Mark Ron: Urgent Debates — Corrections Department—Ombudsmen’s Report 
Mark Ron: Urgent Debates — Corrections Department—Ombudsmen’s Report 
[Volume:639;Page:9826] 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 Well this is a sad day and a very interesting day—unfortunately—for the listeners. For a start let us be clear here. New Zealand First does not share the Minister’s view that the Department of Corrections did not seek to deceive or mislead the Office of the Ombudsmen. New Zealand First believes that it is very clear from the report in the rebuttals to Department of Corrections statements upon having read the draft copy of the report and from the past track record of the Department of Corrections that it has been for years engaged in deception and in public relations spin. It has been for years giving a succession of Ministers—I think we are up to the seventh Minister of Corrections since Labour came to office—incomplete inaccurate or deliberately misleading advice. 
New Zealand First does not believe that putting the transportation of inmates back into the hands of the Department of Corrections will in itself change anything. You see it is the Department of Corrections that has had the responsibility for formulating national policy and standard operating procedures for auditing compliance for giving contracts and for assessing and vetting tenderers as to their suitability and ability to meet those nationally applied standards. It has been the Department of Corrections that has had that responsibility ever since the year dot. And it has failed—singularly absolutely and fundamentally—to meet its responsibilities. So it does not matter if we give the job of prisoner transportation to a contractor according to Department of Corrections guidelines or we give it back to the department. Unless there is some fundamental owning up to responsibilities and the failure to meet those responsibilities nothing will change. 
So what is the problem? Well New Zealand First has long said in this House for years now that the problem lies at head office. Let us look at head office’s track record. What do we know about the emergency response unit in Christchurch infamously known as the “goon squad”? Ailsa Duffy’s report states it quite clearly. Head office failed to put in place the correct structures. Head office failed to audit the procedures. Head office failed to ensure that Canterbury was not acting outside the brief for the pilot unit. When it was brought to the attention of head office that there were serious failures and when frontline staff of the prisons concerned—and even members of the “goon squad” itself—raised their objections and their complaints head office shrugged them off dusted them off. It took 4 years to get to the truth of that matter and that did not come through head office people volunteering the information. 
It is clear in that report that Ailsa Duffy had difficulties in ascertaining the clear facts about the reasons for establishing that unit because head office again gave inconsistent evidence and advice. There were rehabilitation programmes—and at the select committee this morning we had another little walk down memory lane on that one. Staff from the head office were running around the world—the world—telling other countries like Canada the United States and England that they were world leaders in developing criminogenic rehabilitation programmes that were succeeding whilst all the time they knew that the data they were assessing was showing that they at best were not making an iota of difference; even worse were not making a difference at all; and terribly worse were actually making the problem worse. 
They did not front up with that information to the Minister. In fact one year they omitted to put any information in the annual report at all. But New Zealand First was not fooled by that you see because we knew what was going on. So when it came to the following year we were looking for those rehabilitation quotients and we were looking for the evidence of success of that programme—and there it was. It was a little figure minus 5 which when we sat down scratched our heads and interpreted it actually said: “My God the programmes are making it worse; as a result of doing these courses people are offending.” But head office people did not front up and say that they were sorry that they had been running courses that had actually been making it more likely for offenders to offend than not to offend and that they had made a big booboo. They said nothing until we with the evidence we had prised it out of them at a select committee. 
I remember how head office dealt with the issue of inappropriate relationships. How ironic that Paul Swain is now sitting in the very seat he sat in as Minister of Corrections year after year. What was his response to corrections? He resigned; he gave it away; he got out of there. He says he is happy to be out of corrections—“Thank God for that.” New Zealand First asked him in a question in this House how many cases the Department of Corrections was investigating for inappropriate relationships between officers and inmates. Paul Swain gave an answer based on quality advice from head office. The number was five. Well New Zealand First had notification of 16 in its hand right there and then so within a day he had to come back bow his head meekly—Paul Swain is nodding right now—and issue a correction because head office had misinformed him. It had misinformed him. 
Year after year in relation to the smuggling of contraband front-line officers were saying that we were not hearing the whole story. Not only were they catching record amounts of contraband but no one was investigating how the stuff had got into the prisons. No one was actively or proactively looking for corruption. Head office people continued to say to their Minister that they had it all under control: “Gee Minister we got 10000 items last year—or was it 5000?”. New Zealand First’s answer was that it did not matter whether it was 5000 or 10000; the questions were about how the contraband got there and what the staff was doing to ascertain that. Did the department have corrupt officers? We have had those discussions and the Minister and Barry Matthews now have a new unit which New Zealand First applauds. We just wish it had happened 5 years ago. 
The failure of home detention is an issue. How many times have we stood here and challenged challenged challenged? Yet we still get the tripe coming out from the Department of Corrections saying that it is a resounding success. I tell the Minister to stop. Front-line officers in the corrections and probation services are saying that half the reason the figures look good is that they are not reporting all of the breaches. Half the reason the figures look so good is that they will not report all of the breaches because they have a system of categorising breaches. The question is: when is a breach not a breach or a breach worth reporting? I mean how did a man die of a P overdose while on home detention and why was he baking it? 
The fundamental root of the problem here is that the Ombudsmen now say that they are disappointed—I think reading between the lines that they are very angry—and that in some respects the Ombudsmen have been misled. Information has been put about that is not accurate. We in New Zealand First are saying that although we actually have great hopes for Mr Barry Matthews and we think he is the best man in the country right now to do this God-awful job—but we suspect he wishes he had never taken it up—sitting underneath him are the same old faces the same people and the same senior managers who for the last 7 years have misled people deceived people inaccurately advised people hidden information from people and colluded with each other to ensure that their incompetencies were not known. 
Well it is over—it is over. One way or another this will be over. New Zealand First is looking to see some changes in faces in that department because quite frankly this country deserves better. This country must have prisons it must have probation and it must have community service. But it can have those things only if the staff who are responsible for managing it are competent and capable and have integrity. 
We take our hats off to the thousands of front-line corrections officers in prisons up and down this country who try desperately to get their voices heard and who give information to senior managers only to find that they themselves are the ones under investigation. It would appear that some senior managers see a greater threat in whistleblowers than they do in the risks that exist within their prisons. 
New Zealand First in some ways is once again hugely saddened and disappointed that we are back to this stage again. But we hope that this is the last time. We hope that in moving forward we will see changes in faces changes in appointments and a change in behaviour from the Department of Corrections.