Turner Judy: Corrections (Mothers with Babies) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Turner Judy: Corrections (Mothers with Babies) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
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JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future) 
: 
 United Future is happy to support the second reading of the Corrections (Mothers with Babies) Amendment Bill. Like everybody else I want to congratulate Sue Bradford on bringing this matter to the attention of the House. I also congratulate the Law and Order Committee on the work it has done and the changes it has made during the select committee process. 
I am interested however in a couple of issues that I raised in my first reading speech—issues that I would have thought would come under the parenting agreements section of the bill. I still do not see any reference to the fact that all the provisions around parenting agreements listed so far are limited to the mother and the child and to the arrangements that will best support them. There is no mention of the fact that there may be a father who wants access to the child and to how that would be facilitated in terms of parenting arrangements. I find that an interesting oversight as also is the lack of mention of the ability for grandparents and the wider family who also want regular contact with the child to have visiting rights and so on as they would if the child were being raised out of prison. There is currently nothing mentioned in the bill. I accept that it may be intended at a later date to add more under the parenting agreements schedule but I find it interesting that currently the select committee has overlooked that. I agree with the Maori Party that although the intention of this bill is to ensure that appropriate bonding and everything that goes with babies and mothers is not disrupted by prison a child has needs that are a lot wider than just the bonding that happens with his or her mother. I think we need to be really mindful of that. 
I agree with the Hon Phil Goff’s comments previously. Let me put this to the House: if a mother is safe enough to have her child in prison with her then are we not saying she is safe enough and of such low risk that a community-based sentence would be a more appropriate response to that woman? United Future would be hugely interested in hearing whether there is some ongoing investigation around that; I think that it is quite possible. I am interested that the Australian Government has signalled that it is looking at some new mechanisms for much more intensive case management of certain at-risk families in the community—around management of their benefits and a whole lot of things like that—where there has been a real history of problems. I am unaware of anything that is being considered in the New Zealand context right now but it occurs to me that with community-based sentences for mothers these kinds of things could very easily be done so that there was some consequence for the actions that put the women before the court in the first place. So it is not a getting away with a crime that we are talking about here but actually a facilitation of a mother’s ability to be with her family and do the job that is of the highest priority to her while serving out a community-based sentence. I think there is a huge amount of potential for that to be developed in the future. 
I also accept that if we extend the age at which a child can be housed in a prison facility from 6 months to 2 years then the resourcing for that really does need to be put in place. I am interested in the Supplementary Order Paper the Minister has just referred to because I think it is an important issue. However I would hate to think that this matter was stymied by an unwillingness to supply resources or to move at pace to see what can be done. It does not sound to me to involve the kinds of costs that are on the high end in terms of Government expenditure but if there was the will to do it—and certainly regarding the situation in this bill we have demonstrated in the House there is a real openness for that to be the case—then surely it means that regardless of who is leading the Government after the election this matter will be advanced and progressed in some way that is measurable with some time lines around it so we can see that it is implemented as soon as possible. 
So United Future is happy. We are pleased with what the select committee has done. We think that this is an issue we need to progress deliberately but to observe mindfully in order to see what else needs to be done around its edges. I am particularly interested in the extended family having access to those children and the ways we facilitate that and in looking at the whole way we sentence mothers. I really do accept and believe that if we are saying a mother is safe enough to have her child with her in prison then we are also saying she is safe enough for a community-based sentencing provision. Again let this not be the end of the story but let us take some really strong steps in that direction to discover what could be accomplished.