Power Simon: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Power Simon: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:629;Page:1295] 
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 I am not quite sure what is going on in the House this afternoon but the last two Labour speakers have given community columns about their time in Parliament and how much they are enjoying the local school fairs and what has been happening on the trails of different conservation schemes. This is the opportunity that those MPs should have taken to support the Prime Minister’s statement and to get behind the Prime Minister’s agenda not talk about curious little things that they enjoy in their electorates as meritorious as they may be. But members on this side of the House have one message for members opposite who are sitting there representing Labour and it is this: Labour owes the New Zealand taxpayer just over $400000 and it should pay it back. It is as simple as that. There is no doubt that they must have had at the very least constructive knowledge of what the Auditor-General proposed in June 2005 as defining the rules at the very best as ambiguous. In June of last year Labour’s pledge card was well and truly signed off I bet. It was well and truly given the nod by the top brass in the Government. And Helen Clark should immediately offer to reimburse the taxpayers of New Zealand for having used hard-earned tax dollars to fund a campaign that she led the public to believe had been funded by the Labour Party. That is unacceptable. 
Helen Clark herself told the public at the Labour Party congress in 1999: My signature is on it. I am accountable for it.” I tell Helen Clark to pay back the money. It is not the Labour Party’s money. It is not the money of the Labour Cabinet. The money belongs to the taxpayers of New Zealand. Members opposite should hang their heads in shame knowing that they deliberately or at the very least had constructive knowledge of a rort when they decided to use a pledge card about which they purported to say—and in fact we have been told since—that the same process applied in 1999 and 2002 even when the Labour Party secretary-general had his signature on those cards authorising them as part of the Labour campaign. Well we on this side of the House await with interest the return of the Auditor-General’s report. I have no doubt that the Auditor-General’s office is taking this matter extremely seriously. 
Brian Connell 
: So are the police. 
SIMON POWER 
: I hope that they when they talk to the police manage to rectify this matter once and for all. 
I am delighted to be back in the House after the summer break. We have a leader in Don Brash who is clear and unequivocal about what he wants for New Zealand. We have 22 new MPs who are bringing energy and diverse views to our caucus and that is to be welcomed. I have to say that it is a great joy to stand in this House and look back at those benches and see familiar faces—including that of Tariana Turia—who are supportive in large of National Party policy and that is something we are very grateful for. 
 But one thing that has become absolutely apparent over December January and February is that Damien O’Connor is completely out of his depth. This is a Minister who has struggled from the start with the corrections portfolio. It is worth just revising some of the matters that have fallen in his lap since he took control of this portfolio in a way that can be described only as bordering on negligent. We have seen that of 3000 prisoners tested for drugs in recent months 17 percent returned positive drug readings. We have seen that at the Manawatu Prison the local prison guards passed and carried a motion of no confidence in the management of that prison. We have seen a massive budget blowout in the building of prisons throughout New Zealand. It is worth just thinking about that because that is money that could easily be put into decent rehabilitation programmes given that the Minister himself stood in this House last week and conceded that those rehabilitation programmes were not working. In fact an inmate who goes on one of those rehabilitation programmes has a better chance of reoffending than if the inmate does not go on a rehabilitation programme. What does that say about the way the Department of Corrections is working? 
In October 2002 the chief executive officer of the department fronted up to the Law and Order Committee and said that to build these four new regional prisons would cost $400 million—at the last count the cost was $890 million. And when Damien O’Connor took off on his soirée over to the Netherlands and Finland just before he got his hot little feet on to the plane he dropped the bombshell that it is nearly a billion dollars now. 
Brian Connell 
: How much? 
SIMON POWER 
: It is nearly a billion dollars now. So there is more to come in this prison blowout. I have to say that the answer that he brought back from Finland was not to reinvestigate and make more effective rehabilitation schemes it was not to bring in early interventions for behavioural difficulties in children who might be heading on the wrong trajectory and ending up in jail and it was not a victim-centred policy for those people who have been affected by crime. No Damien O’Connor came back from his overseas junket and says that what we will do to alleviate the prison blowout is to let a whole lot out. We will just open the doors and let out the 30 percent of the prisoners who Damien O’Connor says are no risk to society—despite those prisoners including thieves those who have committed sexual assaults drunk drivers and fraudsters getting around 6 months’ worth of prison time. Let them out! Open the doors Damien O’Connor says—these people are no risk to society as he told National Radio last week! 
Well I say to Mr O’Connor that we are not going to stand by on this side of the House and see that Minister pull the wool over the eyes of members in this Chamber. If that Minister were serious about a bipartisan approach to corrections policy my office would have been contacted. I am sure I would have been invited to sit down with him and have a discussion with him about it. My office was not contacted. No attempt was made to formulate a bipartisan approach to corrections or prison numbers. So that Minister is on his own with a crazy idea when 92 percent of New Zealanders said in 1999 that they wanted longer sentences better rehabilitation and better early interventions. They do not want prison doors opened and people told to go for a wander and come back at their leisure to go and take a job and to have the weekend off. 
I say to Mr O’Connor that the real people who are affected by that policy are the victims of crime. Members on this side of the House believe in victim-centred law and order policy not offender-centred law and order policy. If the Government were serious about rehabilitating people in prisons it would be looking at the appalling state of its own programmes in those prisons. That is where money should be invested in a way that is accountable rather than just disappearing down the proverbial toilet. 
I finish by saying that the National Party will hold the Government to account in every portfolio and every area no matter how big or small for the rest of this parliamentary term. Those Ministers opposite will feel Opposition members breathing down their necks on every little decision they make. Let me assure Judith Tizard that she will not be able to escape to another luncheon or to another dinner out with people drinking from champagne flutes because the portfolio that that Minister has responsibility for— 
Hon Member 
: What is it? 
SIMON POWER 
: Primarily carrying Helen Clark’s handbag. The areas of responsibility that that Minister has will be equally under scrutiny. This party is here to hold this Government to account. The time is coming I say to Labour Ministers.