Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 24 November 2009. Volume:659;Page:8150. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill 
First Reading 
Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Corrections) 
: 
 I move  
That the Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
 I intend that this bill pass through all stages before the House rises for the year to ensure that the use of court cells is one of the measures available to us as we deal with the growth in the prison population in the new year. 
This bill amends the Corrections Act 2004 to enable the temporary accommodation of Department of Corrections prisoners in court cells as a last resort where there is insufficient capacity in the prison system. The use of these cells for Department of Corrections prisoners will not be allowed to interfere with the operation of the courts including the normal function of these cells for detaining people who are appearing before the court. 
As the House is aware the prison population is currently at around the highest level it has ever been and it is forecast to continue to grow. The Government is taking a variety of steps to ensure that there is sufficient capacity to accommodate forecast prisoner numbers. These statistics include extended double-bunking the use of modular or container cells and now through this bill the use of court cells as a last resort. In addition to these measures to address capacity issues the Government is implementing its manifesto pledges aimed to reduce the rate of reoffending. These include boosting the number of prisoners learning industry-based skills through corrections inmate employment by 1000 prisoners by 2011 introducing three additional drug treatment units by 2011 doubling to 1000 the number of prisoners able to undertake rehabilitation and expanding literacy programmes so more prisoners leave prison better able to read write and do maths than when they entered. 
Of course there are other measures that have been introduced or are being developed. This Government recognises the need to address the growth in the prison population both by increasing the capacity of the prison system and by ensuring that we reduce the rate of offending. This bill contributes to other measures to address the growing prison population by addressing a problem identified by the previous Government specifically that despite having been declared to be part of Department of Corrections prisons by notice in the  
Gazette 
 most court cells cannot be used to temporarily house the department’s prisoners as this use does not comply with the provisions of the applicable district plan. 
This situation is not acceptable as was recognised by the previous administration. However the approach being taken by this Government differs from the one previously taken in that it avoids undue delay and cost by making changes to the Corrections Act as proposed in this bill. This problem will be addressed with the addition of a new subsection (2A) in section 32 of the Corrections Act and a consequential amendment to section 4 of the Resource Management Act. New subsection (2A) will provide an exemption from section 9 of the Resource Management Act which deals with environmental requirements including district plans. If used these cells will operate in accordance with an agreement between the Secretary for Justice and the chief executive of the Department of Corrections. This agreement would specify the cells to be used the circumstances in which the cells will be made available and would ensure that the use of these cells does not interfere with the normal operation of court business. Prisoners housed in these cells would continue to be treated in accordance with the provisions of the Corrections Act and subsidiary regulations. 
In addition the proposed changes are consistent with national and international human rights law relating to the treatment of prisoners. In order to ensure that all prisoners receive their statutory minimum entitlements Cabinet has agreed that the maximum period of detention in court cells will be 96 hours. Consistent with this Government’s focus on value for money the approach in this bill will save at least $200000 compared with the approach previously being taken. 
This bill corrects an anomaly in that the ability to temporarily house Department of Corrections prisoners in court cells that have been declared to be part of the department’s prisons by notice in the  
Gazette 
 depends on the particulars of the local district plan. The bill addresses this while reducing the cost to the taxpayer by at least $200000. The bill supports the Government’s objectives of ensuring public safety and providing value for money for the public’s tax dollars. I commend the bill to the House. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 The Labour Party will be supporting the Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill but will take advantage with a bit of time to point out to National that over the years it has been very very critical of this practice. In fact the member who normally sits on the bench next to the Minister of Corrections who introduced the bill— 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: You should be congratulated for finally agreeing with us. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I think it is a minor miracle and if the Leader of the House wants to keep that up we can stretch the debate. I can congratulate him until the closure if that is what he would like. 
We have a whole pile of cells around the place. They are not used anywhere near the way they need to be. They are not ideal accommodation for prisoners. They are certainly not good for keeping prisoners on a longer-term basis. But in my opinion compared with some of the cells in some of the older prisons around the country they are not the worst cells in the country. My view is that using them where necessary in emergency situations is logical and a hell of a lot better an idea than setting up a tent somewhere especially to hold remand prisoners. 
But I want to play back to National the comments of Tony Ryall. He said the use of court cells was a warning of a jail crisis. In 2005 when this measure was being introduced by Labour he said it was a system in crisis. “Police continually warn about the dangers caused by holding prisoners in court cells … Mainstream New Zealand should be worried by this escalating crisis because it means there will be more prisoner compensation claims”. 
That is what Tony Ryall said in 2005. [ 
Interruption 
] I am very reluctant to adopt his words and to agree with him so I will not. In respect of compensation it was nonsense when he said it then and it is nonsense now. But it is a sign I think it is fair to say of a very very lazy Minister of Corrections who promised a lot more than she has delivered. She promised for example that she would have crates and containers all over the place to keep prisoners in. I expected she would have a line up of those down in Wellington. I expected that she would use Wellington Prison to a much greater extent than she is. But what is she doing? She is bringing in legislation here. 
I also think it is interesting that someone on the National front bench who is much more rational and much more reasonable than Tony Ryall was also— 
Hon Damien O’Connor 
: Name one. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: It is not hard to name people who are more rational than Tony Ryall. The particular member I was thinking of is Simon Power. On 22 November 2005 he said: “With prisoners being housed in vans”—and I gather that is the next National policy—“showered at rugby clubs and kept in police and court cells how can the Minister convince the members of the New Zealand public that they are safer since he became Minister of Corrections?”. And that is the issue here. How can Judith Collins convince people that we are safer since she became Minister of Corrections? I want to know why this legislation has taken a year. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: Tent city. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Clearly the tent city has not worked. I would have thought that in any decent emergency situation getting hold of a few tents going to Stewart Island Matiu Island or somewhere like that putting up the tents and sticking the prisoners there would not be too much of a problem. That is what Judith Collins promised she would do but she is such a lazy member that she cannot even wander down to the Warehouse or Kathmandu and get a few tents to put prisoners in in the way she promised. 
All we have here is evidence of a lot of hot air from Judith Collins. You know she likes to act tough. How many cars have been crushed? Not one. How many prisoners are being held in containers? Not one. She is beginning to be known as the Minister of the eight-letter word that we are not allowed to use in this House and it has to do with bovine animals. She is the “Minister for What Comes Out of Bovine Animals”. That Minister is not delivering. She fronts up tough she puts her chin out and she lifts her chest. But does she deliver in the portfolio? No she does not at all. She is all puffery and she shows no action whatsoever. 
I want to know why if the Minister was confident about this bill she did not send it to the select committee. Why did she not have the confidence of her own intelligence to send the bill to a select committee and have it tested? 
Hon Judith Collins 
: Ha ha! 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: She is laughing because she does not have the confidence of her own intelligence to defend the bill at select committee. 
The Labour Party is happy to get the Government out of the hole. We do not want prisoners running round because that Government has not acted properly. We do not want prisoners up and down the streets the way they would be if they were being held in tents as she was promising. We will support her. But if we were allowed to use the word “hypocrisy” in this House I would have. 
SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) 
: 
 I am delighted to be able to speak in support of the Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill and I commend the Minister of Corrections the Hon Judith Collins for bringing it to the House to correct the anomaly that she referred to in her address. 
The prison system is under pressure and although we work very very hard and with a great deal of success under the Minister’s leadership and with the Minister of Justice the Hon Simon Power to keep our community safe and deal with the drivers of crime to keep our people out of prisons we need to make sure that in the interim we have some fall-back positions and that is exactly what this bill provides. I am delighted to be able to speak in support of it and commend it to the House. 
CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour) 
: 
 Labour supports the Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill but following on from my colleague Trevor Mallard I will outline a number of ironies that we need to point out with regard to the bill. 
First I will go over the purpose of the bill. The bill amends the Corrections Act 2004 to enable the temporary accommodation of corrections prisoners in court cells as a last resort when there is insufficient accommodation in the prison system. The bill provides that the requirements of section 9 of the Resource Management Act do not apply to the detention of prisoners in court cell blocks that are declared by notice in the  
Gazette 
 to be parts of a corrections prison. The bill does not contain restrictions on the accommodation of overflow prisoners in court cells. However administrative safeguards will be put in place to ensure that this will occur only if it is strictly necessary that the normal functioning of the courts will not be compromised and that prisoners will continue to receive their statutory entitlements. 
Labour supports the bill but finds it somewhat ironic that National is pushing through a bill to allow prisoners to be housed in court cells even though it criticised us for doing the same thing. I want to point out some of that criticism. On 14 June 2005 Tony Ryall said that the growing use of police and court cells was a warning of a jail in crisis. 
Brendon Burns 
: Who said that? 
CARMEL SEPULONI 
: Tony Ryall—the current Minister of Health—when in Opposition in 2005 said that the growing use of police and court cells was a warning of a jail in crisis. 
