Ririnui Mita: Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Ririnui Mita: Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 24 November 2009. Volume:659;Page:8185. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon MITA RIRINUI (Labour) 
: 
 I thank the Minister of Maori Affairs who is also the Associate Minister of Corrections for his contribution to the Committee stage of the Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill although I am flabbergasted at some of his comments. He stands up in the Chamber and says that questions about this bill need to be asked and answered. But he is the Associate Minister of Corrections so he should have all the answers. He should come here and provide the answers. There should be no issues with this bill. The problem is that as usual the Minister is not in the loop. 
Sandra Goudie 
: Well the Opposition is thwarting it. 
Hon MITA RIRINUI 
: I am not surprised that the chair of the Law and Order Committee does not want this bill to go to the select committee. She does not want to hear about the problems that it will create. She wants it to pass through the House uninhibited without any problem whatsoever. Well life should not be like that. Any bill that passes through this Parliament without proper and full scrutiny will be flawed. 
I take it from the contribution of the Associate Minister of Corrections that the major flaw in this bill is that he did not know anything about it. He may have stood up in the Chamber last night and made some grand statements about Maori owning the corrections facilities but he has made that statement on a purely commercial platform. He also has this ideology that if we change the nature and the way that prisons are managed then Maori will not reoffend. Well life is not like that. We have to deal with the social circumstances that affect these people if we are to reduce recidivism. The Associate Minister of Corrections may have made two speeches in the Chamber last night but I did not hear them. He thought I was asleep in the Chamber but actually I was in his electorate listening to the concerns about his performance in the Chamber on the emissions trading legislation on the two corrections bills and on a whole lot of other issues that he has failed to deal with. However he is learning the realities of politics on the front line. 
I turn now to the Minister in the chair the Hon Georgina Te Heuheu. Some very practical issues are involved with this proposal. The Minister raised the first one and I thank her for responding to the queries raised by the Green member and by my colleague Carmel Sepuloni about the safety issues and logistic issues with the bill. I take it that the Minister probably has not been into a courtroom holding cell because if she had she would have a better understanding of the way they are constructed. They are far different from prison cells. They are far different from police cells. They are not staffed by trained security people or police officers; they are staffed by court staff. They are staffed by people who are administrators of court procedures and the like. These people are not trained to deal with inmates who are held on remand awaiting sentence by the courts. 
The problem is that the Minister and the Government have not given this proposal a lot of thought. One thing the Minister is very good at is exalting your good work Mr Chairperson as the previous Minister for Courts. The Minister certainly seems to know everything about that. I endorse everything she said and I say well done for that period of time. 
I wonder whether the Minister apart from answering the questions raised by my colleague Rajen Prasad—and there were only three so she should not have any trouble doing that—can take a call on this scenario. She said that inmates will be taken to the nearest prison for showers and other facilities. I suppose she would dial a pizza and the inmates would be fed. Take for example the district courts at Whakatane and Tauranga which have holding cells. The nearest prison is something like 3½ hours’ drive away right next to her electorate office in Taupo and further south in Turangi. It seems to be a huge drain on resources to get a security vehicle staffed by two members to take prisoners 3½ hours down the road for a shower and then bring them back—and I suppose they will want to go to the toilet while they are there. They might even want to be fed on the way there and on the way back. I know that the Minister’s portfolio is not resourced to handle those sorts of contingencies because the Minister of Finance is cutting back.