Bridges Simon: Corrections Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee 
Bridges Simon: Corrections Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee 
[Volume:652;Page:1365] 
SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga) 
: 
 It is good to speak to Part 1 of the Corrections Amendment Bill (No 2) and I must say I have been very interested in the content of the debate at least in respect of clause 6 “Religious and spiritual needs”. I was very interested to hear what the Hon Simon Power had to say. It is obviously an interesting and important clause which as he says attracted a lot of attention in the Law and Order Committee. For my part as an Anglican I want to say that the emphasis on Catholicism is not necessarily apt. Clause 6 is open to interpretation and could well cause the courts some problems. In subclause 3(a) the words “consumes a small quantity of wine” are open to interpretation. What to one person is a small quantity to another may well be quite a lot. In the Anglican Church there are two ways to take Communion: one can dip a tablet in the wine or take hold of the cup. I suspect that taking hold of the cup could well fall foul of the law whereas dipping the tablet in the wine would not. It will be interesting to see how the courts interpret that provision. 
But more broadly Part 1 is the lion’s share of what is a very good bill. Its theme and contents are in Part 1. It is good that the Labour Government introduced this bill. It is a shame it did not ever get around to passing it and doing something about the problems in the corrections system which this bill will address. 
David Garrett 
: It had only 4 years! 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: That is right. It is a ridiculous situation where criminals find it as easy to get drugs and to do drugs inside prison as outside prison. Part 1 speaks to that as well as to a number of other issues. It is a situation we have been faced with for 9 years under the Labour Government but which it did nothing about. Drugs get into prisons it seems at alarmingly high rates. Part 1 also addresses the use of cellphones which allows communications with the outside world and indeed criminal conspiracies to occur from inside prison. It deals with drugs coming in and cellphone communications going out that effectively as has happened in the past allow criminals to keep on going as they always have whether they are inside or outside prison. There are many practical consequences from Part 1. It will clamp down on cellphone use clamp down on drug use and interestingly clamp down on mail going in and out of prison. It gives prison authorities the right to deal with mail in a much more discriminating fashion. That is for the good. I have certainly been involved in cases where mail coming in and out has caused problems. For example mail has been sent out from prison to potential witnesses in trials telling them what to say at court intimidating them and causing them all manner of troubles. That is just the mail that is intercepted and that is not good enough. Part 1 does something about that. 
But it is not just the practical consequences of the bill that are worthy of comment. Fundamentally it sticks in the throat of ordinary decent Kiwis of which there are many many in my electorate of Tauranga that drugs go into prisons that prisoners can keep on doing drugs with impunity that cellphones go into prisons and that prisoners can keep on making calls to the outside world whilst in prison. Essentially under Labour they could keep on doing in prison what they had always done on the outside. As I say that is not just wrong or something that has stuck in the throat of ordinary Kiwis; it is repugnant.