Corrections Amendment Bill

There’s a wonderful doozy in new regulation 66, in clause 35 in Part 2 of this bill, that I want to draw to the committee’s attention, and I particularly want to bring it to the Green Party’s attention. I’ve got a copy of the Green Party policy, and it very explicitly says that the Green Party is opposed to double-bunking. In fact, the Minister in the chair, Kelvin Davis, made his career as Opposition Corrections spokesperson on the basis of opposing double-bunking.

Well, I want to bring to the committee’s attention clause 35 in Part 2 of this bill. This is what it says, and I’ll read it out: “Replace regulation 66 with:” a new provision—and let me read what regulation 66 says: “As far as practicable … prisoners … must be accommodated in individual cells.” That’s the current law, and that’s being replaced by a new provision that says, “A prisoner may be accommodated in a shared cell unless the prison manager is satisfied that the prisoner is unsuited for shared cell accommodation”.

Now, the fascinating part is this: when we got all the legal advice, it is absolutely clear as day that this bill makes double-bunking easier. Does the Minister in the chair agree that new regulation 66 makes double-bunking easier? Does any member opposite dispute—

💬 Ginny Andersen: Mega-prisons are better, are they, Dr Smith?

No, no, it’s a very simple question—a very simple question—that I’d love any member of the Government to answer. Do they agree with Crown Law’s advice that new regulation 66 makes double-bunking easier? Does anybody dispute that in the Parliament? Anybody—any whisper?

Is there any whisper in the corner of the Chamber from the Green Party? The party that championed and promised New Zealanders that they’d get rid of shared cells is now supporting a bill that will make double-bunking easier.

Now, I’ve seen some doozies in my time. I have to say, when I was on the select committee, I choked on my coffee. I thought to myself that it’s not possible that the Green Party and the Labour Party, who for nine years have championed against double-bunking, would be bringing a bill in to make it easier. I’m truly flummoxed.

💬 Hon Willie Jackson: That’s understandable.

Well, does Willie Jackson support having the law being made easier to double-bunk? Well, I ask the Green Party, and Marama Davidson is in the Chamber. She supports double-bunking now. Has the Green Party done a flip-flop on double-bunking?

💬 Hon Willie Jackson: Times change.

“Times change.” Oh well, I’m delighted—absolutely rapt. I think I can explain it for Mr Willie Jackson. It’s the “Steve Maharey principle”, and the “Steve Maharey principle” is “Well, there’s just things that you say in Opposition that you don’t do in Government.” What a cynical, devious, undemocratic view we have from the Greens and the Labour Party.

Effectively, what they’re saying in the House, on the most contentious political argument about corrections in the last 10 years, is that they are going back on their word with the public of New Zealand.

💬 Hon Willie Jackson: No, we’re not.

That’s a breach of trust, Willie. I say to Marama Davidson and members opposite, you are breaching the faith of New Zealanders. You are undermining democracy. It’s wrong, it’s immoral, it’s politically manipulative, and it’s actually bad for this institution of Parliament. You can’t go to the voters, Willie, and say “Vote for me, and I’ll get rid of double-bunking”—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): Sorry, but could you refer to members by their proper name. Dr Smith, please refer to members—

Mr Willie Jackson—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): Thank you.

—cannot go to the voters in his electorate and say “Vote for me and I’ll get rid of double-bunking.”, and then hop down to Parliament and vote for a bill that will make it easier. Now, I can’t use the “h” word, but it is a double standard, and it is an appalling breach of faith.

If members opposite want to know why they’re in trouble in the polls, it’s because you keep breaking your promises. You keep breaking your promises. You’re saying one thing—

💬 Hon Willie Jackson: Read the polls again.

Well, it’s meant to be the year of delivery. What is delivered in this bill is exactly the opposite of what Labour and the Green Party promised around the issue of double-bunking.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m just standing to correct a terrible error that the Hon Dr Nick Smith made then. He said that when in Opposition, I made my political name around the issue of double-bunking. That is totally incorrect. I made my name around the issue of fight clubs—fight clubs. Remember when there was just mass violence going on in the prisons that four Ministers of Corrections in the previous Government failed to get under control? That is where I made my political name, not on the issue of double-bunking, although double-bunking is something that we need to address, and we are addressing it in a couple of ways. We are reducing the prison population safely and we’re increasing the capacity in the number of beds coming online, which means that as we create more capacity, we reduce the need for double-bunking.

That is how we’re making a difference, and, as I said earlier in this debate, the reason that we’re making this little change here is because of the legal ambiguity. The proposals—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Oh, it’s a legal ambiguity.

