who are inadvertently punished through no fault of their own. Prisoners who are mothers of very young children can currently apply to have their children live with them until they are 24 months old in dedicated mother and baby units. These units give mothers and babies the chance to bond in a safe and supportive environment, when this is assessed as in the child’s best interests. Under the current settings, a decision made about placement or otherwise of a baby with its mother in prison is final. This bill gives mothers the statutory right to appeal the decision and introduces a review process.

💬 Angie Warren-Clark: Nice. Nice, that.

💬 Hon STUART NASH: Yeah. Thank you. The changes this bill makes to the legislative framework of the corrections system will help the Department of Corrections manage difficult people in a difficult environment and will also ensure that these people are treated fairly, safely, and humanely. When they are released, we want them to be equipped to participate positively in society so we can keep them and the rest of our community safe. I believe this bill contributes to this goal. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. We all know that the Labour - New Zealand First Government is soft on crime and we see that every day in their approach in this House to the criminal justice system—

💬 Hon Andrew Little: Especially blasphemous libel.

Yes, we thank the last Minister, the Minister of Police, for his speech and the Minister in front of him, the Minister of Justice, but they are cooking up some ideas around the Department of Corrections that are yet to be put out into the public arena, and we look forward to them actually saying what they are actually going to do.

This bill is a great bill, because this bill was actually done by Louise Upston when she was the Minister. This is Louise’s work. It was the Minister Louise Upston who prepared this bill—actually not all of this bill. There are one or two things that have been added, which are minor but they have been added, and there are one or two things that were major, that were taken away from this bill by the Labour - New Zealand First “soft on crime” Government, and we see that every day in this House.

So I just want to, first of all, have a look at some of the bits of this bill that were taken out, and that’s really around rehabilitation. That last speaker, the Minister, made a very good point that if someone is in prison, there should be an opportunity for that person to get the skills to be able to go out into the workforce when they leave prison, to get the confidence in themselves that they have another future ahead of them, to actually, probably, engage with their communities, to understand their culture, their heritage, so that they actually have that self-belief and that ability to then be an active part of our community. To do that, you need the thing called rehabilitation, which was a big part of the bill that the Minister Louise Upston had prepared and has been removed by the Government from this bill.

So I challenge the Government to actually explain why they took out the rehabilitation clauses of this bill. If they say—and they’re genuine about it—that rehabilitation is needed for prisoners, then why did they take out the rehabilitation plans that were going to be there for individual prisoners? Why did you do that? Why did you take out the one thing that would make the major difference to prisoners? It’s bizarre that they would do that.

Then they left the bill, which has got about 16 points, which are points that are needed to tidy up the system—there’s no doubt about that. But they’re not the main driver of turning somebody’s life around. Rehabilitation is, and it’s been taken out of this bill. We know that they’re going to be very soft on crime soon.

💬 Hon Members: Oh!

We know that the New Zealand First - Labour “soft on crime” Government has actually got some plans that they won’t tell the community. Members may be shaking their heads in the front row there, but they don’t actually know what their Ministers are thinking of at this time, because what happens when you’re a backbencher like yourselves? They don’t get told until it goes to caucus the day before it actually comes in front of the Parliament. But your colleague across the aisle there, Mr Andrew Little—he knows exactly what’s going on. He knows exactly that they’re going to be soft on crime, and he knows exactly how they’re going to do that and just hasn’t told you.

And New Zealand First will be the last to know. New Zealand First, the lapdogs of this Parliament—the people with principle that always talk about how high and mighty they are. But when they see a bit of power, they just crumble away and become just the lapdogs of the Labour Party, and it’s great to see that we’ve got a couple of the fuzziest new members of that lapdog community here in those new members.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order!

Mr Assistant Speaker, getting back to the bill—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Yeah, I want to refer the member to Standing Order 111 about relevance. I do want the member to come back to the bill now, please.

