Corrections Amendment Bill

on behalf of the Minister of Corrections I present a legislative statement on the Corrections Amendment Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Poto Williams): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

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

The Corrections Amendment Bill makes a number of modernising changes to the Corrections Act. As a Government, we know the importance of supporting prisoners with rehabilitation, and our evidence-based approach is making a real difference when it comes to things like reconviction and re-imprisonment rates, which are all trending downwards.

I do note that it has been a bit of a focus in the past few days on support to remand accused prisoners to avoid future offending. This bill, tabled as it was in the House last week, will provide Corrections with the flexibility to offer more support programmes for this cohort. I strongly, strongly appreciate the support and endorsement for the legislation that I saw on the news during the weekend. There was a bit of rabbit staring into the headlights going on, people not entirely sure what had happened in Parliament last week, but it’s good to get some support for this legislation.

The Government is making sure our corrections law is fit for purpose as the people in our prisons change and the challenges that Corrections faces on a day-to-day basis changes. One example of this in the bill is enabling greater flexibility in dealing with remand prisoners, getting them access to more programmes in prison where the law used to get in the way.

Currently, the law prevents Corrections from mixing remand accused, and convicted people in prison unless there are exceptional circumstances such as a natural disaster. This means remand accused prisoners have limited access to programmes and services such as alcohol and drug treatment, because by law they cannot be mixed as they have not yet been found guilty of a crime.

This is based on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which requires the separation of accused and convicted prisoners to protect the presumption of innocence for accused prisoners. So this bill will allow the limited mixing of remand and convicted prisoners for educational, religious, kaupapa Māori, and therapeutic programmes essential for integrating back into society. This will increase remand accused prisoners’ access to support programmes such as the Māori Pathways initiative or intensive alcohol and drug treatment, and will enable Corrections to design more programmes focused on remand prisoners in the future.

Another key change in the legislation will build on Corrections’ current strategy, Hokai Rangi, to further improve rehabilitation and reintegration outcomes for Māori, who make up a disproportionate percentage of our prison population. Initiatives such as the Māori Pathways programme are making a real difference when it comes to things like reconviction and re-imprisonment rates, which, as noted, already are trending downwards.

When we improve outcomes for Māori, we improve outcomes for our whole society. This is the cohort where we have the biggest opportunity to reduce reoffending. The bill allows for incorporating new principles for the corrections system that are derived from the principles of Te Tiriti. It requires Corrections to develop, maintain, and implement a strategy that focuses on improving outcomes for Māori in the corrections system and that provides requirements for monitoring the strategy’s outcomes. It will provide for things such as temporary release to be used to access cultural activities by prisoners, not just for Māori prisoners but all prisoners.

The bill requires Māori prisoners and other prisoners to have access to cultural activities so far as is reasonable and practicable, regardless of the corrections prison in which they are detained. It also requires approaches to healthcare for prisoners in a prison to be guided by the health sector principles set out in section 7 of the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Act 2022—again, as far as reasonable and practicable.

It requires Corrections to provide access to matauranga Māori as part of the provision of information and education in prison. It also enables the views of whānau, iwi, and hapū to be taken into account where appropriate, insofar as reasonable and practicable, in decisions about which prison offenders are accommodated in.

The bill will require Corrections to work to reduce Māori overrepresentation while simultaneously helping Māori prisoners access the cultural support they need to better reintegrate into their communities and independent support networks—something that we know works, and this is a continuation of the Government’s evidence-based policy in this particular area of work.

Other updates to the Corrections Act in this bill are also being made, as the prison environment has changed rapidly, while ensuring prisoners are held to account for disruptive behaviour and any assaults on staff. This is an important focus. The staff who work in our corrections facilities do a very difficult job and it is, I believe, the obligation of this House to ensure that their safety is prioritised.

The bill will boost the safety of our prisons and community by boosting Corrections’ intelligence powers. We’re futureproofing the Corrections Act by introducing new powers enabling Corrections to monitor, collect, use, and disclose prisoner communications and information sources for intelligence purposes. While Corrections can currently monitor mail and phone calls of prisoners to ensure the safety of prisons, it has no ability to effectively monitor other technologies such as email, video calling, and internet services. These changes will allow Corrections to do this in limited instances to support prison and public safety, including for the victims of crimes.

One way Corrections maintains the safety and wellbeing of staff and prisoners is through internal disciplinary processes in prisons. The internal disciplinary process ensures that prisoner misconduct is dealt with through disciplinary hearings and the imposition of penalties by hearing adjudicators or visiting justices. The bill makes some improvements to the disciplinary processes for responding to prisoner misconduct. For example, some changes will support a timelier process and a new option to suspend penalties that will incentivise improved behaviour by prisoners. The bill will also allow disciplinary hearings to proceed without the prisoner present if they refuse to attend or are required to leave on grounds of disruptive behaviour, meaning that bad behaviour can no longer delay punishments and create backlogs in the system.

So in conclusion, the bill aims to improve wellbeing for prisoners and increase alignment with international obligations. This includes enabling wider use of body imaging scanners in place of more invasive personal searches of prisoners. The bill will allow remand accused prisoners to take part in some therapeutic programmes, while also protecting the important principle that they are treated as innocent—part of our binding international commitments.

This is a bill we are proud to progress. It makes targeted but important changes to modernise the Corrections Act in line with this Government’s focus on keeping our communities safe. I welcome the widespread support that this bill has had as people have caught up with it, and I recommend it to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

I want to address, first of all, the safety of our corrections officers in the jobs that they do. I was lucky enough to be invited by the Corrections union to their AGM this morning in Auckland to be able to address them and also get involved in some questions and answers. Basically, I’m not going to talk about the content of that meeting because we have an agreement that anything discussed inside the meeting will stay inside the meeting, but I do want to acknowledge them.

