Robertson GrantCORRECTIONS AMENDMENT BILLFirst ReadingHon GRANT ROBERTSON (Leader of the House) on behalf of the Minister of Corrections: I present a legislative statement on the Corrections Amendment Bill. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Poto Williams): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I move That the Corrections Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the bill.The Corrections Amendment Bill makes a number of modernising changes to the Corrections Act. As a Government we know the importance of supporting prisoners with rehabilitation and our evidence-based approach is making a real difference when it comes to things like reconviction and re-imprisonment rates which are all trending downwards.I do note that it has been a bit of a focus in the past few days on support to remand accused prisoners to avoid future offending. This bill tabled as it was in the House last week will provide Corrections with the flexibility to offer more support programmes for this cohort. I strongly strongly appreciate the support and endorsement for the legislation that I saw on the news during the weekend. There was a bit of rabbit staring into the headlights going on people not entirely sure what had happened in Parliament last week but it's good to get some support for this legislation.The Government is making sure our corrections law is fit for purpose as the people in our prisons change and the challenges that Corrections faces on a day-to-day basis changes. One example of this in the bill is enabling greater flexibility in dealing with remand prisoners getting them access to more programmes in prison where the law used to get in the way.Currently the law prevents Corrections from mixing remand accused and convicted people in prison unless there are exceptional circumstances such as a natural disaster. This means remand accused prisoners have limited access to programmes and services such as alcohol and drug treatment because by law they cannot be mixed as they have not yet been found guilty of a crime.This is based on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which requires the separation of accused and convicted prisoners to protect the presumption of innocence for accused prisoners. So this bill will allow the limited mixing of remand and convicted prisoners for educational religious kaupapa Māori and therapeutic programmes essential for integrating back into society. This will increase remand accused prisoners' access to support programmes such as the Māori Pathways initiative or intensive alcohol and drug treatment and will enable Corrections to design more programmes focused on remand prisoners in the future.Another key change in the legislation will build on Corrections' current strategy Hokai Rangi to further improve rehabilitation and reintegration outcomes for Māori who make up a disproportionate percentage of our prison population. Initiatives such as the Māori Pathways programme are making a real difference when it comes to things like reconviction and re-imprisonment rates which as noted already are trending downwards.When we improve outcomes for Māori we improve outcomes for our whole society. This is the cohort where we have the biggest opportunity to reduce reoffending. The bill allows for incorporating new principles for the corrections system that are derived from the principles of Te Tiriti. It requires Corrections to develop maintain and implement a strategy that focuses on improving outcomes for Māori in the corrections system and that provides requirements for monitoring the strategy's outcomes. It will provide for things such as temporary release to be used to access cultural activities by prisoners not just for Māori prisoners but all prisoners.The bill requires Māori prisoners and other prisoners to have access to cultural activities so far as is reasonable and practicable regardless of the corrections prison in which they are detained. It also requires approaches to healthcare for prisoners in a prison to be guided by the health sector principles set out in section 7 of the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Act 2022—again as far as reasonable and practicable.It requires Corrections to provide access to matauranga Māori as part of the provision of information and education in prison. It also enables the views of whānau iwi and hapū to be taken into account where appropriate insofar as reasonable and practicable in decisions about which prison offenders are accommodated in.The bill will require Corrections to work to reduce Māori overrepresentation while simultaneously helping Māori prisoners access the cultural support they need to better reintegrate into their communities and independent support networks—something that we know works and this is a continuation of the Government's evidence-based policy in this particular area of work.Other updates to the Corrections Act in this bill are also being made as the prison environment has changed rapidly while ensuring prisoners are held to account for disruptive behaviour and any assaults on staff. This is an important focus. The staff who work in our corrections facilities do a very difficult job and it is I believe the obligation of this House to ensure that their safety is prioritised.The bill will boost the safety of our prisons and community by boosting Corrections' intelligence powers. We're futureproofing the Corrections Act by introducing new powers enabling Corrections to monitor collect use and disclose prisoner communications and information sources for intelligence purposes. While Corrections can currently monitor mail and phone calls of prisoners to ensure the safety of prisons it has no ability to effectively monitor other technologies such as email video calling and internet services. These changes will allow Corrections to do this in limited instances to support prison and public safety including for the victims of crimes.One way Corrections maintains the safety and wellbeing of staff and prisoners is through internal disciplinary processes in prisons. The internal disciplinary process ensures that prisoner misconduct is dealt with through disciplinary hearings and the imposition of penalties by hearing adjudicators or visiting justices. The bill makes some improvements to the disciplinary processes for responding to prisoner misconduct. For example some changes will support a timelier process and a new option to suspend penalties that will incentivise improved behaviour by prisoners. The bill will also allow disciplinary hearings to proceed without the prisoner present if they refuse to attend or are required to leave on grounds of disruptive behaviour meaning that bad behaviour can no longer delay punishments and create backlogs in the system.So in conclusion the bill aims to improve wellbeing for prisoners and increase alignment with international obligations. This includes enabling wider use of body imaging scanners in place of more invasive personal searches of prisoners. The bill will allow remand accused prisoners to take part in some therapeutic programmes while also protecting the important principle that they are treated as innocent—part of our binding international commitments.This is a bill we are proud to progress. It makes targeted but important changes to modernise the Corrections Act in line with this Government's focus on keeping our communities safe. I welcome the widespread support that this bill has had as people have caught up with it and I recommend it to the House.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Poto Williams): The question is that the motion be agreed to.