We are aware of the fact that there is a crisis going on with regard to crime in New Zealand and that it has been going on since National took office in 2008. When we refer back to what Tony Ryall said it just confirms what we already know. It is a message that we need to get out to the public with regard to what this Government is not doing to resolve the problems that we have with crime. Another person from the National Government Mr Simon Power said on 22 November 2005: “With prisoners being housed in vans showered at rugby clubs and kept in police and court cells how can the Minister convince the members of the New Zealand public that they are safer since he became the Minister of Corrections?”. 
Last night we debated the Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill. It was pushed through because the National Government believed that private prisons will be safer better and cheaper for New Zealand. Yet here we are now with the Government pushing through a bill that is basically opening up the prison system so that more prisoners can be held in court cells because the Government knows it will not be able to contain them in the prisons we have. There is a certain irony there that I really feel I need to put out. 
One thing I really want to highlight is that we are here discussing the need to find accommodation for an excess of prisoners who will not be able to be held in our prisons due to the fact that there will not be enough accommodation for them. Yet one thing the National Government is not discussing in detail is the fact that crime is on the rise. It has been on the rise since National took over in 2008. 
The National Government continues to ignore the fact that there is a strong correlation between crime unemployment and poverty. Unemployment and poverty are the two things that this Government is not addressing. It will continue to put through legislation that acts as an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff but it will do nothing to ensure that we reduce the numbers of people committing crimes. 
I found an article on The Standard that discusses the leap in crime. Recorded crimes per person leapt 2.8 percent in the June year as unemployment climbed from 4 percent to 6 percent. Obviously it is not a coincidence. As Mr Ryall pointed out before crime is a symptom of a society in distress. It shows that there is a crisis and that is something the National Government has to take full responsibility for. 
On a number of occasions Government members have said that the previous Labour Government did nothing with regard to crime and they have created the perception with the public that crime increased under Labour. I refer to a press release from the University of Auckland—not from the Labour caucus but from the University of Auckland. It is dated 26 February 2008 and it states: “Contrary to popular perception according to a recent study the incidence of crime in New Zealand has steadily decreased over the last decade says Julia Tolmie co-editor of … Criminal Justice in New Zealand and associate professor of law at the University of Auckland. What has changed is that the amount of people who are being prosecuted and the sentences that they are getting have both increased.” 
Now that happened under a Labour Government. The prosecutions and sentences increased but the crime decreased. In other words the numbers we are locking up for committing crimes have rapidly increased in recent years even though crime is not growing. The perception that crime climbed under a Labour Government was put out by National members and it was incredibly irresponsible. Now they are in a situation where they are in charge they are experiencing a crisis they know they cannot house the number of prisoners who will be coming through the prisons and they are looking to privatise. But even with the benefits they perceive from that around rehabilitation and reintegration they know they will have an overcrowding problem in our prisons. Therefore they have to push through this bill. 
I want to touch on the main provisions of this bill. Clause 4 inserts a new subsection that ensures that if a court cell block has been declared by notice in the  
Gazette 
 to be a part of a corrections prison then section 9 of the Resource Management Act 1991 does not prevent that cell block being used to detain prisoners. Clause 5 makes a consequential amendment to the Resource Management Act to signal that section 9 of that Act does not apply to the detention of prisoners in a court cell block that is declared by notice in the  
Gazette 
 to be part of a corrections prison. 
As I said Labour members support this bill but the issue we are discussing is the irony of this measure—and I am not allowed to use the word which Mr Mallard pointed out that starts with “h”. But that is the word we are discussing here and that is the issue we are discussing. 
I want to go back to the bill that was discussed previously tonight and I discuss it in correlation with this one. That bill was the Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill which is known to most people as the “Privatisation of Prisons Bill”. I go back to what we discussed about the Government’s argument that for some reason or another private prisons would be better safer and cheaper despite the fact that the vast majority of the submissions showed us that that would not be the case. 
In recent months we have experienced a major issue with regard to a shortage of court security officers and we have also experienced some major upheaval with our justice employees with regard to the working conditions they are being forced to work under under this National Government. Here we are putting through this legislation and knowing that a higher number than usual of prisoners will be kept in our court cells. But do we really have the capacity in terms of staff to ensure that the staff remain safe? Are security measures in place to ensure that the public is also safe? Do the working conditions for the security staff ensure that they will not be on strike every 5 minutes because they are fighting with the Government over what they should be entitled to? 
I refer to a  
Manukau Courier 
 article that was put out on 16 April this year—that is under this Government. It states: “Judges are publicly backing a third budget bid by the Justice Ministry to increase the number of court security officers nationwide. Security staff at the court wear stab-proof vests because of the number of knives they seize from people entering court says the Public Service Association the union for state sector workers … PSA national secretary Richard Wagstaff says there aren’t enough officers to cover the three courts at all times … That shortage is ‘mirrored at courts across the country and threatens the safety of the public’ Mr Wagstaff says.” 
This is an issue that the National Government will have to deal with as it brings this legislation through. It is no good saying that prisoners who cannot be accommodated in our prisons can be housed in court cells if it does not have in place the security measures to ensure that not only the staff who are working there but also the public are safe. It is a very real issue that I really thought I needed to bring to the attention of this Government. The other issue I touched on before was with regard to the pay disputes that have been happening across the justice sector. 
DAVID CLENDON (Green) 
: 
 The Greens will be opposing the Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill. 
David Garrett 
: There’s a surprise! 
DAVID CLENDON 
: I say to Mr Garrett that I like to be predictable. This bill allows the Department of Corrections to jail prisoners in court cells. Currently this can be done by providing notices in the  
Gazette 
 but this would usually require approval under the Resource Management Act. This bill establishes an exception so the Resource Management Act does not cover the housing of prisoners in court cells. We know that court cells are not designed or suitable for the long-term housing of prisoners. It is flagged in the regulatory impact statement to this bill that the completely inadequate nature of these facilities means that the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act is potentially contravened as indeed could some relevant international conventions. 
Last night there was mention of innovation and vision in changes to corrections more generally and specifically in the terms of the Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill that was discussed last night. The vision that underpins this current bill seems to be that we will continue to imprison people in large numbers we will not make any attempt to reduce the number of prisoners and we will simply use whatever expedient measure we can to put people away to keep them out of the public view and to make no effort to rehabilitate them or to reduce or deal with the underlying causes of crime. We have heard of shipping containers being used as cells and now we have court cells. I can only surmise as to the opinion of the police force when discovering that their holding cells which are there for a very real and proper purpose are now to be used to manage the lack of other adequate facilities for maintaining prisoner security and indeed public safety. 
We know that the prison system is under extraordinary pressure and again I refer to the presentation yesterday to the Law and Order Committee from the head of the Department of Corrections who indicated quite clearly and frankly that the department is under extraordinary stress and is very close to breaking point. Double-bunking is seen as one mechanism for reducing or managing the pressure on prisons but we know from prison officers that it puts them in an extremely vulnerable very dangerous and potentially very violent situation which will be dangerous both for them and for inmates. 
The option of last resort is this one that seems to have been chosen—the idea of using court cells to accommodate the overflow. It has been used in the past as I said for acute accommodation shortages in the very short term. But this bill would embed and normalise the practice of putting prisoners into court cells which is completely inadequate and is not acceptable in a modern allegedly developed society. 
The objective of the policy as stated in the regulatory impact statement is to enable the Department of Corrections to continue to manage the prison population within the available resource and in a manner that is safe secure humane and effective. We argue that this bill fails those tests. It will not enhance safety. Court cells are not secure in the sense that they are not designed for the long-term custody of prisoners. It certainly is not humane to put people in a situation where there are no facilities for adequate exercise or for access from visitors or indeed for proper legal representation and we do not believe it would be effective. 
This bill in part is intended to circumvent the requirements of section 9 of the Resource Management Act. The disadvantage of the proposal is that it prevents or would prevent neighbouring residents and other affected parties from challenging the overnight accommodation of prisoners in court cells. An understatement in the regulatory impact statement suggests that the legislation could be controversial. To say the least it will most certainly be controversial; the Resource Management Act is a document that has already been under attack this year and we expect there will be further attacks next year. Specifically the Greens defend the Resource Management Act on the grounds that it is our primary source of environmental protection and we absolutely will continue to defend the principle of public participation. 
This bill endeavours to circumvent the opportunity for members of the public to participate effectively through the sections and provisions of the bill. Granting an exemption from the Resource Management Act requirements also sets a very unhealthy precedent that could be taken up by others who see that there may be advantage in a Government agency seeking to carry out urgent building work for example or other activities with an environmental or social impact. The bill could be seen as a precedent to pursue similar exemptions. 
The comment has been made that using court cells for overflow might carry a risk of litigation. The prisoners housed in these cells could claim that their treatment does not comply with the provisions of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. Indeed one can readily imagine situations where prisoners would be quite right in that assertion in that their rights would in fact be contravened. It is acknowledged that the use of court cells for overflow prisoners is not a new policy. Court cells have been used in the past and the department was able to meet its obligations under domestic and international law. However that was always in the sense of exceptional circumstance—a temporary one-off seldom repeated situation. As I said this bill would seek to normalise the use of court cells as overflow with all of the accompanying indications that people will continue to offend we will continue to provide inadequate treatment rehabilitation services or even proper and decent accommodation and therefore we will use this stopgap measure. Except rather than have it as a stopgap measure it will become a core part of our corrections system. 
