Ardern Jacinda: Corrections Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading 
Ardern Jacinda: Corrections Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading 
[Volume:651;Page:1011] 
JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
: 
 Before I begin I would not mind reflecting for a moment on the speech made by Mr Garrett. We heard a lot in his speech about Arizona; I enjoyed his very comprehensive rundown of the system there. However during my 6 months spent living in Arizona I frequently noted along the highways where the prisons were located that there were signs—as often as the signs we have here indicating speed limits—that stated: “Do not stop and pick up passengers. Prisoners likely to be roaming free.” I do not know whether we would wish to make that kind of comparison. I will draw a comparison later on in my comments by noting that in fact there have in the past been similarities between our prison system and that of Arizona based on the number of escapes but I will come back to that. 
Before I begin my contribution on the Corrections Amendment Bill (No 2) I will briefly review the history that this bill has gone through. As my colleague MetiriaTurei pointed out this is a novel bill for this new term of Parliament. I recognise that the Minister of Justice Mr Power may criticise the lack of speed. That is interesting given our criticism that there has been too much speed from the National Government side of the House in the consideration of some of the bills we have had so far. Just in order to give a little lesson on Government process I say this bill was introduced on 3 December 2007. We followed up after the Christmas break with its first reading on 21 February and despite the widespread support for the bill and the fact that many members in this House agreed with what we were doing we chose to send it to a select committee. The bill was referred to the Law and Order Committee and now it has been referred back to this House. 
However I congratulate my colleagues in National on taking up this bill. I will restate what the leader of the Labour Party has clearly articulated which is that when the Government puts forth legislation that we think is in the best interests of New Zealanders we will support it. In this situation given that we wrote the bill we do believe that the policy it represents is in the best interests of New Zealanders. Hence it has our support. 
I will just reflect on the context in which the bill was introduced. At the time of the introduction of the bill we noted that the Corrections Act 2004 was working well and we are still of that opinion. We have seen since the Act’s introduction—and well beyond that in fact as the Labour leader has already outlined—that the number of prison escapes has dropped by a massive 84 percent. I say to Mr Garrett that there is no need to have road signs like those in Arizona in New Zealand because when we compare this situation with the situation we had 10 years ago we see that we have made massive improvements in that area. That has happened through taking proactive measures like having a single point of entry and perimeter fencing at our prisons. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Good ideas. 
JACINDA ARDERN 
: Those are good ideas which are working well. Drug taking is also something that I like my colleagues want to reflect on. It is far far less common than what we saw in 1999. Let me throw out a number because I do not want speeches from members on this side of the House to be full of empty rhetoric and wind. We do have numbers: 34 percent of prisoners were testing positive for drugs in 1999. We now have a much lower rate of positive testing. There has been a doubling in the number of drug-dog teams in our prisons which has made a massive difference. 
Putting all of that into context is the fact that our prison muster has increased. It has increased and now that National is in Government the National members have acknowledged that. We have a higher prison muster than previously and that is down to the reforms made by Labour while it was in Government. The changes we made to parole sentencing and bail have seen a greater number of people serving longer sentences in our prisons. Despite that we have made miraculous gains in the way that our corrections system is operating. I would just like members to reflect on that. But being the humble Government that we were we recognised that further improvements could be made and that is why we put forward this bill. 
We believe that legislation needs to be based on objectives and we had two aims when we put forward this bill. A novel idea which I would like to share with members opposite is that a Government can set out some objectives and principles before it puts forward legislation. I also invite them to reflect that it might have been useful to outline the problem they were trying to fix with the last two bills we have seen. We did that with regard to this bill. We said our No. 1 aim was to enhance the safety and security of prisons and we wanted to do that through a reduction in the amount of contraband and the suppression of cellphone use. Our No. 2 objective was to improve the provision for agencies to share information about the highest risk offenders. We had a very good reason for doing that; it was about their reintegration into our communities. The No. 1 aim in all of our justice legislation which members will see as they review it was the safety of the community. [ 
Interruption 
] It has always been our highest priority I say to Mr Garrett. That is why we made provision in this bill for the sharing of information: to ensure that during reintegration we place greater emphasis on the safety of the community. 
I am pleased to see that those principles were then turned into action. Members will note that the bill is quite a lengthy one based on what we wanted to achieve. I know the National Government is trying to keep bills to one or two pages at best but we thought we would broaden this bill out a bit. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: All their ideas together. 
JACINDA ARDERN 
: That is right—all of the National Government’s ideas are contained in a maximum of one or two clauses but we thought we would go a little beyond that. 
Let us take a quick look at what we proposed on contraband at our attempt to reduce the circulation of drugs alcohol money weapons and electronic devices in prison. Our provisions allowed for the searching of staff lockers. They amended the definition of “strip search” and provided for strip searching when a prisoner is to be retested for drugs and alcohol and before and after parole hearings. They provided for retesting where a sample provided by a prisoner during drug and alcohol testing is diluted tainted or otherwise contaminated and strengthened the provisions around tampering with a sample or possessing items that could be used to tamper with a sample. They introduced new provisions relating to unauthorised electronic communication devices including making it an imprisonable offence for a prisoner to use or possess an electronic communication device without authorisation. They also introduced a new offence for any person to knowingly possess an unauthorised item while in prison. 
That is quite a hefty list. I think members will agree it could not be confused with window dressing. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: That’s right. This is real. 
JACINDA ARDERN 
: These are real provisions and they were introduced to make real changes to our system. That is why I again congratulate the Government on taking on this legislation which will genuinely improve our prisons and corrections system. 
I will very briefly reflect on some of the things that came back from the Law and Order Committee because it is a novelty to have the opportunity to do so. I will take a few paragraphs from the second reading speech of the previous Minister of Corrections. I did ask his permission before reading these excerpts and Mr Finlayson may like to take note of that. The committee notably strengthened the forfeiture provisions so that a visiting justice or adjudicator may order the forfeiture of anything that has been used to commit an offence and it also increased penalties. 
Again I commend the Government for taking on this bill. The bill has our support for good reasons which are that we wrote it and we think it will improve the corrections system. In my closing remarks I join the Labour leader in calling for a broader debate on justice and corrections issues. We looked beyond this legislation to the development of an employment programme for our corrections facilities. As the Opposition spokesperson on youth justice I look forward to hearing the proposals from members opposite on what else the Government will do to ensure that our prison muster decreases not because of changes in sentencing and parole but because the Government invests more time energy and resources in early intervention.