Chadwick Steve: Corrections (Mothers with Babies) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Chadwick Steve: Corrections (Mothers with Babies) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
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Hon STEVE CHADWICK (Minister of Conservation) 
: 
 I am pleased to take a call on the Corrections (Mothers with Babies) Amendment Bill. I was not involved with the bill at the select committee so it has been fantastic to hear the contributions from all parties to the debate today. We congratulate Sue Bradford. This is a bit of a Green day today. I say well done on the very issues that drove her into Parliament. This was one issue that was of great concern to me too from my background and to hear her story shows the pragmatic grassroots approach that she has to politics that is leading her to make a difference in this House to people’s lives. 
I used to be in the maternity care profession and I recall very clearly that three issues used to concern me: firstly the age of young mothers having their babies; secondly adoption where we were party in my practice days to young babies being removed from their mothers and put into care pending the arrival of the adoptive parents; and the third issue that had a profound effect on me was when mothers who were in prison came to the maternity unit to give birth and then had to return to prison without their baby. It was something that profoundly moved me. There was that moment when the mother like every mother holds her child—with a partner there in most instances—and she wanted to invest everything to make sure that that child with her parenting would break the cycle of the life of dysfunction hopelessness and no opportunity that she had had and then we took the baby away from the mother to find a family member who would care for it while the mother returned to incarceration. 
It is great to see 20 years later that members in the House across the board are supporting this bill today. I congratulate all parties on their attitude and their contribution to this debate. 
I want to look at the number of women who are involved here—4½ percent of women who are convicted receive a prison sentence. Although we too agree that prison sentences are not the best approach for these women in this case it is the judge’s decision that they require incarceration in prison. I think that this bill now makes sure that the child is central to the family and the child’s interests are of paramount concern and that fits with the approach of the convention on human rights and the articles that we as a country are signatory to. Labour believes that every child counts and deserves the best opportunities for the best start in life. This folds in with many other initiatives that we have focused on to make sure we build strong and resilient families that can take the knocks that society will deliver to some. We are not calling them vulnerable families but some people do not share the same opportunities along life’s pathway. 
This bill goes a long way towards making sure that children start to have the bonding and attachment that will give them the resilience to endure some of the knocks they will have and towards making sure that that fierce instinct of motherhood remains in terms of attachment because mother and baby have not been separated. It is as simple as that. We know that all the indices across life including physical and mental health academic achievement social skills employment and for the children themselves the risk of offending and not being able to break that cycle themselves because of the circumstances of their birth will be dealt with by this bill. 
Labour is proud to be part of this. We know that women carry out most of the primary caregiving responsibilities for their children. They have a stronger attachment by the mere process of carrying the child and giving birth and the strong instinct of protection of their child that gives them the natural advantage over good fathers as to attachment at birth which is quite a fierce instinct that we have. 
Women are also much more likely than men to be sole parents. They are also more likely to face greater difficulties in finding alternative caregivers for their children. The family unit is much more likely to break down when the mother is in prison than when the father is in prison. We are looking at the integrity of the family unit wrapping around the child. Of course it is so much better to have babies with their mothers in prison and we all seem to have reached that same conclusion which is really great. We need to ensure that our children do not become lost in the system and disadvantaged and victimised by it. 
I heard Te Ururoa Flavell mention prison sentencing. I absolutely agree with him that we should be looking at home detention community detention and intensive supervision. Those three new sentences came into effect as from October 2007 and that is great. I hope judges will take them into account when they are looking at sentencing women offenders who come before them in the courts. They now have new tools to change the thinking that incarceration is the best approach. 
I am really pleased too to see parenting agreements mentioned in the bill. It is about mothers learning that they may have to undertake parenting classes just like the SKIP classes we provide out in the community. Those classes are a wonderful opportunity for women to share in the collegiality of other mothers in prison to learn about the fundamentals of parenting good nutrition diet exercise and how mothers need to parent. They may never have been exposed to educational parenting programmes. 
Other things that are absolutely essential for children who are literally incarcerated with their mothers are access for the other siblings in the family and for their fathers and having a rehabilitation programme when the mother and child leave prison. It is not just about providing the right environment around these mothers while they are in prison. 
I want to make a correction in terms of the capital and operating costs—funding that has been put in place as a result of this bill. There will be eight places in Auckland and Christchurch women’s prisons at a capital cost of $2 million and $1.5 million in operating costs. The Minister has factored that into the decision in our support of this bill. I congratulate those who raised that issue. 
The other issue that is vitally important is that the children receive all their health entitlements their well child screening as they would if they were out in the community. Another aspect Labour is particularly proud of is that all newborn babies now have a hearing screening and hearing assessment. That means these children will not have barriers to learning and through that screening of newborns they will achieve educational outcomes probably better than those of their own parents. That is a great initiative. So we should remember those points about access by the family and a rehabilitation programme that we will have to wrap around the parents. 
I heard the National Party talking about poor breastfeeding rates in this country. I want to correct that for the record in  
Hansard 
. This Government has invested in a breastfeeding action plan for the country to improve breastfeeding rates and we are proud of the gradual improvement in those rates. We know that breastfeeding is where attachment and bonding between mother and child takes place and that this bonding—including with the father—is really primary to the well-being of the child into the future. 
So this is a fantastic bill and it is well done. It goes with all of those other initiatives we put in place to say that every child deserves the best opportunity in life and we in Labour believe that that is absolutely fundamental.