So when we look at the bill, there are those 16 points that are in there, and they go through some of the issues like tattooing—that the Minister spoke about—imaging of those people that may be visiting a corrections facility, restraints on prisoners, cell sharing, and other things like that that are really an important part of our corrections programme and what we do in our corrections facilities. But it doesn’t take away from that fundamental point that whatever we do in corrections, if we’re not actually making a difference to that person’s life, it’s fundamentally just a band-aid approach.

This has taken up some of the good points that needed to be done in the corrections system that Louise Upston had put forward, but it doesn’t cover the really important part of the corrections facilities, and that is the rehabilitation.

💬 Darroch Ball: Ha, ha! I can’t believe you’re doing this.

These members laugh. They laugh at rehabilitation. They have got no sense of what is actually needed to turn somebody’s life around, and it is—

💬 Hon Member: Disgraceful.

Well, someone says it’s disgraceful. I don’t know if we’d go that far with the New Zealand First Party, but there’s time. But, you know, when we look at what could have been in this bill from the Labour Party, we could have seen, actually, how they intend to reduce the prison population by 30 percent. How do they actually intend to do that? That could have been in this bill, because they’re working frantically on it now, trying to work out how to do that. This bill could have been an opportunity—

💬 Darroch Ball: This is a corrections bill.

Yes, and corrections is the prison population. That’s where, you know, prisoners go to corrections, and the parties that you’re involved with have made it clear that they want to reduce the prison population by 30 percent. Thirty percent of prisoners will be out on the street under a Labour - New Zealand First “soft on crime” Government. That is exactly what they are doing here.

Members will see the result of that very soon, and I encourage the Labour Party to come out and be honest with New Zealanders tonight and say how they are going to achieve that. Why can’t they come into this House and debate why and how they’re actually going to release 30 percent of New Zealand’s prisoners? What is so hard about putting those ideas in front of this House tonight? They have them. Andrew Little knows exactly what he wants to do to achieve that target, and it’s a question of when and how they do that and what does that actually mean. Are they going to relax the bail laws? Are they going to reduce the sentencing? Are they going to make sure there are less remand prisoners by going soft on crime?

Those are the real things that the Labour - New Zealand First Government are looking at, at the moment, and this legislation is needed, but it is simply taking the legislation that Louise Upston had prepared in the last Government and reusing it here. It is not the fundamental change in corrections that we know is coming from the Labour - New Zealand First Government—a fundamental change that will release 30 percent of prisoners from our prison population into the general public. That is the plan that we will see from the Government, and I wish they had actually had the guts to come into this House and debate it here tonight and to actually be straight with the New Zealand public and tell them what their actual intentions were of how to achieve that, rather than hide behind legislation that has been prepared by the previous Government—needed legislation, I must admit, but still prepared by the previous Government—and with the biggest issue reduced and taken out of this legislation, around rehabilitation.

So the New Zealand National Party will be supporting this legislation through its first reading. We want to see these issues be tidied up in our corrections system. As I say, they are things that will actually make the system work better and that are important for many members of the corrections facilities that are there as inmates but also to enable the activities of corrections to be actually undertaken in a more thorough and successful way. They take into account new technology, they take into account some changes in the system that have been sitting there for a while that needed to be tidied up, and we will support that.

That is something that is important for corrections’ facilities and approach, but it doesn’t take away from the fundamental thing that we are seeing coming forward from the Labour - New Zealand First Government and that is a reduction in prison population at a time when all the indicators are that there will be an increase in prison population. They are seeking to reduce it by 30 percent. They will not tell us how they’re going to do that. We know they’re looking at options around that, of reducing sentencing, of removing bail conditions, and they are looking at how to reduce that prison population by being soft on crime, and this something this bill should address as well.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I’m very pleased to speak in support of this bill at its first reading. I do want to acknowledge Mr Bennett, his support for this bill. Aside from the bluster, deflection, the scaremongering, and the totally irrelevant material that he raised in his contribution, I do acknowledge the support that he has expressed for this important piece of legislation.