The one thing that actually really annoys me is that our corrections officers, when we talk about public safety, we often don’t refer to them, because they are largely invisible. We don’t see them. We don’t interact with them on a daily basis. But I want to highlight the incredible work that they do, the sacrifice that they make, the professional approach that they take to their role, to keeping our community safe. And not just keeping our communities safe; they are dedicated people that actually want to be able to deliver rehabilitation programmes to prisoners when they come into our justice system, because we want them to come back out and we want them to be able to re-join society and we want them to be able to make good decisions in their lives. But the reality of it is they have been under so much pressure and their numbers are so depleted that they can’t safely deliver those rehabilitation services, and you’ve seen a 35 percent reduction.

The Government made a big deal when we made our announcement on the weekend. They rushed out there. They somehow managed to convince some of our media that woke up to the fact that they were being tricked, and they came out and actually acknowledged that. They said, “Oh, we’ve already got a bill in the ballot. We’ve already got a bill coming into the House that will deal with rehabilitation to remand prisoners.” Well, you don’t. This is an abject failure. Our bill actually addresses the fact that we have 45 percent—45 percent—of the prisoners currently in the Corrections system on remand. That’s an abject failure in itself. But that’s an issue that relates to courts and relates to justice being delivered quickly, and at the moment it’s being denied.

On top of that 45 percent, you’ve got 20 percent—20 percent—of those remand prisoners that will complete their entire sentence on remand. That is completely, totally unacceptable. By the way, what are they doing while they’re sitting in the prison on remand? They are getting therapeutic—

💬 Toni Severin: Nothing.

—rehabilitation. Nothing; absolutely right. They’re getting therapeutic courses delivered to them. They should have access to meaningful rehabilitation that can deal with violent offending and can deal with sexual offending. This bill here doesn’t address either of those things. It’s ridiculous. It’s a joke. They came out and they tried to convince the country: “Oh, no; we’ve got a bill that deals with that.” It doesn’t. The announcement that National made over the weekend, it does deal with that. It does allow the system to be able to deliver the full 29 rehabilitation programmes and for these remand prisoners to have access to them.

We acknowledge that a remand prisoner hasn’t yet been convicted, but that doesn’t mean that they lose the right to be able to engage and have access to those programmes. By the way, when you’ve got 20 percent of them—20 percent—doing their entire time in prison on remand, it means that they’re coming back into society without the benefit of having access to those rehabilitation programmes.

So Mr Robertson can stand on the other side and talk about rabbits and things like that. The only one that’s searching for a rabbit is Mr Robertson, to try and pull it out of the hat, because he realises that they’re under serious pressure, and they are under serious pressure. They don’t even understand. It was clear by their rushing out with their comments and the statement they gave to our media and our press gallery that they didn’t even understand what was in their own bill. It’s a joke.

When I finished the meeting today with the Corrections union, I was very lucky and felt very fortunate. They had presented me with two things. One of them was a plaque and the other one was this was this pen. This pen has got an inscription on it. It’s a lovely pen. It’s got an inscription on it; the inscription is, “Where’s Kelvin?” Where is the Minister? Because the Minister is missing in action. Why you wouldn’t engage—to me, the meeting this morning was refreshing. Do you know why? Because I was actually hearing from the front line. I was hearing from the people that actually deliver the services, not the ones sitting in headquarters, not the boffins coming up with other new sort of programmes and new ideas and new red tape and new compliance that actually impacts the front line and the services that they are trying to provide; you actually get to hear from the front line, the corrections officers that are turning up every day and doing the hard work. For me, it was refreshing to be in that environment and be able to hear and get direct feedback in terms of what’s happening and what they need.

I just want to come back to the comment that the Minister made around Corrections staff and their safety. The best thing this Government can do is actually engage with them and listen to them, because they know what they need to do to try and make their workplace safer. They’ve got some very good initiatives that they’ve put together and worked up, and I’d encourage the corrections Minister to sit down and engage and get serious about how we make our prisons safer.

We had a ridiculous situation where we had Kiri Allan, the Minister of Justice, in the last few weeks come out in the public and say, “Our prisons are a university for criminals. Our prisons are a place for gang members to recruit.” That’s true. That’s true, because the way they’ve configured our prisons means that they’ve lumped all the gang members from one gang in together. It allows them the ability to be organised. It allows them the ability to try and intimidate and, on many occasions, assault our corrections officers. But then this Government brings a bill to the House whereby they are now going to mix young prisoners with those older, experienced gang members. So you’ve got the Minister of Justice, on the one hand, saying, “They are universities for crime and the gangs use them to recruit. But, oh, by the way, we’ll take those younger offenders that have come into the system and we’re going to mix them together. We’re going to give them more access. We’re going to put them together.” They’re completely, totally confused, and they’re contradicting themselves in terms of their approach to our criminal justice system, which is consistent with this Government and the approach that they’ve taken in the last six years.

So, again, I’d ask the next speaker to get up and address that and tell us why they think it’s a good idea to take younger offenders that are coming into the system, that are impressionable, that are at risk of being recruited by gangs, that should be kept away from them, but you’re proposing to now mix them and put them together so it actually increases their exposure and their risk to being recruited by the gangs.

In principle, we are going to support this bill because we do want to see steps in the right direction in terms of trying to make our corrections officers’ workplace safer. At the moment, it’s not. This Government has put millions of dollars into a recruiting scheme that’s delivered about 61 or 62 new corrections officers. They are seriously under-numbered, they’re seriously overwhelmed, and they need support. Before this Government can even talk about increasing the delivery of rehabilitation, they have to get the staffing right. They have to focus on retention. They have to focus on valuing the corrections staff that they have at the moment. Because I can tell you something: experience matters. When they’re dealing with what they’re dealing with at the moment, experience matters. They have to figure out how to get their recruitment right, how to identify—and, by the way, be realistic in expectations when they are recruiting new corrections officers, the environment they’re going into, because they’re not going into a risk-free environment; they’re going into an environment where the risk of assault is very real, and you have to be honest with people about that.