We need to put our efforts—significant efforts and indeed significant resources—into reducing our prison population. We need non-custodial intervention for minor non-violent offending instead of the default position of throwing young people into the schools of crime that our prisons are. We need a much greater focus on early intervention rehabilitation and adult and community education. Such a large number of our prison population have literacy and numeracy problems and community-based education is a very powerful mechanism for remedying that very real problem. It is very unfortunate that this Government has chosen to reduce adult and community education funding at a time when it is of critical importance and could make a major albeit indirect contribution to reducing our prison population. 
There is a need to address the causes of crime such as entrenched poverty which is becoming endemic in this country despite it being a wealthy—or at least potentially a wealthy—country. The evidence this week that something like one in five children in our country is effectively living in poverty is simply intolerable. The children of those homes the children of those families will almost inevitably become a high risk in their time and that is virtually guaranteeing another generation of offending. I have mentioned in previous speeches the ever-widening income gap in New Zealand. We will have more and more people with very little to lose and a few with far too much to lose. Again this is not a mechanism for social harmony or well-being. It will increase the risk of offending. 
Given that this bill was not available to us until quite recently these are only very preliminary comments but I can assure the House that we will continue to oppose this bill throughout its passage. Kia ora. 
DAVID GARRETT (ACT) 
: 
 It is no surprise that the Greens are opposing the Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill just as they have opposed every single law and order bill that has been brought before the House. Comrade David Clendon has learnt very fast to toe the party line along with the rest. I say to Mr Clendon that I do not know what the reality is on Planet Gaia but people do not actually go to jail in this country for minor offending. He should go and look. 
One of the most interesting parts of the debate was what Mr Mallard said. I have heard the suggestion of putting prisoners on an island many times but I have never ever heard it from the Labour Opposition. So I was very intrigued to hear that Mr Mallard thought that one solution would be tents on Stewart Island as a temporary measure. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: What about Hawaii? What about Honolulu? 
DAVID GARRETT 
: As Mr Cosgrove is aware I have actually seen tent jails over in Arizona and they seem to work fairly well. I welcome Mr Mallard’s openness of thinking and his willingness to consider what has in the past been dismissed as total red-neckery. I congratulate Mr Mallard for that breadth that openness and that willingness to consider innovative solutions to problems. 
No one will argue and I certainly will not that long-term or even regular incarceration in court cells is a good idea. Of course it is not. But everyone over on the other side of the House has seemingly forgotten that—if I recall correctly not so long ago—prisoners were held in prison vans outside police stations and courts because there was nowhere else to hold them. I would be very surprised to hear anyone argue even on Planet Gaia that incarceration in prison vans is a good idea. 
This is a sensible measure. It will not normalise the use of court cells. I say to Mr Clendon that the sky will not fall. We will not have every court cell in the country full of prisoners. But in emergency situations it is sensible and indeed humane that prisoners be held in court cells with running water rather than in a van outside. We will be supporting the bill. 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country) 
: 
 I thank the Assistant Speaker because my electorate Taranaki - King Country has a very long title. I am proud of the fact that the Assistant Speaker has been able to pronounce it correctly and say it from beginning to end. 
I rise in support of the Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill and there is a very good reason for that. I was reminded of it by the Hon Trevor Mallard who like my colleague David Garrett who has just resumed his seat asked why we are doing this. The Hon Tony Ryall as the Hon Trevor Mallard pointed out to us highlighted this concern in 2005. We had a further 3½ years of Labour from the time that that point was made and nothing was done. The prison population continued to grow and no new prisons were built. I do not think anybody in the House will argue that it is an ideal situation to use police cells court cells or any other cells as prison accommodation on a long-term basis but this is an emergency situation there are more prisoners than there are cells and there are empty cells in these facilities. That is the reason behind the bill. 
Many have spoken about what the bill does. It amends a number of Acts including the Resource Management Act. It allows for this to take place without having to go through the normal process once the legislation has been gazetted. As far as National is concerned this is a short-term fix and help is on its way. Members can be assured of that. It is a very good move in the short-term and that is why we are supporting it. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 That was an astounding speech from Shane Ardern. I generally have a bit of praise for Shane because he is quite a respected member of Parliament around here but I put that speech down to a sort of temporary amnesia. That member knows that in the life of the previous Labour Government we built four new prisons despite the current Minister of Police—and now Mr Ardern has caught the same bug—going around telling everybody that nothing was done in terms of correctional facilities. Mr Ardern needs to recast history and know that we built four new prisons. He nods and he knows that is true and he is probably going to take a point of order and correct his own  
Hansard 
 because he knows it is a load of hooey. Milton prison was one; Spring Hill Corrections Facility was another. I must say that the interesting thing about this debate is those members on the opposite side of the Chamber getting up and saying that nothing was done under Labour and forgetting there were four brand-new prisons built under that Government. 
They also have a bout of amnesia in terms of what they said before the election. Their own National Party policy stated that if National were to implement all their election promises on corrections then the prison population would double. We have the document here as does every other New Zealander who received it in the letterbox. Firstly it says that the Labour Government was not locking enough people up—and National members said it repeatedly we have the quotes here and I am sure Mr Ardern would agree because there was one from him—that Labour was soft on crime and the prisons were bursting. Now that those members are in Government they say: “Oh shock horror!”. The Minister of Corrections lowers the tone of her voice when speaking on the radio and becomes very soft and very benign almost wanting to be beatified and says: “Isn’t it terrible” as she wrings her hands “that we have so many people in prison.” But not a year ago almost to the day it was Judith Collins and her ilk who stood on the other side of the Chamber and said that Labour was not locking up enough criminals. 
The second point I make as I return to the policy of the National Party before the election— 
Paul Quinn 
: What about the birthday cake in the caucus room? 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: —I think that member might be about to blow—is that National put out a pamphlet that said if all its policies were implemented the prison population would double. That is what it said but now it recasts history and the Minister of Corrections says that she did not know this was going to happen. Yet her own party’s policy before the election said that if all the National Party’s law and order commitments were fulfilled it would double the prison population. So that is the “l” word; it is porky No. 1. 
The third point I make is that the Minister forgets she had a briefing as the incoming new Minister that gave her a 1 year ago almost to the day the prison forecast. I recall when I was in Cabinet—and I am sure that Mr Assistant Speaker Barker will recall it as he was there as well—every Monday morning we had a document that showed the prison forecast and the actual numbers. Every time something happened in the community that was outrageous the National Opposition members stood up and said Labour was not locking up enough criminals. It is a bit like Nick Smith saying that New Zealand must show leadership over the emissions trading system when a year ago he said we should not show leadership at all because he was in Opposition. I say to those members: “You can’t fudge history.” That is the point. 
We will support the bill because there is a requirement for flexibility. Court cells were used from time to time under the last Government and we have to put those people somewhere. I accept that but members of the National Government get up and say “Shock horror! The prison figures are outrageous and it is an outrage that New Zealand has the second-largest incarceration rate per head of population in the world.” 
David Garrett 
: No we don’t. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Well that is what they said except the problem with that view is that not 12 months ago during a general election and years before that those members accused the last Government of not locking up enough people. I say to members opposite that they cannot have it both ways. 
The other observation I would make is that I believe we are now perhaps 7 or 8—depending on whether the Leader of the House stuffs it up again—parliamentary days away from the end of the sitting year. The Minister of Corrections has had her forecast for a year and there has been no plan to address this issue. Here we stand in urgency ramming another bill through. Most members never saw it until it was tabled because of the Minister’s own disorganisation. She has bleated about this issue for nigh on 12 months but she has presented no formal strategy or plan. She has a commitment in her election policy to build a new prison yet no money was allocated in the Budget no spade went into the ground and no foundation was laid—nothing. We have no plan from the Government on how to address the prison muster in a formal logical and logistical sense. 
Yet we have heard: “Let’s fire some bunks in; to hell with the security arrangements for prison officers; and to hell with the potential for prison officers getting done over because of the stress rising in the prisons.” I am concerned about those prison officers. We have had the great container campaign: bang a few containers—made in China or wherever—in the odd prison and bodgie a strategy together. Now we have court cells being used. As I say we do not oppose that but we do feel a duty to point out the obvious to members opposite because when they were in Opposition they railed against the use of police cells and court cells. 
We have already heard from Trevor Mallard quoting Simon Power who in Opposition said that it was outrageous that we were doing that and that all hell was breaking loose in the prisons because court cells were being used. Tony Ryall as Opposition spokesperson on corrections also railed against that practice yet 12 months into the ether we see members opposite standing up one after another led by the nose reading out National research unit notes and proclaiming that this is a great strategy. Well as we move through this debate I would like to know about the logistical arrangements and what provision has been made—for I talked to a senior prison staffer yesterday—for prison officers within our court buildings. Court buildings are used at particular times as we know and court cells are required to be used by the judiciary for the administration of alleged criminals from time to time each day. I ask where the security arrangements are where the extra staff are and where the basic logistical requirements for the prison officers who have to guard these prisons are—that is offices if they need them and beds if they need them or do they share a cell in the court with the prisoner? None of those issues have been addressed and I would like to know where the budget and where the resources are coming from in respect of that issue. 
