Cosgrove Clayton: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
Cosgrove Clayton: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:653;Page:2440] 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 I was not going to take another call but that was an outstanding contribution by Sandra Goudie. I just want to touch on two— 
Sandra Goudie 
: Thank you Clayton. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Oh it was outstanding and it will be etched in the annals of the House. The Minister in the chair Judith Collins made a couple of interesting statements. 
First she said that she was ashamed at the number of prisoners who are incarcerated in our prisons and I agree with her on that. Our imprisonment rate is the second-highest in the world per capita I think. But I have to ask the Minister whether she is the same member who in Opposition paraded in this House every day along with Simon Power saying to the then Labour Government that we had not locked up enough offenders. After building four prisons and after having more prisoners locked up—as I said we have the second-highest imprisonment rate per capita in the world—she said we had not locked up enough offenders. 
Sandra Goudie 
: They keep reoffending; that’s why. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: The “Orange Roughy” over there who spoke before me said every day in Parliament that our Government had not locked up enough offenders that we had been too soft and that there were not enough offenders kept inside our prisons. 
But now the Minister has had a road to Damascus experience where she has come in and is trying to portray herself as some sort of Mother Teresa - like figure within the National Government—some sort of humanitarian. I am waiting for the crocodile tears that she was so fond of turning on occasionally in this House when she says she thinks it is a shameful thing that we have so many prisoners in prison. I agree with her on that but there is a word for that sort of statement. It begins with “h” and she knows what it is. She cannot have it both ways. 
Second Judith Collins is a Minister who has demanded accountability. She has demanded accountability from the chief executive and he is still there. She has demanded accountability from the staff and they are all still there. She has demanded that heads should roll and people in the community sat back and watched after the Auditor-General’s report came out—and it was a damning report—and after a report that she called for from the State Services Commissioner in his capacity as the chief executive’s employer was released. She is a Minister who would not express any confidence before during or after that analysis and a Minister who said there would be accountability. I ask the Minister who is accountable after an expensive series of reports and after her bluff and bluster. She wandered around like some sort of female Clint Eastwood in the OK Corral. She was going to sort the situation out and she was given a nickname in this House that I will not use but I ask her who is accountable. I say to the Prime Minister that I do not mind who goes—whether it be somebody from the department or whether it be the Minister—but the Minister demanded accountability and we are still waiting to see it. 
I put this to the Minister. I asked her this question and she would not put a number on it. During  
Q+A 
 on 29 March she was asked by Guyon Espiner “…you’re a Minister who’s demanded accountability from others how should we judge you in terms of your Corrections portfolio …”. It is a good question I would have thought. As we roll into an election in the next 3 years people will want to know that. The answer was “I like to think ah that after my term as corrections Minister that we will have less recidivism we will have fewer prisoners who are taking drugs in prison and we will have fewer assaults on staff and other prisoners”—and I assume but I paraphrase fewer escapes. But when asked by people to put a number on that to tell them what “less” and “fewer” meant and how they should judge her—because she is the accountability queen of Parliament—would the Minister put a number on it? Oh no! Would she assist the New Zealand people in enabling them to judge her? Is the number 1 percent or 10 percent or 90 percent? What is it? Apparently it is “less” and “fewer”. 
I say to the Minister that she has been hoist with her own petard her own rhetoric and her own Dirty Harry Clint Eastwood - type impression that she is going to get tough on everybody: the police and the Department of Corrections. She said she was going to demand accountability. Sadly—or not sadly from our point of view—she had egg all over her face after report after report came out. National said it was going to do away with bureaucracy but we were told in the Law and Order Committee that there is now to be a very expensive layer of monitors to monitor the performance of the Department of Corrections. I think Iain Rennie told us that some of those people will be brought in from overseas. So now we are to have the Auditor-General’s office and the State Services Commissioner who apparently are not responsible or accountable and the Minister who apparently is also not accountable and responsible— 
Sandra Goudie 
: No he is! Clayton Cosgrove is. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: We have the “Orange Roughy” who says she is not accountable or responsible and now we will have a very expensive group of monitors to do the Minister’s job for her. 
In the next couple of years I look forward to re-rehearsing the statements that the Minister has made. The petard is high and she will be hoist with it.