So those are the issues that need to be addressed. They’ve been failing on rehabilitation. We’ve put forward a policy where we’ve been very clear that we’re very serious in making sure that 45 percent of the prison population at the moment that is not getting the full range of those 29 programmes will. They bring a silly, weak, insipid bill that messes around on the fringes and says, “Oh, we’ll do a bit more therapeutic stuff.” It’s ridiculous. They have to focus on getting the prison officers recruited. They have to focus on making sure that our corrections officers have the staff and that they’re able to safely deliver those rehabilitation programmes, otherwise this bill, in terms of rehabilitation, is useless. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, on this side of the House, we’re a Government who are focused on addressing offending from all sides. That is prevention, that is also punishment, and it is rehabilitation. So it has been good to hear the National Party recognise that rehabilitation is part of the solution, although I am still a little confused about whether the National Party is supporting this move or not.

This is something that’s very important in terms of addressing the crime and offending that’s out there. In terms of rehabilitation, on this side of the House, we have invested in circuit-breaker programmes for young people, which has seen young people who are offending go through programmes that show that 72 percent of them then don’t reoffend. Rehabilitation works, and we need to make sure it’s also there for those who are in prison as well as those who are on remand.

Just addressing some of Mark Mitchell’s points that he raised, he spoke about a reduction in the provision of these services within the Department of Corrections. Initially, that was due to COVID, but as we heard when we spoke to the Minister in the appropriations hearing, it’s also because of a change in the nature of the programmes being delivered. You cannot—you cannot—cure an addiction issue with an eight-hour course, which has been the case in the past. We are changing the way in which we deliver these programmes so that they work.

Why therapeutic only? Well, that goes in part to the final point that Mr Mitchell made. There is mixing of some remand and prisoners, but for a limited purpose, and therapeutic courses is a logical place to draw that line. There are also practical reasons why some offenders on remand will not want to engage in more detailed programmes, because they may feel an indication of guilt. There is a rational, reasonable line for drawing the line at therapeutic aims, and I think we’ll see great results from this programme.

As the chair of the Justice Committee, I’m looking forward to receiving submissions on this bill, and I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Look, to assist the last speaker, Vanushi Walters, the member who has taken her seat, the National Party is supporting this bill, but we’re supporting it in the same way that we’ve done with a number of bills in the justice or the law and order space. It’s because these are small, incremental, little steps forward; we don’t see it as problem, but we know in this space that we need to be taking great, bold, strong steps forward. So, again, we are happy to support this bill, but, be under no illusion, the National Party does not see this as a bold, strong set of steps that are particularly needed in the corrections space, and I will outline why.

Look, this is titled the Corrections Amendment Bill. There really is only one amendment which is needed to Corrections, and that’s to get rid of this Minister and this Government, and then we will set Corrections back on track. Fundamentally, it’s another area which is under enormous pressure. If, like the Hon Mark Mitchell or myself and others on this side, you are talking to those corrections officers, you’re talking to prisoners and others, you’ll understand that the system is under incredible pressure.

Unless something has changed remarkably in the last few weeks, there are very few prisoners who have received visitors this year. I just want to repeat that for those listening at home: prisoners, in most prisons, have received no visitors this year. That is a legal failure. I notice that the left wing have gone quiet, because they’re always banging on about UN rights and charters.

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: Oh, it’s OK if they do it!

Exactly right. As the Hon Gerry Brownlee says, it’s OK if they do it. But, fundamentally, there are some very basic legal precepts and rules around what prisoners are entitled to. Again, I think I’m correct, it’s something like 30 minutes a week that they’re entitled to, and, again, some prisoners have had no visitors. In some prisons, the entire complex have had no visitors—that includes the likes of chaplains as well. So it’s not just a legal failure; it’s a moral and a social failure.

You might ask, Madam Speaker, why I am referencing this around the Corrections Amendment Bill. It’s this, and it’s simply this: all the pieces of paper, all the words on those pages, all the great intentions are going to run up against a system which cannot deliver. I want to be really, really clear: that’s not a reflection on our corrections officers, who are doing an incredible job, but they are stretched beyond capacity. The reason there are no visitors to prisoners is that there are not enough corrections staff. The reason that the likes of prison chaplains—and I used to be one—can’t go in as regularly as they want to is that there are not enough corrections officers. The reason why prisoners are being locked up for hours and hours a day is that there are not enough corrections officers. One of the key reasons that a lot of rehabilitation is not occurring in the prisons already is—no surprise—there are not enough corrections officers.

So, again, it’s a positive idea that we want to put more rehabilitation into prisons. National’s policy released over the weekend is much more comprehensive. But let’s be clear: to do rehabilitation, we need more prisoners on the ground.

Sadly, as the Government’s attempted to correct and amend Corrections, they’ve thrown millions and millions—I think, again, the last count, when I used to be the shadow Minister for Corrections, is something like $4 million - plus has been spent on an advertising campaign, and, basically, very few have come forward. Really importantly for the public, if the Minister and those talk about the numbers that have come forward, that’s only expressing their interest; those who have actually got to the front line: well, worryingly few. Speaking of the front line, I think we’re about 400 corrections officers down and about 1,800 corrections personnel short. This is a major problem—a major problem.

On the positive side—on the positive side—there are some good things here. The fact that this bill will allow better intelligence gathering by Corrections is exceptionally positive. I remember when I used to go in and visit in the old Mount Eden, a lot of these prisoners—I mean, let’s not take away from some of the terrible things they’d done—some of the skills they had, when you think about the skills they had to break into your car quite swiftly and easily and rewire it and take it away, kudos to them. I remember saying, particularly to the young ones, “It’s just a pity you couldn’t have used those skills in a much more constructive and positive way.” But we’ve got very smart people in prisons. Fundamentally, we need to have the intelligence operations to be able to deal with that, and we already know the number of contraband phones and phone parts, for example, which are going into prisons at the moment. Again, I would argue that it’s another failure on behalf of this Government that we don’t have enough corrections officers to do what’s necessary.