I point out to members opposite their scattergun approach to muster management after 12 months in Government. We hear the groans on cue—if Mr Quinn is awake—that the Labour Government had 9 years to do it. That is dead right and we built four prisons. But we were criticised by the then National Opposition. 
Carmel Sepuloni 
: And crime dropped under us. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Crime did drop under us but we still put in place formal prison systems. We built four prisons. Those folk in their manifesto said they were going to build a prison or a number of them. We have heard nothing seen nothing and nothing has been done in that respect. They have been in office for 12 months. I would have thought that at least the concrete would go down or that the odd bit of iron or steel would go in as the foundations were raised and the construction begun 12 months ago. But there was nothing in the Budget and no mention of it from the Minister. 
Yet we have a bit of double-bunking which I fear. My fear is not for the prisoners in this respect but what will occur to the prison officers if the stress level is ratcheted up in those prisons. OK prisoners are locked up in the cells but at some point they have to be unlocked. It will not be members opposite who turn the key and open the door and get punched in the face by the prisoner. It will not be those members as they are closeted behind the glass upstairs; it will be our prison service folk. It will be no one in this Chamber who gets done over. Then we have the scattergun approach in the use of containers—drop a few out of the sky here a few there. But we cannot get the cost for those. There are three or four costs for those but no one can tell us what it will cost or how long they will last. 
I predict that after the Government has done the containerisation of prisoners and has built—if it does—a new prison the taxpayer will be up for far more than had the Government done the job properly and fulfilled National’s election promise. Then at the eleventh hour we have this logical move I accept to utilise court cells and no one opposes that on our side. But with 8 days to go in the parliamentary year that is the sort of forethought and foresight exhibited. That is the planning and logistical strategising exhibited by this Minister of Corrections. “Last-minute Louis” with 8 days to go says: “Let’s do this” when I presume that Cabinet or at least her office gets the prison forecast every week if not every couple of days as we did when we were Ministers. This is forecast to go through. 
I would also like to know whether the claims made by the Department of Corrections are true that there are indeed around 100 to 150 beds available in our prisons. We support this bill but we believe that those members should be held to account for their comments last year. 
Dr CAM CALDER (National) 
: 
 It is a privilege to take a call and speak on this bill the Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill. National campaigned on improving safety in our communities and we are addressing this issue with a raft of measures. This bill is part of keeping that pledge. 
The New Zealand prison population has steadily increased over the last 10 years. Why is this? One of the drivers was an increase of over 40 percent in the number of violent offenders. I will say that again. There was an increase of over 40 percent in the number of violent offenders over the last 10 years and of course a concomitant higher proportion of convicted offenders sentenced to imprisonment. Equally there has been a disproportionately large growth in the remand prison population. 
This Government is trying to lift New Zealand’s performance across all sectors. To do this we are open-minded and we welcome innovation and fresh thinking. We have said sayonara to the dogma-driven policies of the late unlamented Labour administration. Those policies led to a 40 percent increase in violent crime and to inadequate accommodation to house the convicted offenders. We have heard from the Hon Clayton Cosgrove about the fact that Labour attempted to address the problem. We accept that but Labour failed. It became a terminally tired administration that deteriorated to become little more than a loquacious lobby for lassitude languor and inaction. This bill is necessary as a result of that legacy of supervised neglect. 
The National-led Government has inherited a rising prison muster and a concomitant imminent shortfall in accommodation owing to inadequate funding by the Labour Government. This bill is necessary to ensure we can provide safe temporary accommodation for offenders. I commend this bill to the House. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour) 
: 
 That last contribution to this debate on the Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill added absolutely nothing. The member Dr Cam Calder displayed his ignorance about the causes of crime. The member displayed his ignorance about how little his own Government is achieving in this important area. The member simply believes in some Crosby/Textor - type information. The member knows nothing. He could not give us one example of policies of the last 9 years that had actually caused crime to rise—not one. There was a lot of rhetoric but no substance. 
Labour will support this bill because it provides a response at this particular time to a difficulty. When no options are available then cell facilities at courts ought to be used and this is what this bill allows. That is a reasonable thing to do. At the present time court cells can be used only during the day but they ought to be utilised when there is urgency in terms of demand. This bill amends the Corrections Act 2004 to allow for prisoners to be accommodated in court cells for up to 4 days. That is a reasonable thing to do. Because court cells cannot be used in this way under the Resource Management Act an amendment also has to be made in the bill to exempt the use of court cells in this way from section 9 of that Act. The Labour Opposition will support that because overcrowding is a potential problem in the next period. This bill is a way to resolve it and it is the responsible thing to do. 
But the bill does point to some real difficulties that the Government has with regard to provisioning its law and order policies which presumably are policies that National designed several years before the last election campaign. National members had all the figures available to them and now that they have been in Government for a year all they have managed to call on is the punitive approach that sections of our community demand and that they have tried to make political capital from. They promised to be tough on crime by locking up more people. 
It is important to go back to the website of the Department of Corrections to really see the things that the department is telling us it has known about for some time. Clearly the prison system is under pressure and clearly the department would have been telling the Government that for some time. The Government also knows that the future of the policy of double-bunking is uncertain. There are difficulties with the processes as we have seen in the Employment Court. So the Government does know. 
Hon Member 
: Well it’s a nonsense. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: It is a nonsense I agree. So the Government does know—[ 
Interruption 
] it is a nonsense I agree—there will be insufficient accommodation from 2010 onwards. The Department of Corrections is telling us about its problems via its website. 
Although the Government talks about this measure being a temporary provision the member from the Greens raised an important point. The Government’s own website says it is thinking about this facility being made available on an ongoing basis. It is not as though the issue of prison numbers will just go away; it will be there for some time. This measure will be used for some time and I would like to hear from the Minister as to how she intends to resolve that. For how long does the Minster intend to use this provision? What are the plans for ensuring that it will not be necessary in the future? 
There is some good news and I commend the Department of Corrections for this. It has actually thought matters through and it does say—both in notes that we have and on its website—that it will do some more work to make sure there is a good understanding of how the use of court cells overnight will work and to make sure that provisions are made so that prisoners are treated in a humane and effective manner and their rights are protected. 
The Department of Corrections’ website also raises—and we have not talked about this a great deal—the fact that there will be difficulties with regard to getting this type of exemption from the Resource Management Act. We should think about that for a moment. If the cells are in neighbourhoods the people who live in the area will now have no opportunity at all to object to this measure. I am not saying everybody should object but the facility to object has been taken away. The department’s website also says there are some risks of litigation from the people who are being held in this type of facility. 
The Government has promised to look at a whole range of other facilities for prisoners. It does know that we cannot keep on putting more people in prisons. We have an awful performance rate in this area; it is one of the worst rates in the world after the US. 
Todd McClay 
: It’s been pretty appalling over 9 years—you’re right. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: I will come to that. The member talks about the last 9 years. Members sit there talking about the last 9 years but that is intellectual dishonesty. When will the Government really address the drivers of crime? Government members have had the meetings and have had the information put before them but we have seen nothing. We would like Government members to get up and tell us what their crime prevention strategies are. When should we expect to see them or is it that Government members have found a sore in our society—the view of those who want to be punitive? Is it the case that the Government has utilised that and that it intends to utilise this issue in that particular way? If the Government was really sincere about addressing the drivers of crime and about getting into early intervention we would have seen that by now. The Government is a third of the way through its term and we have not seen any really significant proposals. There is the opportunity to change the performance of this country in this particular area but we have not seen anything. We would like to hear from members opposite about when we can expect to see their proposals. They have had meetings and there has been plenty of input. Or is the issue becoming too hard? Does the Government intend to keep the proposals for the last 6 months of its term and to take them up from there? 
Perhaps the biggest irony—and I liken this to a form of intellectual dishonesty—is the fact that we are here pushing this bill through under urgency and agreeing to these provisions when National members day after day pilloried this very provision when they were in Opposition. Previous speakers have already referred to that. Where is the intellectual honesty of the members opposite who ought to say yes they were wrong to raise this issue in the kind of way that they did. They ought to say they now realise the difficulties and that this provision is needed to overcome them. Some acknowledgment of what Ministers from the previous Labour Government were trying to do in order to use the cell facilities at courts during times of crisis would not be unreasonable. 
It would be useful to gain that kind of acknowledgment from members on the Government side of the House because there is a pattern here: they stand up use their Crosby/Textor lines—the same thing time and time again—and simply say nothing has been done in the last 9 years. 