You know, I said it earlier, so obviously he wasn’t listening, which is why he keeps bringing it up. I said that in the worst-case scenario a challenge to current practice could result in a decision requiring the department to reduce its cell sharing, which would increase the pressure on available accommodation and impose substantial costs on the Crown.

Obviously, the Opposition doesn’t care about the taxpayer’s money or about imposing additional considerable costs on the Crown, because they are the party that is in favour of American-style mega-prisons, where they just build it and they will come. That is the position of the Opposition: build an American-style mega-prison and the prisoners will come—will just fill it, fill it, fill it. Then, if we can’t fill it any more we will then double- and triple-bunk, because everybody needs to realise that the 2017 justice sector forecasts that were in under the Opposition’s time had our prison population at 12,000 right now. It is currently at 10,000. Imagine the double-bunking that would have gone on then. In fact, if they could’ve double-bunked, they would have triple-bunked, because they were a Government with no ideas, with no plan. Sorry, they did have a plan: it was to build more and more American-style mega-prisons. They saw those justice sector forecasts as a target, not as a warning. We saw them as a warning and we decided to do something about it, and we have been successful.

As I said earlier, when we became Government at the end of 2017, there were 10,550 people in prison. There were actually 30,137 offenders in the community. Now, you would think, because Mark Mitchell said it—he said we’d just open the doors and let people out. Well, that’s not true, because the judiciary and the Parole Board make decisions as to whether people can be released, but you would think, if you took Mark Mitchell’s argument, that there would be more people in the community, more offenders in the community. The reality is that right now, instead of 30,137 offenders in the community, there are 29,031 offenders in the community—a reduction of over 1,000.

Whatever we’re doing, it’s working—even if they don’t believe it. What we’re doing is working. We’re making New Zealand safer, where there are fewer offenders in the community, and there are fewer offenders in prison. That means, across the country, there are fewer offenders. It’s something that is a bitter pill for that lot to swallow, because they anticipated 12,000 people in prison now. They anticipated more double-bunking, triple-bunking, probably quadruple-bunking, and what they can’t stomach is the fact that we are reducing the need for that to happen. I just thank them for the praise that I know they are silently thinking. You know, they don’t want to say it out loud, but, my God, they wish that they could do what this Government has achieved in making New Zealand safer. That’s what they’re thinking deep down in their hearts.

Mark Mitchell—he’s a good guy really, you know. We played in the parliamentary golden oldies rugby team together. He’s not as nasty and as bad as he comes across. He is silently thinking, “Oh my gosh.” They wish that their Government was as successful as this Government is at reducing the prison population and keeping New Zealand safe.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I’d like to speak in Part 2 of the bill on replacement regulation 63, set out in clause 34, which covers prisoners at risk of self-harm. This has been an interesting one—that if those members opposite seem so concerned about the wellbeing of how things are tracking in general, it’s sad that they’re not voting for this in general, because there are some really good changes to this bill that improve the current system. It’s a sad day to see that we don’t have support on that.

Where it’s very interesting is that what replacement regulation 63 does is it enables a far more detailed or a far more tailored package to be delivered in order to make sure we don’t have an influx or an increase in those in prison. Making sure that we identify those prisoners who are at risk of self-harm, whether it be through mental health or other means, and provide the right safety, the right security, is a really good way of ensuring that the long-term issues that continued, in the past, to drive the prison population are able to be tracked downwards in a positive way. That’s one of the issues that I haven’t heard any solutions from the other side of the House. I’ve heard a lot of accusations and a lot of concerns raised, but I haven’t actually heard one solution. I think the only solution that was ever delivered in this space by those opposite was to build more prisons. As the number two country per capita for incarceration in the world, I think we’ve got better ways to address the issue of our prison population than just by building a mega-prison.

I think that in terms of what is really proposed in terms of making those adjustments relating to prisoners on self-harm, the bill will require prisoners to be assessed on arrival, and to have appropriate supervision, and to have an individualised care plan that outlines the appropriate way to address that self-harm. As a part of that assessment, one of the concerns that have been raised is that in order to maintain safety and security in prisons, there are regular strip-search provisions that happen. So that is important in this bill, and particularly on those clauses that I’ve referred to already.

We heard from officials, when they advised the committee, that there had been recent operational improvements to the model of care provided to people who are vulnerable to self-harm, where they will tailor the strip-search programme to make sure that you’re not increasing the potential for self-harm to be happening in prison, while still maintaining appropriate security levels. That is why you can’t have one blanket approach for every single prisoner. There needs to be an individual assessment—upon mental health, upon security, on safety and potential for self-harm—in order for the services to meet the needs and give people the opportunity for safety and rehabilitation, and it is that issue that’s covered by the Supplementary Order Paper that accompanies this bill in the House.