Look, there’s going to be changes to the disciplinary processes. Again, I’d like to tease this out in select committee. I think it’s important that we do have discipline processes, but also incentives for those who do well—and I want to acknowledge that I think that’s within the bill, which is a good thing. We do need to reward, within the prison, good behaviour, but we are not to tolerate poor behaviour. Certainly the feedback from a number of corrections officers is that they do not feel the backing of their Minister or this Government and that bad behaviour is tolerated in prisons, and that just a wet bus ticket, if that, is thrown at the prisoners. That’s a concern in itself.

There are some strengthening processes around the use of non-lethal weapons to be used within the prisons. I’m not going to elaborate on the various types that have been deployed or that they want to be deployed—again, this is for the safety of prison officers. I suspect, though, this is not enough. Again, talking to corrections officers, they don’t feel safe. There’s been a much-vaunted safety policy—I’m afraid I’ve forgotten the exact title of it—that the Minister’s been championing, but it’s, basically, stalled, and there’s not much confidence from the corrections staff that this is going to work. I think it’s, unfortunately, a situation in Corrections, again—and probably with this whole Labour Government; lots of great conversation and working groups and policy documents, but it just doesn’t make the front line. So put really simply: the corrections officers don’t feel safe, and that’s leading, unfortunately, in some wings of various prisons for, effectively, the gangs to be in control. Again, I really want to stress—I really want to stress—to those corrections officers that it’s not a reflection on them. On this side of the House, as best we can, because we are not—well, I’m not—on the front line, we understand the pressures that they are under.

However, as I keep saying, there are some good elements within here. Look, they’re wanting to improve rehabilitation and reintegration. A lot of it’s around outcomes for Māori and Pasifika—and, sadly, we know that those groups are overrepresented, so, yes, engaging there is positive. But our prisons, if you will, are broadly reflective of society, and there are people from a whole lot of other ethnicities, as well, and I think elements of where we, if you will, culturally appropriately—I don’t know why that’s such an awkward sentence; I’m going to have to think about it afterwards—work with Māori and Pasifika we should be doing the same for people who are Chinese or Indian or European or otherwise. So I just want to make sure that’s teased out as well.

As Mark Mitchell has pointed out too, this bill is actually going to allow remand prisoners to mix with sentenced prisoners. Now, that doesn’t make a lot of conceptual, academic, or practical sense to me. Why I say “conceptual” and “academic” is that remand prisoners are people who have been arrested but not yet found guilty; sentenced prisoners, strangely enough, have been. I don’t think mixing the two together is particularly smart. Again, I look back to previous work I have done where, often, younger prisoners were put in with older ones, and all you ended up with was a young one coming out of prison a lot more smart and criminally savvy than they were. So let’s not repeat that by mixing remand and convicted prisoners.

I think, as Mark Mitchell has pointed out, focusing rehabilitation on remand prisoners is a smart thing—and, again, partly driven by another Government failure, which is that our courts are so overburdened that people are sitting on remand not just for a long time but often for the length of their potential sentence. It’s absurd. It’s beyond absurd.

And finally—and finally—there are a whole lot of minor but quite important changes around the use of body scanners, particularly around heat signatures, which are going to be deployed. I think that’s a positive.

I want to bookend this in the way that I started. Look, we are supporting the bill. There are good aspects to this. But I’d prefer people at home not to think that this is some amazing amendment bill. It’s lots of little changes—a little bit like they’ve done in other spaces of law and order: little changes. Yep, they’ll do some good but nowhere near as good as is needed. As I say, fundamentally with an amendment bill like this, it really should read in Part 1 that come 14 October, Corrections will be amended by having the Labour Government thrown out.

Madam Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak on this important bill, the Corrections Amendment Bill, which will make the changes which are needed and are important to make our justice system function as it should. Reducing reoffending is some of the most important work that any public servant can do. Taking somebody who has been judged for the worst thing that they have ever done in their lives, isolated from their family and friends, and rebuilding them so that they are capable of re-entering a community that can then support them is a very difficult thing to do. This is what this bill will enable corrections officers to do. It is incredibly difficult work and we should thank them for their role in that process, which doesn’t only start with them; it starts with the whole community around them.

I say this because on that side of the House we have heard over and over again that this is caused by not having enough corrections officers, while at the same time Opposition members have given speeches about how corrections officials are boffins, that they sit in their offices and come up with ideas that we don’t need. Our corrections officials are doing the work that our justice system needs, to right wrongs of hundreds of years that have underserved our communities. I thank those men and women who go to work every day in our corrections system in South Auckland and Manurewa to make people’s lives better and to improve the work that their community are doing for these people who have suffered.

This bill will make those changes that we need. This bill is something that I look forward to having those conversations that we need to have within committee.

Before I call the next member, could I just ask the members on this side, if you’re going to have conversations with each other, could you sit next to each other or possibly just keep the volume down.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party on this Corrections Amendment Bill. We’re going to support it at the first reading because we want to hear from the submitters, because we have reservations about this bill. So does National.

Now, the great thing about it, when you read through the information, is that the Government has at least had a public consultation in August and September, which is a very large document which I managed to read last year, and it’s also had about 200 responses to the survey and 57 written submissions—also, that they partnered with iwi and key stakeholders and sought feedback from prisoners with workshops, with seven at the Christchurch Men’s Prison and six at the Christchurch Women’s Prison.

I’m glad you actually consulted, because this is where you learn what is needed on the ground. As Mark Mitchell said earlier, he had a meeting with the Corrections Association of New Zealand (CANZ) at their AGM today, and I’m very fortunate that I’ll be speaking to them tomorrow. They have concerns too; they’re upset that they can’t help prisoners because they are short of staff, and also rehabilitation programmes have been closed down that were making differences. If we can’t rehabilitate them, then we are going to continue the cycle of reoffending. The thing is that we’re all for this—we want our prisoners to come out with skills. We are desperate—myself who suffers from dyslexia, I hate to think how many are in our prisons that have dyslexia and neurodiversity. We’re not even getting them tested on that, and that is supposed to be part of the criteria. And it’s a sad reality that that is not happening.