Dr Cam Calder 
: A lot of damage has been done in the last 9 years. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: The member for Rotorua repeated that earlier. Mr Calder is also making some noises over there. Mr Calder has shown his ignorance of this field already by not even knowing what the research says and by not being able to give us any example of what he was talking about. The Minister for Social Development and Employment goes on day after day in an intellectually dishonest manner saying Labour did nothing for 9 years but we should look at what the National Government is doing. I advise that Minister to go and talk to her own advisers in the Ministry of Social Development. They will tell her chapter and verse about the actions that were taken to address our society’s social issues in a manner that she would be impressed by. 
Perhaps one day the National members will come to the House and acknowledge what they are having by default to acknowledge. They criticised this very provision yet they are slipping it in before the Christmas break under urgency to enable court cells to be used. We are ready to support that but I look forward to seeing intellectual honesty on the part of members on the other side of the House so that we can actually work on that basis in the future. 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National—West Coast - Tasman) 
: 
 I wish to reflect just momentarily on a comment made in an earlier speech by the Hon Clayton Cosgrove. In his speech and I have no reason to doubt his sincerity for we all know him to be an honourable man he spoke in tender terms—one could only say in tender terms and in fond terms—of the Hon Judith Collins. He spoke of her soft dulcet tones on the radio her femininity and her compassionate qualities. I agree with all the things he said except—[ 
Interruption 
]—I am sorry? No he spoke eloquently. He always speaks eloquently but it was nice to hear him speak in such a favourable manner of the Minister. Everybody recognises those qualities in her but he gave them voice this morning. He also said that he thought she should experience beatification. I have just a small point of correction: I think he meant to say canonisation that is to the level of sainthood. I would have thought that he would understand these things not that he is striving for the same achievement himself. I thank him on behalf of the Minister for the kind compliments that he made. Indeed I think he has a sneaking respect for the Minister; it was reflected I thought on  
Morning Report 
 this morning when I heard them speaking together. 
It is gratifying to know that Labour is in fact supporting the Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: This is a speech of substance. 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: I think it is yes; we can put a little bit of substance into it. Here is a lovely quote from Oscar Wilde: 
I never saw a man 
Who looked with such a wistful eye  
Upon that little tent of blue  
Which prisoners call the sky 
We have heard a lot this morning about the mechanics the economies— 
Dr Cam Calder 
: That was moving. 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: It was. Well it is! I used to visit a young Kiwi prisoner in New Caledonia. He was there for some years. I visited him regularly. I have talked to chaplains. I have talked to people who have spent a long time in prison. It ain’t a nice place. Defence lawyers tell me to never let anyone get away with the idea that people like going to prison. They said people never ever want to go. 
Hon Maryan Street 
: For the last 9 years you’ve been saying what luxury palaces they are. 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: Well yes they can be and that can happen. That does not mean to say people like being there. The worst aspect of facing prison as those who have had that experience tell me is the uncertainty. Over the 9 awful years of the last Labour Government all of those vulnerable people in the corrections system have had a rotten time. It has been a dreadful period and the Opposition knows it. I will not start to list the dreadful series of events that occurred in corrections during the period of governance of the previous Labour Government. Thank goodness for National thank goodness for Minister Collins and thank goodness for the common sense that is now being applied to the use of court cells. Thank you. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
Ayes 112 
New Zealand National 58; New Zealand Labour 43; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 4; Progressive 1; United Future 1. 
Noes 9 
Green Party 9. 
Bill read a first time. 
Second Reading 
Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General) 
 on behalf of the  
Minister of Corrections 
: I move  
That the Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill be now read a second time 
. I begin by thanking the various officials who have worked on this issue and on the bill that is now before the House. They have provided valuable support in ensuring that the Government’s priorities of ensuring public safety and providing value for money are reflected in the approach that is being taken. Those priorities are reflected also in the commitment the Government has shown to improving the provision of drug and alcohol treatment in prisons and to improving the provision of education in prisons particularly in literacy and numeracy. 
In the long term those measures—coupled with the various other initiatives in the justice sector being promoted particularly by the Minister of Justice—will reduce the growth of the prison population. Reducing the rate of growth of the prison population is the Government’s preferred long-term approach to the corrections portfolio. However in the short term measures to increase capacity in the prison system and the flexibility of the prison system such as those in the bill currently before the House are necessary to ensure that public safety is preserved. 
This bill allows the use of court cells that have been gazetted as parts of corrections prisons notwithstanding the provisions of local district plans. It addresses an anomaly that was identified by the previous Government and provides increased flexibility in managing the increasing prison population. I commend the bill to the House. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 I want to make a couple of observations about the nature of the Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill. As I have said Labour will support it. I thank the acting Minister for what has been the only semblance of a speech of substance and logic to come out of the Government thus far in the process. We had a rendition from somebody akin to a cross between Uncle Fester and Captain Mainwaring in the form of Mr Auchinvole talking about all manner of things but he did not provide any justification substance or even any logic— 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: Or any meaning. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: —or any meaning to support his own case. 
I will turn to the regulatory impact statement. I have taken some advice having read the very brief six or seven lines that it appears to be. In that regulatory impact statement there is no regulatory impact statement. There is a reference to a website which is a very long-winded website; in fact it takes up 3½ nearly 4 lines. I am advised that that is quite unusual. Normally in a piece of legislation even a short piece of legislation one would expect a summary of the regulatory impact statement. One would expect some sort of summary of the facts around the regulatory impact statement. This bill is printed on one A3 piece of paper. I know we are trying to conserve trees in this environment but there is a little bit of space at the bottom actually where I would have thought the Government could have put some words in. When one goes to the website one sees an exhaustive three or four pages of regulatory impact statement hidden away. One has to ask why that is the case. I am advised that not 24 hours ago the URL link had not been inserted into the bill. That is how rushed this process has been. 
I raise that issue because it is more evidence that this Minister does not have a plan or a logical strategy to deal with the prison muster numbers. As I said in the first reading she has had the reports for 12 months. Prior to the election her party said that if it implemented all its law and order policies it would double the then prison muster—double it. So even before the election—over 12 months ago—this Minister and her party were planning for a doubling of the prison population yet there was no plan as to where to house them. There was—and still is I believe—a commitment to build at least one new prison though we have heard and seen nothing about it. This just provides further evidence with 7 or 8 parliamentary days to go of how rushed and unplanned with a lack of management a lack of foresight and thinking— 
Carmel Sepuloni 
: A shambles. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: It is a shambles my colleague says a bit like the emissions trading scheme. 
Hon Member 
: You’re voting for it! 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Yes we are voting for it to get the Government out of a hole. It could have put up these proposals 12 months ago put in place a prison muster plan and a prison build plan—a proper prison— 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: Integrated strategy. 
Dr Cam Calder 
: With respect you could have done that yourself. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: My colleague is right. That is a big word for Mr Calder. He says we could have done that ourselves. Well I tell Mr Calder that the problem is that we did. We built four prisons. We were criticised by Mr Calder who I think was doorknocking for Judith Collins or something way back then. We were criticised by Judith Collins because Mr Calder’s party said we were not locking enough people up. Does he care to rebut that? No he will not rebut it because it is a fact. That is what he said as he doorknocked for Judith Collins: we were not locking enough people up. 
Dr Cam Calder 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I submit that the honourable member has no knowledge of what I said when I was doorknocking. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: That is not a point of order; that is interrupting a debate. It is unnecessary. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: That is OK Mr Deputy Speaker. It proves what a plonker he is so it is OK. What his party said before the election and what it says today are two different things. I love the Toastmasters. I have helped Toastmasters a number of times to set up little branches around my electorate. It is a fantastic organisation. I mean no denigration by what I am about to say but I have to say to Mr Calder that this ain’t stage 101; this is a debate of substance about a critical issue. Going through the dictionary late at night as Mr Calder did looking for words that start with the same letter and stringing them together does not actually add to the substance of this debate. 
I will raise a couple of questions about the shambles that we have and the lack of planning we have around this. I suspect that the member does not know where the regulatory impact statement is; he might be running away to ask his staff to get on the web and look it up. I am happy to give him a copy of the regulatory impact statement because he probably does not know what it means and he probably does not know where to find it but it is on the web. In that statement it says: “Cabinet has agreed that the maximum period of detention in court cells would be four days (96 hours).” 
As I said I was talking with a senior person in corrections. I will not name the person because Judith Collins will bring a machete down on that person if I do. The issues raised are ones of logistics for prison staff with regard to 4 evenings 4 days and 96 hours. I would like to know from the Government—and hopefully we will get to it in the Committee stage—what budget has been put aside for logistics of prison officers. How will they be fed through the court system for instance? How will prisoners themselves be administered to? What will the accommodations be like for prison officers if they require administrative support while they are there for their shift? What will happen in terms of the day to day interaction between court processes court staff and prisoners who are housed for 96 hours? I think those are quite important and germane issues to this debate because of course these provisions will effectively take away the right of people who may be living in that area to object. I am sure that they would like some assurance from the Minister as to just how those day-to-day logistical matters will be addressed. 
It is not a political point; it is a fair point that communities will want to know. I think it is also a fair point in relation to the security staff—that is the prison officers who will be charged with dealing with these prisoners and managing them day to day often in what can be described as very confined circumstances where they do not have the logistical support they would have had if this Government decided to start building a new prison as it promised to do. 