This seems to be a sensible yet safe way that will reduce the impact of strip-searching on the most vulnerable prisoners, and it is issues like that—to also be assessing the appropriateness of double-bunking or not alongside that. That’s what this bill provides. It provides the flexibility to assess and understand the needs of each individual one, instead of having a one-size-fits-all, blanket approach that has proved quite damaging in the past.

As has already been raised by the Minister previously, situations where there is not that care and attention provides for such unsavoury conditions that have arisen in the past, where you have fight clubs, where you have people being thrown off balconies. Terrible conditions have happened in situations like Serco in the past, which have been highlighted, because there hasn’t been the attention to detail of people’s individual circumstances and lives to enable rehabilitation, safety, and security to all be taken into account appropriately.

I’m proud to be part of a Government that no longer shies away from these issues and no longer just proposes to build bigger and more scarier prisoners but instead devotes $1.9 billion in mental health and drug and addiction treatment to start rebuilding people’s lives and give them opportunities in this space, instead of just calling out those hollow words, “Soft on crime.”

For all the two contributions from Government members, we have not heard an explanation to the actual provisions in the bill. We heard about parliamentary rugby. We talked about giant American-sized prisons. They’re not in this part. We heard about many other issues, about prisoner numbers—all sorts of things—but Government members, including the Greens, will not answer the very critical question, and that is: why did the Labour Party and the Green Party campaign on a policy of getting rid of double-bunking and now we have a bill that makes double-bunking legally easier?

The House is deafening, because what has occurred is just dishonest. If you read the Green Party policy, if you read the Labour Party policy, what is in clause 35 of this bill, replacing regulation 66, is a direct contradiction of your statements, Mr Davis. Would you like me to read your statements for you? “If I was Minister of Corrections, I would be cracking down on double-bunking and making it harder.” Those are the words of Kelvin Davis. If I take the Green Party, they said “The bottom line for us is the Nelson Mandela standard of prison care, including the abolition of double-bunking.” This bill—everybody in the House agrees—and this replacement regulation 66 makes it easier for the Department of Corrections to introduce double-bunking. I just think it shows a complete lack of integrity by the Government that they can campaign on one thing, do the opposite, and not provide a single explanation to this House as to why they are advocating a provision that is so much in contradiction with what they said.

Their silence is deafening. I remember in Government, there wasn’t a single Corrections bill on which the Green Party wouldn’t be taking multiple calls. Aren’t they meant to be the champions of human rights and prisoners’ rights? Where have they been this afternoon? They have been absolutely silent. The submission that we received at the Justice Committee from the Human Rights Commission was directly opposed to clause 35, replacement Regulation 66. Why are the Greens voting for it? No explanation at all. No explanation from any member of the select committee. It is simply—well, I hear the Minister of State Services. Why did the Minister of State Services campaign?

💬 Hon Chris Hipkins: Why bring me into it? I didn’t say anything.

That’s right. But perhaps you might provide an explanation, because the House deserves an explanation. It deserves an explanation as to why the parties in Government, the Labour and Green parties, didn’t just a little bit—it wasn’t like it was some minor piece in their policy. A core part of their policy was to reduce, in the case of Labour—in the case of the Greens, abolish—double-bunking, and this bill does the opposite. When the Labour Party and the Green Party reflect, while their poll ratings are plummeting, while New Zealanders have lost trust, while the public believes this Government is not delivering on its promises—look no further than Regulation 66 of this Corrections bill. That is the exact opposite of what parties in Government said they would do if they were privileged to form a Government of New Zealand. It’s actually bad for Corrections, but, actually, it’s bad for our democracy when members opposite behave so dishonestly as they have on this clause.

The question is that the Minister’s—

💬 Marama Davidson: Madam—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): —amendments to Part 2, set out on Supplementary Order Paper 392, be agreed to. All those in favour say aye.

I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I thought Marama Davidson was wishing to take a call.

💬 Marama Davidson: Madam Chair.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): I’m sorry, I didn’t see you.

I seek leave for Marama Davidson being able to take a call.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): I’ve already started taking the vote. I’m sorry. I’ve already started taking the vote. I apologise.

I’m seeking leave for Marama Davidson to be allowed a call.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): I’ve already started taking the vote.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 392 in the name of the Hon Kelvin Davis to Part 2 be agreed to.