Now, we were a bit concerned around the modernising and futureproofing of the Act to clarify Corrections’ powers to monitor prisoners’ communication and information source for intelligence, but once you get reading it, you realise that, yes, they’ve done their due diligence, and the Attorney-General has come back and said there is no hassles with this, because we don’t want any more people’s rights to be infringed when already, as we have said, they are not seeing loved ones or families in person. Some of them haven’t seen them in two years.

Now, also, prisoners have contacted me saying, “Hey, we want rehabilitation.”—but they’re not getting it. It’s a sad, sad reality today. But also moving forward into modern technology around video calling and internet services, well, why can’t we also move that into some of the rehabilitation phases where there’s possibilities—tablets, where you don’t have to have the internet but you’ve got programmes on it so that these ladies and gentlemen, while they’re in their cells, have actually things to do around learning or seeing videos on things that can be downloaded. It would be much appreciated if something like that was added into this bill to move us into this modern age. But there’s nothing there.

Now, we also have concerns around the remand prisoners being put with accused. I know it is limited, but, yes, again, there’s a huge problem there within Corrections, especially around staffing, because to move a remand prisoner around prison, they have to make sure other prisoners are locked up, let alone having to have classrooms or facilities where they are. So there’s going to be a huge change there that needs to be looked at. Also, you hear stories of remand prisoners that have been sitting in a prison waiting for their court case and two years, three years later they are released because it’s time served, and they have done nothing while they’ve been sitting there because of their remand. So we need to get our court system up and running so that these people are not sitting on remand for long periods of time and, if they are, let’s make sure they do get those basic needs of rehabilitation given to them.

Now, the other thing that they have in here is around making the disciplinary process for prisoners a lot faster and better. And as I talked to CANZ, actually, a few weeks ago, they said, like anything, you need what we call the carrot and the stick, right? Everybody understands that if you reward somebody, they will keep doing good behaviour, but if they misbehave then there needs to be punishment. Now this needs to be done more of because, at the moment, a lot of the corrections staff are seeing prisoners not being pulled up for misbehaviour within the prison system. And that’s not on, because how can you keep some form of control of these prisoners if you’re not pulling up bad behaviour and making it hard for our corrections staff? You know, they’re there, they’re facing it every day, and you don’t want them to go home to their loved ones with bruises and battered because of them being the ones that frustrations are being taken out on. We don’t want to see them go to hospital because of these frustrations that our current prisoners are facing—because they’re not getting rehabilitation programmes or seeing their loved ones in person because of the numbers of our corrections staff—and we’re losing huge numbers of experienced ones, and $4 million is only the tip of the iceberg that this Government is having to do for recruiting. It is going to end up being a hell of a lot more, which is quite sad because we can’t attract enough people here and we’re losing really good staff to overseas because they have not been heard.

Now, it’s not pay; it’s conditions. Now, the thing is, if we don’t make conditions good for everybody in the prison, then it’s just one big mess. Now, also in this is around the cultural. Now, we’re all for that because it’s all part of rehabilitation that people’s cultures need to be recognised. If you read information from overseas, it shows that family is a huge part of rehabilitation, and we’re saying it’s good to see Māori, Pasifika, but we need to recognise other cultures when possible. We need to recognise that we are a multi-ethnic society. In the prison, yes, proportionately it is more dominated by Māori, but we also have got to recognise those other cultures because that is part of who they are and we need to make sure they still feel that they are part of their community, and that’s a huge plus if we can get that running the way it says here.

💬 Shanan Halbert: So you recognise ethnicity?

Well, I said we’re a multi-ethnic society, so not just one or two. We are multi-ethnic.

💬 Shanan Halbert: So you’re recognising ethnicity—not colour-blind on this one.

Yes. Now the other thing is that we’ve always said that it should be based around that. Now, the other thing is these scanners. A couple of years ago, I was very fortunate, I was able to go and visit Christchurch Women’s Prison, where they had a scanner already in place trialling it, because for a lot of women it is quite embarrassing, depending on their circumstances of why they are being brought into prison, and if they have had abuse and many other things that have occurred for a lot of these female prisoners, having a pat down pat down is not the ideal situation, even if it is by a fellow female. So these scanners have come in and it’s made them feel a lot more comfortable, least aggravated. So I’m looking forward for them to be rolled out even faster and further.

There is one thing in here that’s going to be very interesting that I’m looking forward to talking to CANZ about and that is people’s identity. Now, I’m happy for people to identify as whoever they are. However, I still have a slight problem if there is a gentleman who is identifying as a female and requests for a female officer to be able to pat them down, the security around that. Because the thing is that we do know that there could be a size difference, a strength difference. Now, we don’t want to put our corrections people in danger. So we need to make sure there is safety measures in there for those corrections staff. Quite regularly we need to make sure that all prisoners are safe as well as corrections staff.

Now, in general, as we said, we’re supporting this bill at first reading because we want to hear from the important people that will help to administer many of these changes, and we also look forward to many of the organisations that help with rehabilitation programmes within the prison. And we look forward to that because they’re the ones with the feet on the ground as well as our corrections staff. So I’m looking forward to the unions, not only the CANZ union but the New Zealand Public Service Association, coming in and talking to us and giving us their opinions around how this is a good bill or how it can be improved to make everything better for our prisoners, to get the best rehabilitation so that we have less offending—and also, hopefully, we get the rehabilitation that’s in my member’s bill, if it is ever drawn before we finish, which is: no rehabilitation, no parole. But we need that rehabilitation to happen so they can get that parole.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The time has come for me to leave the chair for the dinner break. The House will resume at 7.30 pm.

Sitting suspended from 6.02 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Kia ora, members. Before we broke for dinner, we were debating the Corrections Amendment Bill. The next call is a Green Party call.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to stand. So I will be putting clear on record that we will be opposing this corrections bill. I’ll outline the main concerns, and I will also look at some of the things in the bill which we think are positive but which don’t go far enough and aren’t enough to combat the potential harm that we think this bill causes.