If I may, I’d like to actually just get back to the content and focus of this bill which has been introduced by Minister Little. Can I acknowledge the work Ministers Nash and Little and the executive are doing in this area in support of this bill. Because this bill is a whole suite of amendments; it is a whole suite of amendments to the Corrections Act and to regulations promulgated under that Act, all designed to improve the ability of the Department of Corrections to safely and humanely manage prisoners, to improve prisoner discipline and safety, and to ensure the fair treatment of prisoners. I think that’s very important that we focus on exactly what this bill is doing.

There are, as I’ve mentioned, a host of improvements that are being made right across the board which will have wide implications; positive impacts not only for the corrections system but also for our prison population. I guess it cuts deep, because, as a representative of a Māori electorate, too many of our prison population are young brown males, and clearly we want to see that reduced but also we want to ensure that the legislation that underpins our prison system and our corrections department is fit for purpose, it is keeping up with modern prison environments, and that it’s working effectively. And that’s what this bill actually achieves in a number of areas.

I’d like to now go over quite a wide range of the amendments that are being made. Many have been touched on by the Minister in his speech. I guess one of the main amendments is the creation under this bill of a new set of provisions which deal with the unfortunate issue of the risk of self-harm that many inmates suffer from. We know there are very many complex issues that are involved with prison inmates, and clearly the existing regime of putting those complex issues and very high-risk inmates into a segregation regime was completely inadequate. This bill creates a whole separate range of provisions dedicated to that issue of dealing with inmates that are at high risk of self-harm. So I commend the bill on that aspect.

Just looking at a selection of some of the other amendments that are covered in this bill—the ability to review the decisions for or against, mostly against, mother and baby placement decisions. The chief executive of corrections has a lot of decision-making powers, and it’s important that there is an ability for those that feel aggrieved by a certain decision of the chief executive, that there is that ability for a mother—or her whānau, I guess, would have the ability to review those decisions, as opposed to just being at the mercy of a chief executive, and that decision being final. So I do commend that aspect of the bill.

Just looking at some of the other provisions—there’s a whole range. One that caught my attention was the use of chains and irons in prisons. I guess, for those that may be looking at movies from back in the day—chains, a ball and chain, and those sorts of instruments were used. Clearly, that is out of step with not only modern-day practice but also the United Nations minimum rules on treatment. I commend that this legislation is being brought into step so that is completely outlawed.

But I must contrast that, because, on the one hand, we have the prohibition on the use of chains and irons in prison, but then we also have the use of mechanical restraints, which I believe must be handcuffs. Obviously, it’s a different type of restraint, but it’s different from the chain and iron variety. Again, if we look to the mechanical restraints, there is an amendment to ensure that the use of those handcuffs is for no more than a 24-hour—oh, it can extend, actually, through a 24-hour period where an inmate is being treated in a hospital.

Again, there’s a whole range of important measures that are being introduced by this bill. As I’ve touched on, it covers a whole range of different aspects. Just looking at a couple more—the bill makes it a disciplinary offence around tattooing; tattooing a prisoner or self-tattooing. I know that, I guess, the use of tattoos has become quite common, in vogue, these days, but I guess it’s for safety and security reasons that the disciplinary offence of tattooing in prisons has been incorporated. I’m very pleased that the advice that we have received from the Ministry of Justice in terms of the consistency with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act has looked into those important issues.

Whilst the right to self-expression is a very important right, there can be justified limits placed upon those rights, and certainly this bill imposes a limit. But I commend the Attorney-General for providing confirmation to the House that, notwithstanding that, the provisions are consistent with the provisions of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. Indeed, those checks have extended to the section covering the use of unreasonable search and seizure.

Just in my remaining time, I want to touch on that issue because the use of imaging and technology to detect contraband, not only for prisoners but for staff and visitors, is being committed under this bill. It’s important that those checks are put in place. But we have just recently concluded the Customs and Excise Bill. As part of the consideration of that bill, there was a great deal of attention paid to the issue of personal searches around the collection of information or the storage of data. I would expect that there may be some concerned citizens that may want to find out a bit more about the use of this imaging technology: around what, how far, how detailed those images may be, where that information will be stored, will it be used, how safe is that information? I think it’s good that those powers should be strictly prescribed just so people can be sure about their civil liberties. So there’s a host of provisions in here, and I commend this bill to the House.