So there are some issues in here. As I say I find it very strange—in fact I am told it is unheard of—that the regulatory impact statement is not contained within the bill but is ferreted away and buried on a website. The URL was not even inserted in the draft that I have of the bill which I received somewhat prematurely before it came before the House. I just wonder why. Is there any devil in the detail? Of course when one finds the paper one sees that it notes and acknowledges that there are a number of risks in respect of use of prison cells. So I just raise those issues as a matter of course. 
Sandra Goudie 
: Mr Speaker— 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Talking of premature! I just raise those issues as a matter of course and I seek some assurance from the Minister. She or Mr Finlayson may be able to get some advice from the staff and explain to us without breaching security how in metropolitan areas without the logistical support of a prison itself these individuals will be managed day to day and what protections are in place for the staff. 
I hope as we progress through the second reading that we might actually get a speech or two of substance from the opposite side of the House. I would be very interested in some of them; I think Mrs Goudie is in the starting blocks ready to go. I wonder whether Mrs Goudie will address some of the points I have made like what she said before the election instead of getting up and saying that the Government of the day did nothing. No we built four prisons. Those members say that the Government of the day did not lock enough people up—well we did and now they say there are too many in there. I wonder whether they will address what the plan is going forward and why this bill which is pretty simple and has the support of most of the House is brought to us 7 or 8 parliamentary sitting days before the election incomplete though it is. 
Dr Cam Calder 
: Before what? 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Sorry before Christmas I should say. God willing there would be an election! After we have had the emissions trading scheme and the shonky deal with the Maori Party and others I think it would be a cracker to get on the stump and debate some of these issues. I can only live in hope. I hope we actually get some of those answers from the members especially the member who purports to be the chair of the Law and Order Committee. 
SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) 
: 
 Is it any wonder that I tried to take a premature call after Clayton Cosgrove’s address? The previous Government never did do anything about the drivers of crime. This legislation is a new initiative from this new National Government which will make—and is currently making—a difference just by the fact that we have started that whole process of addressing the drivers of crime. While we are looking at the drivers of crime we are also making sure that New Zealanders feel safe in their beds and in their homes. 
This Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill is a sensible solution. You know Opposition members think it is a sensible solution because they are supporting it so we have to wonder what on earth they are rabbiting on about in the House. They are raving on in the House when it is quite a simple straightforward bill and when they are supporting it. 
I will cover a couple of matters in regard to the bill. Clause 3 states: “This Act amends the Corrections Act 2004.” Clause 4 amends section 32 by inserting new subsection (2A) which ensures that if a cell block is declared by notice in the  
Gazette  
to be part of a corrections prison then section 9 of the Resource Management Act will not prevent that cell block being used to detain prisoners. That provision is pretty sensible and the Opposition must think it is pretty sensible otherwise it would not be supporting it. So that is great; everybody is in accord. 
Clause 5(2) makes a consequential amendment to section 4 of the Resource Management Act to signal that “Section 9 does not apply to the detention of prisoners in a court cell block that is declared by notice in the  
Gazette  
to be part of a corrections prison.’ ”. So I can see no reason why there is so much kerfuffle by the Opposition when it is supporting this bill. That kerfuffle is just bombast on its part. 
CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour) 
: 
 I will respond to a few of the claims that have been made by Mr Calder and Sandra Goudie with regards to increases in crime. The perception has been put out there by this National Government that under the Labour Government crime increased. Let us look at the facts. A report from the University of Auckland states that crime decreased under the Labour Government. A  
New Zealand Herald  
article in April 2008 stated: “The New Zealand crime rate remained flat in 2007 while police resolved almost 10000 more offences than the previous year.” That article stated: “New Zealand recorded its lowest murder rate for a decade at 45 with 41 resolved before the end of the year.” It also stated—I touch on this because Mr Calder brought it up—that “Overall the picture was less rosy” with regards to violent crimes but “This is not surprising when we take into account that there has been a huge focus on family violence with publicity and media campaigns designed to reduce tolerance for such offending”. 
It cannot be held against the Labour Government that we did something with regards to family violence and domestic violence. It cannot be held against the Labour Government that women all of a sudden decided that it was OK to come out and report to the police that they were getting beaten by their husbands. We cannot be accused of doing anything wrong when we did that over the last 9 years. Perhaps violent offences increased in terms of reporting but it is not due to anything done wrong by the Labour Government; it is because of the work that we put into ensuring that women felt safe coming out and reporting against family violence. 
I will touch on just how safe this bill is with regards to our courts. “Just how safe is it in court?” is an article that came out in the  
Manukau Courier 
 in April 2009. It discussed the fact that “PSA national secretary Richard Wagstaff says there aren’t enough officers to cover the three courts at all times.” He discussed the fact that the shortage is “mirrored at courts across the country and threatens the safety of the public”. He said: “They need an extra three security staff to enable them to cover the three courts at all times.” The article goes on: “Mr Wagstaff says public demand is increasing yet the government has put a cap on staff which is ‘a recipe for disaster and in the case of our courts and our probation service threatens the safety of the public’.” This is an issue. 
We support the Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill because the Government is in crisis and crime is on the increase. We know that a big part of that increase is due to poverty. Due to the high unemployment rates under this Government we are seeing an increase in the number of people committing crimes. Prisons do not have the capacity to deal with them. We support this bill but only because this Government is in crisis. Therefore there is no other option with regards to the safety of the public. However that does not mean that this will be smooth sailing for the Government. There are huge issues here with regards to the numbers of security officers in our courts and also with regards to the unrest that has arisen in recent months amongst the justice staff members about their working conditions. If the Government does not address those things then we will be in serious trouble when this legislation goes through. We will see an increased number of prisoners pushed to the cells in the courts because they cannot be held in our actual prisons. 
I pointed out earlier and I point out again that last night what we may just as well call the “Privatisation of Prisons Bill” went through. The National Government was saying that the Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill would result in safer better and cheaper prisons. How can they be safer and better when anticipation of a huge overflow results in the need for this Government to push this legislation through quickly so that it has cells to house the prisoners because the prisons will not be able to hold them? I cannot see how the private prisons that it says will be the remedy to what it perceives as all its problems will be any sort of remedy when we are seeing more legislation to deal with the overflow. The prisons that the Government is talking about improving will not be able to cope with the sheer numbers. 
I will go back to the issue of our court staff and our justice staff. There was a  
New Zealand Herald  
article. Again it was not long ago at all—it was only Tuesday 17 November 2009. Our court staff were out on strike arguing for better pay. They were pointing out the fact that they would no longer “continue to accept the ministry’s unjust pay system that’s responsible for their underpayment.” and the fact that they are working in very poor working conditions. It is this Government’s responsibility to ensure that our public servants are taken care of so that chaos does not erupt in places like our courts. It will be our public whose safety is put at risk and also that of the security officers who are working these courts. 
My colleague Mr Cosgrove brought up the fact that there was an absence of a regulatory impact statement in the bill that we were handed. He also pointed out that this is highly unusual given the fact that usually it is in the bill. He was advised that it was unusual for a bill not to have it. We looked it up on the website and got a copy. We thought that perhaps there was something there that the Government was a little bit worried about. When we went through what is reported in the regulatory impact statement we found that a couple of things should be brought to the attention of the public. No one would deny that holding prisoners in court cells is not a new thing; there was a way in which that could be done in the past. Now the Government is going to extreme measures to introduce this legislation because it is in crisis. 
One of the things pointed out in the regulatory impact statement is that “The preferred option”—this option—“carries litigation risks in that prisoners housed in court cells may claim that their treatment does not comply with provisions of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act or other legislative requirements. It is also possible that New Zealand’s compliance with international conventions could be challenged. In this regard the Chief Ombudsman has indicated that the Ombudsmen may issue adverse reports under Part 2 of the Crimes of Torture Act 1989 if their concerns are not addressed.” Putting prisoners in court cells was done sparingly under the previous Labour Government; it was not done on a regular basis. We did not feel we needed to legislate for it. 
When we were in Government—for the past 9 years—we were not in crisis. This Government is in crisis so it is forced to legislate for it and we have to support it in that but this Government will have to face that issue. With the increasing number of prisoners whom they are planning to push into courts cells there will be a much higher risk that their rights as prisoners and their treatment do not comply with the provisions of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. This is especially so given the fact as I pointed out before that there is a shortage of security staff at the moment. There is unrest amongst the justice staff because of poor working conditions imposed by this Government. It needs to be highlighted that there are concerns about this that have been pointed out in the regulatory impact statement. 
To end I want to say that last night we saw a bill pushed through stating that private prisons will apparently be better safer and cheaper yet here we are today—and this is ironic—pushing through a bill that will legislate to allow for prisoners to be held in court cells because the Government is anticipating an overflow. It is anticipating that its prisons will not be able to hold the sheer numbers. This is an issue. It is ironic. It contradicts what the National Government discussed last night. Mr Mallard discussed the “h” word before; I will not bring it up. We support this bill because the Government is in crisis but we have a few concerns that the Government will have to address. 