I first want to put on record that I understand the intentions behind the bill. The PR that was put out by my colleague, Minister Davis, today, talked about “boosting rehabilitation and reintegration of prisoners”—now, that we have long supported. What we are concerned about, in three main points, I think, is the Tiriti approach that is outlined, in our view, doesn’t go far enough—and because it is superficial in a certain way, what that means is that we could be excusing a less-than-deep approach to a truly Tiriti-led way of working around corrections. We definitely are concerned around the age-mixing of children and adults, and we maintain that that mixing is always a breach of the rights of the child, especially but not limited to international law, something that we’ve—as a Government, as a country—been rapped on the hands about for a long, long time. We do have concerns, as others have stated in the House, about the mixing of sentenced and remand prisoners together in rehabilitation. One of the main points there is that, absolutely, people, including remand prisoners, should be able to access good services and supports, including therapeutic support; there, in our eyes, is no need to enable mixing of prisoners to be able to do that.

So the Titiri concerns I’m happy to pick up in a little bit more detail. There is a reference incorporated to Te Tiriti on the paper that refers to—I think the language used is “engaging” with Māori on matters relating to rehabilitation, and to “provide access to mātauranga Māori”. All of these references fall far short of the true transformational reform that is needed to bring our system of justice actually in line with Tiriti justice and Tiriti obligations of actual Māori leadership, of Te Ao Māori - based justice. We therefore don’t want to kid the public or the House into thinking that this can start to serve the transformational and deeper requirements that are needed. The bill also requires Corrections to develop, maintain, and implement a strategy focusing on improving outcomes for Māori in the justice system—and here, again, we want to maintain that we keep our collective focus on the truly foundational changes that are needed.

I think here I was going to raise the example of the success of the rangatahi youth courts, and I’ve been privileged to be able to attend some of those hearings over the years. They have been in action for about 15 years now, and I think we’re up to around about more than 15 of those around the country. I was privileged to attend the launch of the Manurewa Kōti Rangatahi, which I believe was the second after Gisborne. So there have been authentic and enduring successes across those approaches, especially in terms of reducing and lowering re-offending rates—good, good, ka pai.

So the differences between those quite foundational changes in the ways of working and the quite superficial references in this bill to Tiriti justice and Tiriti accountability are quite stark, and there’s a massive contrast there. So that is a concern and we are highlighting that. I think we are also echoing other concerns that many members in here have raised with the staffing shortages and the existing centralised mega prison system developed by successive Governments.

Part of my role, especially as a prevention of violence Minister, is to visit prisons and meet with corrections staff. Many, many, many times over all of my years in Parliament—certainly recently—I’ve been hearing the concerns raised directly to me about shortages, which I know the Minister and Corrections are aware of, and I know that we are all wanting to support and see improvement in proper staffing and safe staffing. Safety for workforces is always a concern for the Green Party—and safety for everyone in prisons as well. So that was the first Tiriti-approach concern. If I can go a little bit more [Looks at clock]—oh, goodness, that goes fast—into age-mixing and mixing of sentenced and remand prisoners in rehabilitation, our system still lacks the properly resourced, evidence-based, and standardised rehabilitation programmes. So in terms of the current availability and quality of programmes on offer, there’s not good consistency between institutions, and existing sentenced prisoners are therefore regularly denied a place also in programmes like drug and alcohol rehabilitation, anger management, or literacy. Others have spoken about that quite scandalous gap of many people in prison actually having dropped through some quite scandalous gaps in education systems, for example, let alone mental health care.

So it’s still extremely unclear why the Government needs to make legal the mixing of convicted and remand prisoners to be able to offer that support. I’m really, really looking forward to what the Justice Committee contributions highlight in light of this particular breach of a long understood standard under international and domestic human rights laws.

And now I come to what is always a breach of the rights of the child: the age-mixing of children and adults. That on its own is a bridge too far for us to be able to outright support. And, again, I highlight the fact that there is any thinking that there are situations where mixing of young people and adult prisoners could be in the best interests of the child, given decades of extremely consistent research, ongoing binding international tool standards, and—what I said at the start—the specific and regular criticism that we’ve received over decades by the UN Committee on Rights of the Child. Yes, since 1990, so even more than I thought—which was of course the ratification of the convention, and that’s one of the most universally accepted and binding of human rights laws. So with those three concerns, we felt that threshold was far too potentially harmful for us to support this bill. Again, we look forward to select committee contributions.

I’m going to finish by acknowledging some of what we think are potentially good things, of course. So the process for authorising the use of non-lethal weapons and the legislating where the Minister must consider sufficient information relevant to the use of non-lethal weapons such as operational policies and training materials for staff—ka pai, good. There are a number of other miscellaneous amendments. Others have picked up on allowing body imaging technology to be used instead of a rub down. And, again, as a prevention of violence Minister, I absolutely support those amendments in this bill, but they could be done at an operational level and wouldn’t have needed legislation. They could be amended at the regulatory and operational level, and they are something that could have been done this whole time. I support those, but it’s still not enough to meet the threshold of potential harm. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

It’s really disappointing to hear that the Greens are not going to support this at first reading, because a number of the issues that the previous member, Marama Davidson, raised, in my view, could have been discussed and debated at the select committee stage. Certainly, around the mixing of children and adults, the preamble, the explanatory note to the bill, clearly states that it is where it is in the best interests of the child. That is unequivocal and what the member has done is, essentially, rule out that there could ever be a situation where that could be in their best interests.

The other element is around prisoners on remand mixing with convicted prisoners. Again, an assumption that this could never be in the interests of those who are presumed innocent—i.e., those on remand—when, in fact, we know that resourcing is such that sometimes these really important rehabilitative programmes cannot be delivered, either because there are not enough numbers or because it is cost prohibitive to do two courses.

