Cosgrove Clayton: Corrections Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Cosgrove Clayton: Corrections Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 13 February 2013. Volume:687;Page:7853. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour) 
: 
 I have to say that if you look at the history of Supplementary Order Paper 171 I am advised that this particular measure—the illegal measure of Judith Collins—was introduced in the usual Judith Collins slipshod fashion ironically pre-election. Why would this have been rushed through? 
Judith Collins is a lawyer. This is the justice Minister who will go down in history as being outsmarted by a pretty awful criminal who is in Paremoremo maximum security prison “Pare max” called Arthur Taylor—if not once twice outsmarted by a prisoner who does not have a law degree and does not have a legal background. She got outsmarted by him. God knows how much it cost the taxpayer in court action and—I would say just in passing—in the anguish of victims who had to watch this individual go out of “Pare max” and appear in court like some sort of latter-day Perry Mason to outsmart the Minister of Justice in the arrogant way that I am sure he had. 
But here is the point: you now can understand if you look at the sequencing of this announcement why it was rushed through and why Judith Collins rejected advice that it required law. It was all about plain old-fashioned electioneering politics. Judith Collins jumped up and down and stamped her feet with a Shirley Temple grin: “Let’s be tougher than tough and stop these prisoners smoking. This will be a good election pamphlet to spin out. Who cares about the legality? Who cares about the potential liability to the Crown? Who cares whether the Crown is embarrassed by a bad guy residing in the maximum security prison in the country about the cost to the taxpayer or about the anguish? We’ll just rush this through because it makes us look tough.” That was Judith Collins’ argument. 
Then we come to the advice. We know that Crown Law advice was proffered to this Government. I am not a lawyer but Crown Law—you have to assume it knows and it advises Ministers as to what is legal and what is not legal. It could have advised John Banks—that might have been of assistance to him—but we will not go there. The question I have for the Minister of Corrections is why on earth she will not release said advice. We know it is legally privileged but presumably the advice simply says that the National Government requires legislation to do this properly—to make it an offence to make it illegal—to implement the policy or that it does not require a law but can do that by fiat or by royal announcement in a sort of slipshod Judith Collins fashion. 
Why would you keep that advice privileged? There is only one reason—there is only one reason because there is no commercial sensitivity. The only sensitivity is the embarrassment to this Government and the Minister of Corrections who is in the chair. I will give her this: she is sort of the person with the shovel behind the elephant having to clean it all up. The person who will be most embarrassed by that advice will be Judith Collins who has not even taken a call in this debate on the Corrections Amendment Bill. I simply ask the Minister this: why will she not release the advice—which is probably maybe a paragraph long—that says she needs legislation to do this or she does not? The reason is that it would verify what we are saying. The slipshod—maybe if Steven Joyce had been in charge it might have been OK; he might have been able to fix this. Maybe he should be sitting in the seat taking another portfolio to clean up yet another mess where a reasonably despicable character Arthur Taylor from “Pare max” managed to outsmart the justice and corrections Ministers and the entire National Government—the entire National Government. 
I just simply ask the Minister this: if she will not release the advice from Crown Law will she advise us why? There is no good reason at all why she should not release that advice unless it is simply to protect her honour and the honour of her Government and to protect those Ministers especially Judith Collins from embarrassment. Judith Collins is going to have a hard job crushing this one and bunging it under the carpet. Here we are passing retrospective legislation in the dead of night with a Supplementary Order Paper that was dropped on the Table yesterday with no consultation as usual. I would just say to the Government: “Be it on your own head.” You have stuffed it up yet again. You have been outsmarted by a prisoner from “Pare max”. It looks stupid. It looks amateurish. It looks awful. And the responsibility is sheeted home directly to that crowd across the aisle. But I say colleagues will they ever learn? Will they ever learn to do things properly through a process through consultation and through taking advice? I doubt it.