Cosgrove Clayton: Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Cosgrove Clayton: Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 24 November 2009. Volume:659;Page:8187. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 I want to pick up on something that Mita Ririnui said. It is a serious issue and it raises questions about management inside the Government and inside Cabinet. Dr Sharples got to his feet said that he was supporting the bill and that the Maori Party was supporting it—we are not quite sure whether that includes Hone but I put that aside. 
Hon Member 
: He’s in limbo. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: That is right. Here is the serious issue: Dr Sharples is the Associate Minister of Corrections. He got to his feet and I concede that he raised some very legitimate questions. He asked for answers. I have a question through the Chair to that Minister. He shares an office somewhere down the corridor from the Minister of Corrections. He shares a portfolio called “corrections” with the Minister of Corrections and as Sue Kedgley and others pointed out that Minister who is a member of the executive has raised serious questions about a bill that comes under his portfolio. He does not know the answers. 
That raises a serious issue. It could mean a number of things. It could mean that he has not read his briefing papers—and we know from the financial review that the Minister of Corrections received in the order of I think a couple of hundred briefing papers. The Associate Minister of Corrections received 17 in a year. So either he does not read his briefing papers or—and I suspect that this is closer to the truth—the Minister of Corrections does not communicate with her associate. I would have thought that the Associate Minister would when he was in the Chamber be the Minister in the chair not Georgina te Heuheu the Minister for Courts. This issue is not within her portfolio brief. I would have thought that the Minister of Corrections would be in the chair because she knows this bill—all five clauses one A3 piece of paper and 3½ pages of the regulatory impact statement on a website—backwards and she would have been able to rattle off in a microsecond the answers to the legitimate questions around security transportation sanitation and budgetary costs. 
Here is the point: the Associate Minister gets up and makes history by questioning his own bill. He worries about the consequences of the actions in terms of implementation in a bill that is under his partial control as the Associate Minister of Corrections. I ask to members opposite what show they are running in a Government an executive. What is the management around this issue? The bill has been brought in with 8 parliamentary days to go and the Associate Minister of Corrections has questions. I used to be the Associate Minister of Justice. When the Minister of Justice was not here I often took the chair in the Committee stage of bills. I was expected to be able to answer questions about justice bills. Why? Because the Minister of Justice and I talked to each other we read our briefing papers and we took an interest in bills as we had shared responsibility for them. 
But today we have made history. The Associate Minister of Corrections gets up laments worries and raises legitimate questions about a bill that he is partially responsible for as the Associate Minister and he cannot or will not answer those questions himself because either he was not briefed or he was not treated in a mana-enhancing way. I mean that in all seriousness. 
So there is a management issue within this Government. Surely Dr Sharples could take a call and answer his own questions. And I do mean it; I say that to “The Maestro” Dr Coleman over there. He has an Associate Minister of Immigration. I wonder whether they talk to each other. I wonder if there were an immigration bill whether Kate Wilkinson could take the chair or whether she would have another folic-acid moment. There is a serious management issue within the executive of this Government. I am astounded that an Associate Minister could not get to his feet and say that he would put up his hand and answer those questions rather than raising questions himself and saying that those issues have to be satisfied and dealt with. 
I ask him where he was when the bill went through Cabinet. Where was he when the bill was drafted? Why did he not raise those issues with his own Minister? Or if he did why did she not listen to him? She cannot have listened to him because he has raised those same issues on the floor of Parliament. He is looking quite legitimately for some parliamentary support which he has not received from his own Government.