So this is a practical way of the law following what is needed on the ground. And it’s really disturbing to hear the Opposition actually say that they care about rehabilitation when all the announcements I’ve heard from them recently have been about locking up more prisoners through their attempt to try and return the three strikes law.

Finally, it is abhorrent to hear people suggest that the Hon Kelvin Davis is missing in action. He has been a completely committed and dedicated Minister, who has worked tirelessly, particularly around the kaupapa of keeping Māori out of prison. We know that 53 percent of male prisoners are Māori, 67 percent women, when in fact in the general population it’s only 15 percent. That is why that Minister works so tirelessly and that’s why we are seeing the impacts that we are seeing in reducing prison rates and in seeing measures like this fantastic rehabilitation bill come before the House. I commend it.

The next call is a split call. I call the Hon David Bennett—five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, that last speaker has been getting very agitated in this House in the last couple of speeches that she has made, and I think it’s the stress of knowing she’s on the way out and her party is on the way out. I think that stress is showing in the tone that we’re seeing from that speaker.

💬 Hon Grant Robertson: How can you be talking about things being on the way out?

And it’s great to see Grant Robertson in the House here today. He should actually be in his office, trying to save the economy, instead of being down here, trying to look like he’s reading some material. But, you know—

💬 Hon Grant Robertson: On the way out.

On the way out—exactly what Grant Robertson is. You know, he’s the man that has caused a recession that the Labour Party called a technical recession today—they won’t actually admit that it’s a recession. [Interruption Then the Labour Party are constantly interjecting because they want to hear more about the recession that they have created, and Grant is—they can’t even say the word in question time any more. They can’t say the word “recession”—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! Order! The member will come back to this particular bill, the Corrections Amendment Bill.

Oh, thank you, Madam Chair. I was just responding to the Hon Grant Robertson’s interjections and just confirming what he’s done to this economy.

But this bill is about corrections, and anybody that’s been in a prison—and most politicians will actually have had the opportunity, I guess, in some way to go through a prison and see what it is actually like and to see how hard it is, and to see the young men, particularly, in there that can’t read and can’t write. They’re very angry. A lot of them are in a very dangerous position in their personal lives, at that young, formative stage. That’s why you need to do the rehabilitation, and that’s why we’re doing what we’re doing on our side when we’re supporting rehabilitation—like we’re supporting this bill.

It’s really important that we understand some of the aspects of those young men, particularly, and their journey in our prison system. There can be no excuse for the activities that have been undertaken to get someone into prison, and it’s very difficult to actually get to prison. We had a Crown prosecutor speak at a school event, and, basically, for anybody that can get through year 12, there’s virtually a zero percent chance that they will actually end up in prison. Basically, anybody that can get through year 12 virtually doesn’t go to prison unless they do some kind of fraud.

So, effectively, we need to look at some of the drivers in society as well, and that’s really where the National Party is coming from. We’re looking at a cohesive plan around education, around work, and around giving people incentives to actually have a better life, rather than glorifying gangs and rather than glorifying that aspect and saying that that’s a legitimate perspective of how people can get through in life. That’s the difference between National and Labour, and that’s the difference in how we approach these issues.

So we will be supporting this bill because there are some parts of it that reflect our desire to see more rehabilitation, and actual rehabilitation. We had the Department of Corrections come in front of the select committee last week, and, as is typical for the Department of Corrections, they were very defensive of the Government in the senior leadership there. One of the issues was around rehabilitation, because a lot of money has been spent on rehabilitation and not a lot of service delivery is actually being seen, and they couldn’t actually answer that question in the select committee. Now, they said that they’d get the information and send it through, but surely when you’re spending something like I think it was $170 million, you would know where that money would be going and you would know what you’re trying to do with that, and they couldn’t answer those questions. It really spoke volumes about their approach to rehabilitation.

Anyone that’s been in this House and been through a prison will know that the prison officers do a sterling job for this country. They do amazing work and we thank them, but we need a system that actually supports them as well, and a system that doesn’t give them the tools to deal with those prisoners isn’t supporting them. That’s where the National Party is coming from: we want a system that actually supports those prison officers so that they are safe and we actually get the results and less offending—

Order! The member’s time is up.

Thank you. It is a pleasure to rise and take a call on the Corrections Amendment Bill. It’s wonderful to hear across the House the unequivocal support for the workers in the middle of this and the professional perspective that unions and workers bring to resolving such complex issues as those that we have in our prisons. This bill addresses quite a few different aspects of the challenges within our prison system. So it’s great to hear the support from the other side. I expect we will hear more support as we go on, appreciating that the worker, the professional perspective, is critical when we’re trying to resolve such complex issues.

We’ve heard a lot about the intent of this bill being about improving access to what we need with regard to rehabilitation. We’ve heard about the overrepresentation in our prison system, both our men and our women—neurodiversity, substance use disorders, and challenges around literacy and numeracy and access to skills and qualifications, as well as, of course, mental health challenges.

The idea of improving access to these—we’ve heard about the practicalities in a very small and geographically dispersed prison population, about being able to provide in a practical sense the access to courses that prisoners need and those on remand could benefit from. The idea of improving prisoners’ access to literacy and numeracy enables their access and their ability to better engage with rehabilitation programmes and eventually gives them the confidence to seek and hold down meaningful work when eventually they come out back into society. I commend this bill to the House.

I was just doing the numbers and reflecting, and it’s been at least 40 years since my first prison experience. My mother was a prison chaplain in Mt Eden women’s prison—don’t panic, nothing to hide here. Going into Mt Eden women’s prison in the early 1980s—a very different time back then in terms of accessibility to prisons for children. But then, through my years, all the way from Auckland down to Otago I have had experiences in a number of our corrections facilities, supporting, sadly, mostly young people who I was working and walking alongside. So I’ve seen firsthand, I’ve seen up close and personal the inside of how prisons operate and the impacts they have on prisoners and those who are on remand.