Well, here we go again. It’s a Wednesday night, and we’re here in the dead—well, not quite the dead of night, but reasonably late at night, and we’ve got another Government bill. It’s a Government bill that the last Government actually did all the work on. In fact, this follows on from the Crimes Amendment Bill. So we’re debating a bill that the last Government basically did the bulk of the work on—the heavy lifting, as they say—and it’s a bill that’s going to go to the Justice Committee.

I’ve got to say, I think the Standing Orders Committee made a mistake splitting off the Justice Committee from the Law and Order Committee. I thought it was a good idea at the time, because I enjoyed being on the Justice Committee and I thought, “The workload will be good. We’ll get through some chunky work.” But now it turns out, I think we’re going to be sitting almost every Wednesday and Thursday between now and the end of the year, because we’ve got the euthanasia bill to deal with as well. But that’s OK, we’re a very hard-working committee, well chaired by Mr Huo from Labour, and we’re a very bipartisan committee.

So here we go again. Look, this is a good bill. It does a lot of very useful things, and Stuart Nash, speaking on behalf of the Minister, outlined a number of different things. But it is a missed opportunity, I think, as well. As my colleague David Bennett made reference to, the National Government had some pretty ambitious plans about rehabilitation if we were re-elected, which sadly we weren’t—some pretty ambitious plans about rehabilitation, and this bill could have been a vehicle for those plans. So we’ll wait and see where the new Government is going to take rehabilitation inside the corrections system, but they’ve got a few other tricky things to deal with in the meantime.

Number one: Waikeria Prison—are they going to build it or not? We know they are desperate not to build it; meanwhile, on any given night there’s only 150 or 200 beds free in the system. We know that they’re running around desperate not to spend the money, desperate not to build a new prison, but I’m going to make a prediction: I think they’re going to have to. We’re yet to see how they’re going to deliver on this very ambitious target of a 30 percent reduction in the prison population in 15 years. Ambitious—laudable in some ways, if it doesn’t put public safety at risk, but you’re going to have to make some tough decisions around that. Are they going to reverse bail laws, or the bail amendment changes? Are they going to let prisoners out sooner than they otherwise would be?

And then, of course, you overlay that on top of it—apparently 1,800 extra police coming on board.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): And if the member—[Interruption] Order! The member needs to relate his comments to the content of the bill.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. It’s a good point. [Interruption] I’ve lost my train of thought, but I was making a point around the 1,800 extra police and the problem that the Government is going to have to deal with. We know that if you put more police on the streets, you’re going to end up with more prisoners. So when they get inside the corrections system, the question is how do you rehabilitate—

💬 Hon David Bennett: Soft on crime, that’s what they are.

My colleague says “Soft on crime”. I think you’re going to hear this rejoinder and this refrain from Mr Bennett quite a lot more over the next few years—quite a lot more. I for one—I served under David Bennett on the Finance and Expenditure Committee in the last Parliament, and he’s a robust figure, and I for one am looking forward to serving under him as his junior in the police and corrections and law and order space.

Look, this is a useful bill—this is a useful bill. It does a lot of things. The tattooing changes around the disciplinary process are useful. The letter-writing changes are useful. The communication around prisoner communication is useful. All of these things are, kind of, tidy-ups that Parliament has to go through when it comes to all elements of what Parliament administers, or Governments administer. This is a tidying-up piece of legislation. Parliament has to consider this every now and then. It’s a useful bill.

It could be so much more, and that’s the thing about so much of what the Government is introducing at the moment—it could be so much more. We know that they have to get it into the House because they’re desperate for legislation. They’re desperate to take the time up. That’s why we’ve got—

Order! I’m afraid I must interrupt the member.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.