Mitchell MarkHon MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): Thank you Mr Chair. Thank you for clarifying that because that's a very fair ruling as the Minister did depart from Part 1. I do want to address some of the comments that he made. Firstly I have no doubt at all that the Minister has got the best of intentions in terms of what he's trying to achieve as a Minister of Corrections with Corrections but he really owes this committee an explanation around the numbers that he's giving. You can't stand up and say that under the previous Government the prison population right now would be at 12000 and under this Government it's at 10500. There has been some initial gains made because of the work that the Hon Louise Upston did in starting to put a programme in place to allow especially those on remand to be able to fill out forms and actually respond to the information that was required around decisions on bail and that has had a positive effect without a doubt on the remand population. She also was doing a lot of work in recognising the fact that when prisoners are on remand they should be getting some rehabilitation programmes delivered. I think fundamentally we probably all agree with that. But it's completely misleading to stand up in this House and say that We've done a great job of reducing the prison numbers" and that under the previous Government we'd be sitting at 12000. An explanation behind those numbers would be useful I'm sure to the House. The reality is this: our prison population numbers for the next five 10 years are going to fluctuate and probably sit fairly close to where they are now. They'll go up a bit; they'll come down a bit. If we really want to make a difference to the pipeline of people coming into our criminal justice system the greatest roadmap that we've been given for that was given to us by the Rt Hon Bill English and that is the social investment model—that is actually making investment into people's lives much earlier and getting support around them much earlier to actually prevent them from coming into the criminal justice system. That's how we're going to make the greatest impact as a country on our prison population. What really worries me and concerns me about the Minister's approach and about this Government's approach is a blinded ideology of just throwing open the cell doors and getting prisoner numbers down. It's dangerous it has no regard for public safety and it's quite simply this: it's a transference of responsibility from the Government back to the public. And touch wood and as hard as we pray and hope that we don't see a tragedy my greatest fear is that we will see a tragedy because there'll be someone in our community that is actually a danger to public safety that actually should be inside our corrections system where at least they are getting some treatment they're getting some rehabilitation they're moving towards integration back into society. The worst thing that we can do is put people that are still a risk not only to themselves but to the general public back out into society. What we need to see from this Government and we haven't seen is a clear plan. A plan to actually deal with organised crime to deal with the growing numbers of gangs and let's face it—and it was raised in this House today—gang numbers are exceeding those of the new police officers coming out on the streets who have to deal with them. So that's an abject failure from this Government. Tell us what your plan is and how you're going to deal with it; lay out your plan. We're seeing poverty numbers go up. We're seeing every indicator that would show that we're losing the battle in terms of that pipeline of people coming into our criminal justice system. Those are the things that this Government needs to focus on. Those are the things that they need to show this country that there's a plan for. Not coming to this House and standing up and being flippant and making jokes and attacking the Opposition but actually outlining a plan and showing us clearly what the plan is in the long term for reducing people coming into our criminal justice system and into our corrections system. We can't support this bill because you've diluted one of the most important and fundamental things that we all agree on and we're meant to agree on in this House and that's around rehabilitation and rehabilitating people—trying to get them to re-join society trying to make them become lawful members of their community and start to contribute. That's one of the fundamentals of what we should be delivering inside our corrections system. The use of police cells—you just completely removed the ability should there be a situation where there is a spike where there is an increase in people coming into the corrections system for the Minister or for the chief executive to be able to access and use incarceration in the safety of the police cells. I mean this is not something that's new. I can tell you now for decades [Interruption]—I can tell the Minister right now that for decades police cells and I concede that they are not set up for long-term permanent use and housing of prisoners but they do provide a safe and adequate solution should it be needed to house prisoners. And let's remember why we do that: we do that to remove the risk from the community. We do that to make sure that Kiwis that are going about their lawful business that actually our law-abiding Kiwis don't become victims in their own right because we as a State have failed and we've put people back out into the community that actually shouldn't be there. So I would ask the Minister to stand and—although Mr Chair I acknowledge that you have given us a lot wider scope because we are addressing the points that the Minister has raised I hope that you allow the Minister to continue to have some scope in responding to the questions that we're putting to him. But it would be great if the Minister would stand and would actually address the issues and tell us: what is the Government's plan in reducing the pipeline of people coming into our criminal justice system?—because that's how you're going to have a real impact on the numbers in our prisons not by throwing the doors open not by weakening parole laws or sentencing laws or bail laws to find a way of actually releasing people early and transferring that risk back to the community. Let's hear what the meaningful plan is to actually make a significant difference. Thank you very much Mr Chair."