I do want to acknowledge victims of crime, and understand that prisons are a necessary part of our society, but from what I’ve seen and experienced working alongside people who are going through corrections and the prison process, we need to do everything we can. We need to do everything we can to ensure rehabilitation; to ensure that they have access to alcohol and drugs treatments; to ensure that they have access to whakapapa, to kaupapa Māori services; that they have access to their religious beliefs and what they follow; that they have access to therapeutic therapies to support them. And so in this legislation, when it comes around the potential moments of mixing remand and sentenced prisoners, if it’s around outcomes for the offenders, if it’s around bringing about healing, if it’s around them re-entering society as better contributing members, then we need to do it. I commend this bill.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Good to rise and talk on this bill, noting that the National Party is in support of the Corrections Amendment Bill.

We do have a reduced prison muster at the moment that’s received plenty of attention over the past fortnight or so, and we believe that there are some steps in this that are positive. We support this bill through to the select committee stage and, of course, we’ll support common-sense measures to help those in our prison system. Obviously, this is an area where we want to reduce—where we want to get people rehabilitated. What we don’t want is a revolving door. But also what we don’t want is people in society who are, you know, a real and credible threat to society. I think that’s probably where this Government has overbalanced a little bit in depopulating the prisons. And as a result, we’ve seen crime numbers go up a fair bit; gang numbers are up significantly.

But on this, we support offence-based rehabilitation, and we would like to have seen rehabilitation services made available across all of the different programmes. We note that just under half of the prisoners in there are on remand and there’s a fair chunk of those who actually spend their entire sentence—they see out their sentence in remand. That’s probably a bit of a call-out to how poorly our justice system is operating at the moment. We have a Government that’s more focused on hate speech and other bits and pieces in the justice sector instead of actually getting the courts moving.

I note in my home town of Tauranga we had been promised a new courthouse, just to see the justice Minister recently kick that one down the road. That doesn’t help us get through with the processing, so, as a result, a lot of prisoners are spending their sentence in the remand facilities. And if they don’t have access to the whole range of services there and, you know, a fair chunk of them are spending a chunk of time in remand when they do their sentences, then they’re not going to be rehabilitated. That is a bad thing for the prisoner, it’s a bad thing for the victim, and it’s ultimately a bad thing for society, because what we are going to do is send these people back out into society no better off necessarily than they were when they went in there, and potentially they’re worse off.

If someone has got addiction issues, then we want them to be able to access those services when they are in the prison facilities, whether that be remand or the general jail system. If someone has more specific requirements, whether that be around violent or sexual offending or whatever it may be, then we believe that they should be able to access those services as soon as possible, because it’s essential that they do get that help that they need and not just generalised motivational courses or a few life skills courses. We really want those people to be getting the rehabilitation they need from day one when they get into the remand system.

And we note that prisoners have suffered a fair bit recently. Mark Mitchell called it out when he was speaking as the second speaker today on this bill, and noted that there are a shortage of corrections officers. We’re not talking about the officials in the back offices, but we’re talking about the people that are in the front lines, on the ground, doing the hard work and dealing with an increasingly violent prison arena. We note that violence against prison officers has escalated quite significantly. I think when I was looking at the statistics last year, it looked like it was up about 90 percent since 2017. And the net result of that is that people don’t necessarily want to do that job any more.

And then the Australians very cunningly put on a lot of ads, as they are right across the economy at the moment, trying to get our skilled workers over there. And, you know, from someone who has lived there, it’s a pretty good life. I think people are looking at that and an increased income and probably a corrections Minister and a system that backs them up a bit more, gives them what they need to defend themselves and their peers, and then they’re going, “Well, you know, I don’t necessarily want to be dealing with Mongrel Mob members all day and not having a system that backs me up. I might look at other options.”

But the net result of where I’m going with all of this is that quite often there aren’t the prison officers there on the ground, as Mark Mitchell referred to today, to allow those visitations to take place, which are such a key part of ensuring—often they are, you know, young, angry men—that they do get the support that they need from whānau, family, friends and loved ones to enable them to keep those key connections. It’s been noted that a lot of them spend a lot of time just on their own really, or maybe bunked up, but a lot of time disconnected from their loved ones and from their sense of belonging.

So if we were focused a little bit more on listening to the front lines—and I thought Mark Mitchell put it very well today when he said the best thing this Government could do in this area would be to listen to the officers on the front line, go out there and listen to them like he was today and make sure that they are getting backed up, because if they are feeling safe and they have the numbers there, then they will be doing their job properly. They will be safer, the prisoners will be safer, and ultimately they’ll be able to have a lot more of the visitation rights that they haven’t been able to have this year.

So while we support this bill, Mr Speaker—I note that you have switched from the previous Speaker during this call; I’m glad I got the pronoun correct—we do want to see some changes, some common-sense changes which I have outlined in this. And I will note that we support this bill. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for allowing me to speak on the Corrections Amendment Bill at its first reading.

I, like many people, I imagine, had no experience with the inside of a prison until actually assuming this role and having the opportunity to visit the prisons on the outskirts of Christchurch. Like many, many people speaking before, I was really impressed by the dedication and hard-working nature of the people who work in corrections and their commitment to rehabilitation. I really just wanted to agree with Mr Uffindell that the people who are in prison—who are being held to account for their criminal behaviour—should leave in a better state than when they went in.

I think what we’re trying to do here is do a few simple things that will make life safer and more productive for our wonderful corrections officers and staff. But we’re also trying to weigh up the importance of the presumption of innocence for our remand accused prisoners with their need to participate in therapeutic programmes and other educational programmes so that they can integrate more successfully back into society. Because, as we’ve heard, they currently do have a limited access to programmes and services that will be of enormous benefit not only to them as well as, obviously, to the sentenced prisoners who they will be able to work together with—under very limited circumstances, as I said, so that we can protect that presumption of innocence.

Being committed to seeing people leave prison or leave remand in a better state than they went in is the goal here. As a result, I commend this bill to the House.

The question is, That the Corrections Amendment Bill be considered by the Justice Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Justice Committee.

I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Deposit Takers Bill and the Fuel Industry Amendment Bill.