JOHN BOSCAWEN (ACT) 
: 
 I had not been intending to take a call in this debate. I will be very brief. I will make three points. First I have never heard such a load of rubbish in my life. Carmel Sepuloni has just said that the Labour Party is voting for the Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill because the Government is in crisis. Well I invite Labour members to vote against the bill. Because the ACT Party supports the bill it will be passed into law whether or not the Labour Party supports it. The Government does not need Labour’s support. It is welcome to give it. It is a good bill. But I have never heard such a load of rubbish in my life. Thank you. 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country) 
: 
 Following on from the comments made by my ACT colleague John Boscawen I am reminded very much of how awful it is in Opposition when one is voting for something but one is required to give a 10-minute speech putting forward the reasons why it is not a good idea. That is the reason we fight so hard to get into Government; it is so much better to be on this side of the House. 
I say to my colleagues on the other side of the House who have debated the Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill so far—the Hon Trevor Mallard and the Hon Clayton Cosgrove who have come up with all the reasons why this bill is not a good idea but who are supporting it—that they have missed one point. This Government has now been in power for 1 year. They were in power for 9 years. They talked of the prisons that they opened during the 9 years they were in power but they forgot to mention that they also closed some prisons. 
The question that has not been raised so far given the importance of this bill because of the overflow from our prisons and the crisis that has been created as a result is why they closed Ohura Prison in the King Country during their time in Government. When we drill into the reasons they gave for doing that we find that they argued that they could not get prison officers to live out there. Well in the end that was true but why was that? It was because a decision was made 12 to 18 months prior to the closure of that prison to sell off the prison houses. Of course when prison officers apply for a job they look at the whole package. They have to consider where they would live how they would get there and what the salary was. They found they would have to go out to Ohura and try to find suitable accommodation for their wives and families and of course it was not available. Talk about a self-fulfilling prophesy! The selling of prison houses making them unavailable was a nationwide decision and in Ohura the one-size-fits-all approach did not work. 
And it was a tragedy. When I look back at it I realise that the kind of people who generally make themselves available as medium-security or low-security prison officers are the kind of people who like a recreational sort of life. They might be hunters fishers foresters or have other similar hobbies that they do outside of their hours of work and Ohura was perfectly located for that type of person and that type of lifestyle. However the decision was made the prison was closed and now we are here debating a bill under urgency to allow court cells and other temporary facilities to be used to accommodate the overflow of prisoners. 
I would be interested in comments from the Hon Clayton Cosgrove or from anybody else who wishes to take a call to explain the merits of that decision. When Tony Ryall was the Opposition police spokesperson he identified a looming problem in terms of the growing prison numbers and a lack of construction of new prison facilities. So after 9 years of Labour we are now debating under urgency the need to allow the temporary accommodation of prisoners in facilities that could arguably be described as unsuitable for long-term corrections activity. The Government is aware of that and it is moving to look at all options as quickly as possible. I am sure that the National Government will find a solution to it. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour) 
: 
 Mr Boscawen might not have read the regulatory impact statement but Carmel Sepuloni was referring to the fact that managing the prison muster is in crisis hence the necessity to pass legislation to enable this to happen. Therefore there is nothing disingenuous about that; it is a fact. Why would we not support something when it is a reasonable thing to do and when it is something that we also find necessary to do? What is disingenuous is what members opposite used to do when this matter came up under the Labour Government. They would pillory this very kind of provision. What we do not see is a little bit of humility from them. Maybe they could apologise and say they can see why it was necessary. I know that Mr Ardern has had more experience of being in Opposition than we have. It is something he ought to think about. We do not intend to become as experienced at that as members opposite are. 
Members opposite have taken this opportunity to legislate a simple provision under urgency. It would have been easy to get through this without too much complication. Members opposite have taken this as an opportunity to say time and time again that in the 9 years of the previous Government it did nothing about violence and crime. I do not know where those members were when day after day year after year and term after term the Labour Government did bring forward many pieces of legislation and significantly resourced the addressing of crime. Mr Calder talked a lot about the increase in violent crime. As I said in my first reading speech he displays his own ignorance about the figures for violent crime. I want to spend a few minutes educating members opposite about the figures for violent crime. 
We indeed know that the majority of violent crime shown in those statistics emerged out of domestic violence; we know that to be the case. How did that happen? Did it happen because of 9 years of inactivity by the last Government or did it happen because year in and year out Ministers and their ministries were working very very hard to try to understand what some of the drivers were what needed to be done and how to bring everybody together and start a programme that in perhaps the next 10 years—because that is how long it would take—would achieve the necessary changes? 
Mr Ardern and Mr Calder might not know about the family violence task force and the work that it did to try to find out what New Zealand society should do about violence. It brought all of the information together. It joined up all the agencies possible. I know because I led the Families Commission at that time. We were key players and the member’s party exempted itself from the multiparty group. So I say to members opposite that they did nothing to assist in solving the problem when they were in Opposition. In fact they obfuscated it. They stood on the sidelines and criticised very very reasonable efforts. 
The task force started in December 2004 and it went through for a period after that. That task force comprising all of the Government’s social agencies plus the non-governmental organisation sector has spent a lot of energy effort intellectual ability and resources to begin to address those issues. I say to Mr Ardern that one of the major messages was that one must not live with violence in one’s domestic situation that one must report it and find assistance. That has caused the major rise in the reporting of domestic violence. The member might want to talk to Mr Calder and explain it to him so that members opposite can understand and stop this nonsense. It is intellectually dishonest. Ministers and members opposite ought not to do that because it does them no justice and it does this Parliament no justice. It is a form of dishonesty that is just incredible to behold in this age. 
I will go further and say that this Government has changed not one aspect of that programme. In fact the Government’s programme to address domestic violence is exactly the same programme that the Hon Ruth Dyson led as a Minister and other Ministers supported it at the time. At one point half the Cabinet Ministers were members of the ministerial group to which the task force was responsible. Maybe the next Government speaker can clarify for us whether that is still the case and whether the member’s Cabinet puts that much emphasis on it because nothing has changed. The task force works on the same programme. The It’s Not OK campaign works in exactly the same way. The community-led initiatives work in exactly the same way. The member’s Government has added nothing to it except for on-the-spot protection orders I think. Labour members supported that measure as well. It was a slight tweaking of something that was already there. 
Time and time again ethnic members in National—Mr Bakshi Melissa Lee and the Hon Pansy Wong are in the Chamber— 
Hon Pansy Wong 
: Good morning. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: Greetings ni hao. Those members speak to ethnic audiences and what do they do? They tout their achievements in reducing violence in our society even though it is inappropriate to do so in many many situations where members of the audiences do not want to hear about the Government’s work on violence. They want to hear Government members celebrating those cultures. 
Hon Pansy Wong 
: They love the Government. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: But time and time again I say to the Hon Pansy Wong and her colleague that is what those members do and their audiences are just bored with it. It is time to stop doing that. 
Members opposite have also been criticising this provision which we used and which they now want to use. Of course members opposite want it for a purpose. We would like to hear for how long the Government intends to use this provision. Is it for the summer because by that time the Government will have solved the problem? Is it for another 6 months because by then it will have found the answers? Is it for only 1 year because by then all of the Government’s new systems will be in place and it will have resolved the violence issues in our society? Or will it be for all of the Government’s term? I ask whether members opposite intend that this will be their policy for the rest of their Government’s term—because it will be their last one—and if it is not then I ask what else they are putting in place. Members opposite have made this a violence issue. Members opposite have turned this into something that the Government is now guaranteeing. Members opposite are guaranteeing to New Zealand society that in your term you will have resolved this— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Order! 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: My apologies Mr Deputy Speaker. Will the Government members opposite have resolved this issue in this period of time? I would put money on there being no guarantee that they can give that this provision will still be there. 
Todd McClay 
: How much? 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: Mr McClay can take me on; I will see him in the lobby afterwards. I would put money on it that this measure will not improve the situation. This is a generational shift we are talking about. Our society is violent and there is much that we need to do about that. It is inappropriate for members opposite to promise that they can do much better. This will come to haunt their policies. 
Sandra Goudie 
: Ha ha! 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: Sandra Goudie may smile but what the Government is doing is explosive. It is appealing to the negative side of life. 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 I will speak briefly on the Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill. The Green Party will be opposing it. It is an extraordinary bill. We have court cells to house the people who are being taken to court and suddenly these cells are to be used to house prisoners. 
Hon Member 
: Shock horror! 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: Well it is an indictment on the prison situation in New Zealand. I believe we have the second-highest number proportionally of prisoners locked up in jail of any nation in the world. We are second only to America. My understanding is that for every prisoner locked up for a year it costs $70000. We are all fretting about budgets but no one is worrying about that cost. We just keep pouring people into jails and it costs $70000 a year per prisoner. 
