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:8181. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 I thank the Minister in the chair for addressing some of the questions as Minister for Courts. I was interested in a couple of the comments she made. She said triple-bunking does not exist. Firstly if she goes up the road to a place called Mount Crawford prison she will see that it does exist in some of the cells there. Secondly the Minister might want to get advice in respect of the Employment Court case—and I will not go into it because it is a current live court case—that is occurring with the prison service where I am advised that there are arguments for triple-bunking now. 
Hon Georgina te Heuheu 
: In the cells? 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Well we do not have triple-bunking outside the cells; we have triple-bunking inside the cells in our prisons. Also if we can make that leap of faith and if there is an overflow because there is no reference to it in here there is no guarantee in the legislation to say there will be one prisoner per cell or two prisoners per cell in a court holding cell. If the Minister is giving us that commitment I would be grateful if she could reiterate that it is one prisoner per cell. The reason I raise this is that it raises security issues for prison officers. There are a whole series of issues—food transportation staff security and sanitation—that the Minister did not address. The questions we raised were where how much where the money was coming from how many staff would be needed would it be the case that in order to access sanitation facilities— 
Sandra Goudie 
: This is repetitive! 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: I am sorry? 
Sandra Goudie 
: I said this is repetitive incredibly repetitive. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: It is repetitive for those who are sharing the family brain cell. They are legitimate questions that we should ask. I know that that member who is the chair of the Law and Order Committee has not taken a call and did not advocate to have this legislation before a select committee and now she does not want any questions raised. 
The reason why it is repetitive I say to Ms Goudie is that we have not had the answers. The Minister has been generous enough I admit to address a number of points but the reason we are raising questions is that we cannot do it in a select committee. We can do it only in this forum. If we want to earn our pay our job here is to ask the questions and to test the validity of the legislation. That might be a bit beyond that genius over there as she squawks away and has a go at us for doing our job. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: She’s one of their brighter members! 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: I make no comment on that. I ask the Minister— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: She’s one of their more intelligent members! 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: My colleague says that she is one of National’s brighter members—well God help us! 
I asked the Minister a serious question: if there has to be food water—and obviously there does—and sanitation and prisoners will be shipped out how far will it be? Will it be 50 kilometres or 100 kilometres to the nearest prison? I suspect it could be. The Minister’s department will require extra salaried staff extra transportation and there will be a cost in the downtime of moving people in and out of the courts day and night. They will have to do that; the courts operate during the day so prisoners will have to be shipped out during the day as the Minister said. 
This is my question. Nowhere in the Minister’s statement did she address the issue of cost. I assume that the extra costs for staff security sanitation and transportation will be addressed out of the baseline because there is no new Budget allocation. Of course the Department of Corrections is before the court at the moment over the whole double-bunking issue. We know from the chief executive Barry Matthews that there are military logistical plans in place if there is a strike and a lockout—he has told us that. These costs are up in the air. I would like the Minister to tell us whether she will give us a guarantee about “one person one cell” as the issue of the safety of the prison officers then arises. 
Will the Minister also address another issue that I think one of my colleagues raised? If something goes wrong who will be accountable? We know that the Minister of Corrections is very fond of taking credit for anything that is good news but when something goes wrong it is an operational matter—“go and see those people in the department.” This bill has not had any consultation; Ms Goudie does not like consultation. There has not been any time to look through it and pick apart the logistics. The bill has just five clauses but it is the implementation that is more important. What will occur in the circumstances I have mentioned? Will this Minister guarantee that her colleague Judith Collins will stand up and be accountable?