Faafoi Kris: Corrections Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Faafoi Kris: Corrections Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 12 February 2013. Volume:687;Page:7751. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana) 
: 
 Thank you for the opportunity to speak to the Corrections Amendment Bill. I would like to acknowledge the Law and Order Committee which Mr McKelvie is on. I think that although we have some fundamental problems with the bill the committee on the whole worked quite well together to look at some of the issues that are contained within the bill. There are some serious things that are contained within here—for example the strip-search change in regime. We actually took a trip to Rimutaka Prison where in terms of the ability to ask inmates and corrections officers some pretty probing questions—sorry to use the pun—we had the opportunity to speak to them about some of the practicalities of some of these things that this bill will introduce. I did want to just acknowledge some of the Law and Order Committee members who traversed this bill during the select committee consideration. 
As Charles Chauvel our corrections spokesperson said in his contribution to the bill we are opposing this on three grounds—the first being that we have a fundamental ideological problem with the National Party opening up the corrections part of its responsibilities in this Government to private management. We do not believe that there should be a profit motive at play when we are talking about the incarceration and rehabilitation of people who transgress and then find themselves locked up. The second issue that we have an issue with is around strip-searching and the change in regime. At the moment there are two regimes for inmates—one is what you would call a standard regime and the second one as the Hon Phil Goff mentioned earlier in the debate is one where there is much more detailed inspection with the use of mirrors and lights and the lifting of certain body parts. As Mr Goff said in his contribution there are a number of corrections officers who came to us as part of the union affiliation to talk about their concerns about moving from what I called the standard strip-search to the more invasive strip-search. 
And of course then there is the third issue that we have which Charles Chauvel pointed out and that is the changes that the National Party is looking at by way of Supplementary Order Paper 171 to try to make good the legislation around the banning of smoking within— 
Iain Lees-Galloway 
: There was no legislation. 
KRIS FAAFOI 
: No that is right. There was no legislation to ban the use of cigarettes and tobacco within our prisons—something that this party supports wholeheartedly. We want to make sure that for the safety of the inmates and their health—and also let us not forget the corrections officers; they too deserve to work in a smoke-free environment—there is legislation in place to make sure that that can happen. But unfortunately the warning that the Labour Party gave to Judith Collins at the time when that primary legislation went through about the fact that we did not think this would be covered under that legislation was not heeded. Someone took the Government to court. That person won and now the Government finds itself in the odd position of bringing in a Supplementary Order Paper to try to retrospectively change the law to bring about what we agree with but what we warned the Government about and said would not work in terms of the legislation that it brought through—rushed through. And now Anne Tolley has to clean up the mess that her colleague Judith Collins has created. 
But going back to my first point and that is around our fundamental ideological idea of making sure that it is the role of Government to incarcerate and rehabilitate prisoners we believe that corrections is a core role of Government just like we have our defence force and our police force and that in the area of incarceration you should not introduce a profit-making motive into that sphere. We believe that it is the role of the Government not only to incarcerate but also to rehabilitate in the long-term interests of the community to make sure that there is less recidivism out there to make sure that the public is safe. We believe that it is the job of the Government to take on an active role a hands-on role in that sphere to make sure that prisoners who are locked up are rehabilitated and when they are put out there it is the responsibility and the role of Government to make sure that they are rehabilitated as much as they can be. 
Also opening that sphere up to private business takes away some of the responsibilities that Ministers have in terms of answering questions when something goes wrong at say a privately run prison. And we have seen on a number of occasions with Serco which runs a prison currently in Auckland where things have gone wrong. We have had three improper inmate releases three wrongful detentions one escapee and a 72 percent failure rate to get inmate plans up and running. And that is one of the reasons in terms of private management of prisons why we are fundamentally opposed to it. That responsibility needs to be taken back and if questions need to be asked about the improper release of inmates or wrongful detentions those questions need to be shepherded back to the Minister in charge of corrections—not necessarily someone who is paid or contracted by the Department of Corrections to run a private prison. That responsibility has to come back to a Minister in this House. 
The second point I want to make is also around that and I think Mr McKelvie mentioned that some of the contributions in this debate were not necessarily accurate in their reflection of what happened in terms of submissions during the select committee process. But let us look at what others who think along similar lines to us think. Rethinking Crime and Punishment came along and gave its testimony to the select committee. It says here on page 13 of its submission: “The incarceration of citizens their treatment within prison and rehabilitation throughout a prison sentence is in our view a primary function of the Government … Rethinking is concerned that by giving these powers to private contractors the Government is opening the door for misuse of power and corruption as the checks and balances that apply to government departments may not be passed through to private entities. Examples of such behaviour have been evidenced by private corporations in the United States”. If Mr McKelvie was worried about misrepresentation of some of the views that were put forward at the select committee that is verbatim from Rethinking Crime and Punishment. 
There is also some concern from the Salvation Army within its submission. It said in its submission that it was also concerned about the business case around private management of prisons. It says—and again I do not want to misrepresent it so I will read it verbatim—“These new private prisons also somewhat confusingly go against recent forecasting done by the Ministry of Justice that estimate prison numbers of about 8200 whereas the Department of Corrections is forecasting prison numbers at over 10300! Which of these forecasts is correct?”. So we have got real question marks around the business case that this Government is using to justify private management of prisons. The Government says it is using private management of prisons to save Kiwis money. Well when the Salvation Army is pointing at a rather big gaping hole around the business case of private management of prisons I think some serious questions need to be asked. 
 Also around the strip-search regime and a change to that the Ombudsman of all offices came and made a couple of submissions I believe. I speak verbatim from a submission that it made on 15 August for the benefit of Mr McKelvie where it said that it is expressing strong concerns about the amendment of a section of the Act “which diminishes the safeguards against prisoners being strip searched unnecessarily or inappropriately and also removes the less intrusive type of strip search. We have previously stated that existing requirements for strip searches provide a very good balance between the rights of the Department to manage its prisoners and the rights of prisoners to not be subjected to unreasonable searches. In our view they do not need to be changed.” So there you have it. The Ombudsman in terms of changing the regime around strip-searches agreed with us that we did not need to go from the two regimes to the one regime with the one that the Government prefers being much more invasive. 
Of course it was not a lone voice. The New Zealand Law Society also said that the current legislative regime regarding strip-searches is effective and “provides a sound balance between the need for prison security and the requirement not to unnecessarily demean and humiliate prisoners.” So for Mr McKelvie’s benefit there has not been any misrepresentation of any submissions in my speech. It has all been verbatim from the submissions of people who gave evidence to the Law and Order Committee. I think they are fair and reasonable concerns about some of the things that this Government wants to do within this bill. We are completely and utterly opposed to the private management of prisons. We have serious concerns about the regime change in strip-searches and of course then you have got the shonky work the Government has done around smoking in prisons.