But the problem or the crisis facing the Government is where to put the endless number of prisoners who are going into our jails. Now we will take court cells which are normally used for people who are being taken to court for this purpose. The first question I have to ask is what will happen once they are all filled with our prisoners—and mark my words they will be. The bill talks about occasional use but this bill being rammed through under urgency will allow court cells to become de facto prisons. When our court cells are filled with prisoners where will the people who would be in those cells because they are being taken to court go? 
Hon Mita Ririnui 
: Caravans. 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: Will we now have caravans outside our courts in an attempt to house those people because all the court cells will be overflowing with prisoners? 
This bill is an absolute indictment on where we are in New Zealand with regard to this issue. Our prisons are overflowing but all we are doing is treating the symptoms and pouring more and more prisoners into jail when we should be looking at early intervention rehabilitation finding non-custodial interventions for minor non-violent offending and so on. We should be looking at rehabilitation and at the roots of crime. We know very well that the more unequal a society is the wider the gap between the rich and the poor. The more that we have entrenched poverty as we do in New Zealand the more violence will occur and the more we will have prisoners. So why do we not deal with the root causes of why we have the second-highest number of prisoners in jail in the world instead of resorting to these ludicrous situations such as turning our court cells into new jails? We will now have courts that are effectively jails. This is completely absurd. 
The bill also breaches the Resource Management Act. Normally we cannot just turn a court building into a prison because that would breach that Act. There would have to be a specific amendment or an allocation of land for the purpose of a prison. This bill will grant a Resource Management Act exemption so that nobody can challenge or even be consulted when a court building is to be effectively converted into a prison in his or her neighbourhood. People will wake up and find that the courthouse they have been living near will now effectively become a dual-purpose building—a prison and a court—and they will not be able to offer any objection because of the exemption in this bill. 
This is an indictment and the Green Party is horrified. I am certain that this bill will breach not just our human rights legislation but also international legislation. I would be grateful if the Minister of Corrections could confirm what human rights legislation the bill breaches and could tell members how the Government is planning to circumvent breaching that legislation. I ask where the Government will find room to accommodate the people who should be in the court cells and I ask what impact turning our courts into jails will have. What will we do when the court cells are all filled up? This is completely ludicrous. We have double-bunking and we have containers to house prisoners being erected around New Zealand. As some of the earlier speakers have said we have an absolute crisis that shows the absolute failure of our approach to reducing prison numbers. The number of prisoners is escalating. It shows the failure to deal with the root causes of the issue. It shows that this is the inevitable consequence of the ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor in New Zealand and the entrenched poverty we have. 
There is one other point that I keep mentioning and it is completely ignored. It is well established that if violence is screened continually on television as it is here it legitimises violence and encourages young boys in particular to think that the way to solve problems is through violence. The Green Party secured funding to do some research on this issue. Thousands of studies have confirmed the findings that prolonged exposure to incidents of violence on television normalises violence. Violence is shown in cartoons. There are up to 16 episodes of violence in an hour of cartoons. Violence is saturating our television and it is encouraging the normalisation of violence in our society. We are bringing up young men to think that violence is a legitimate way to solve conflict. Is this Parliament trying to do anything about that? Is it doing anything to reduce the amount of violence that pervades our television sets? It is one of the root causes of violence. Are we trying to do anything about that? No no; the two main political parties thump the anti-crime drum. Their members rush up and down the country. National and ACT in particular join with the Sensible Sentencing Trust in beating the anti-crime drum but they do absolutely nothing to reduce the causes of violence. A very simple cause of violence is the amount of violence shown on television. There are many ways we could be reducing the amount of violence shown on television. We could require that programmes that are filled with violence are screened only after 10 o’clock at night. We could be doing many things like that. But no we are not doing anything to address the root causes of violence. 
We are creating a society that is ever more unequal. We are entrenching poverty as the report yesterday pointed out. Then we worry and wonder why our prison population is out of control. It is one of the fastest-growing in the world—the second highest. What will we do next? We have turned the courts into prisons we have double-bunking in prisons and we have containers around the nation for prisoners. When will this Government and this Parliament address the root causes and look at the whole issue of rehabilitation early intervention and finding other ways to reduce the number of prisoners and the amount of crime in New Zealand? 
KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National) 
: 
 I stand in support of the Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill. First of all I would like to tell Dr Rajen Prasad that Indians do love this Government and really welcomed us. They were really disappointed that the last Government did not do anything about violence or anything about crime. This bill provides for the Department of Corrections to imprison prisoners temporarily in court cells. Court cell blocks have basic facilities and an extended period of detention in such conditions would compromise prisoners’ rights to humane treatment. In order to ensure that all prisoners are treated humanely and receive the statutory minimum entitlement it is proposed that an amendment to the Corrections Act limit to 4 days the length of detention in a court cell. Prisoners under the age of 18 years and disabled prisoners will not be accommodated in court cells. I commend this bill to the House. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. 
Ayes 112 
New Zealand National 58; New Zealand Labour 43; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 4; Progressive 1; United Future 1. 
Noes 9 
Green Party 9. 
Bill read a second time. 
In Committee 
JO GOODHEW (Junior Whip—National) 
: 
 I seek leave for the Committee on the Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill to take the bill as one question. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: Leave is sought to take the bill as a single question. Is there any objection to that course of action being followed? There is no objection. We will take the bill as a single question. 
Clauses 1 to 5 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 I have a couple of questions for the Minister of Corrections Judith Collins. I think that the Minister in the chair the Associate Minister of Justice Nathan Guy will be able to answer them. The first question is with regard to the points that I made in respect of the regulatory impact statement. The Minister will know presumably even though he is a new Minister that it is normal in a Government bill to have a reasonably robust regulatory impact statement. In fact his colleague Rodney Hide who holds the portfolio as regulatory tsar pledged to the nation that he would cut through all the red tape and ensure that the bills that came into this House had been tested for their efficiency that they were needed and that the regulatory impact statements stacked up. The purpose of a regulatory impact statement is to test the strictures around bills like this. I would be grateful to know whether this bill got through Rodney Hide’s detailed gaze—whether he actually did his job and looked at it. 
The problem we have with this bill is that it may well have made history in that there is no regulatory impact statement in it. There are a couple of lines that point to a regulatory impact statement and there is the heading “Regulatory impact statement”. But until less than 24 hours ago—I know this because a copy of the bill was given to me earlier—there was not even a URL included in the bill to link it to the actual regulatory impact statement that I have in my hand and that appears on a website. I would like to know why. I am sure the Minister will give us a long dissertation in this respect because it seems to me that this proves the bill was rushed through. 
The other issues I will raise with regard to the regulatory impact statement relate to some of the points I made earlier. Cabinet has agreed on page 3 of the regulatory impact statement that the period of detention in court cells would be for 4 days or 96 hours. This legislation takes away the right of people to object to the use of court cells for the 96-hour period. It streamlines the process and we will support that for obvious reasons. But I think it is incumbent upon the Government to explain to this House and through it to the people in those communities that have courthouses that will be used—I think there are some 100-plus cells if I am correct—how the logistical arrangements will be put together. 
How will these folk be fed? Will prisoners be shipped out during the day when the court sits? How will prison officers’ logistical and security needs be dealt with? Where will the extra staff come from and who will pay for them? Where will the money come from? Who will administer to these prisoners whilst they are on additional sites in our courts? Will they be shipped out and back to prison during the day and then shipped back to the court cells in the evening? How will they be fed watered and showered? Those are basic issues. I do not think that any of our courts have those logistical provisions. Court cells have very basic sanitation but they are holding cells for people appearing before court not accommodation for an overnight stay let alone for 4 days. I would be interested to know how that will occur. 
I ask whether there will be extra security given the classification. Presumably these are low-classification inmates but I ask whether there will be extra security for the 4 days that they are housed in court cells. I think that the Minister of Corrections does not know even though this bill has been rushed through in urgency because the Minister had no foresight to forecast and to look at the forecast that she is handed every day if not every week. 
We are in the last 8 sitting days of Parliament dealing with what is a pretty simple issue but one that has risks as noted in the regulatory impact statement. Those risks are acknowledged by the Department of Corrections so I would be grateful if we could know where the extra budget allocation is coming from for staff because there will have to be one. Presumably it comes out of baseline funding so I ask what else will slip. I ask what other sorts of costs there are because there is no reference at all to costs in the regulatory impact statement. What sorts of costs will be put upon the taxpayer for the transfer of prisoners and for the other logistical arrangements that are required? The Minister should answer these fundamental questions. 
Clauses 4 and 5 are pretty self-explanatory—we know what they are about—as are clauses 1 2 and 3. But we need to know about the detail and the processes contained around this bill and the day-to-day logistics and requirements of security arrangements if this legislation is to be implemented. I am particularly concerned about the safety of prison officers. I ask how those issues will be dealt with where prison officers do not have the logistical or security support that they would have in a prison. These are not prisons these are court cells. I ask how that matter will be dealt with and what the added security for prison officers is. What arrangements will be put in place to assist the people who are at the front line? 
If the Minister of Corrections does not respond to those questions then we have to assume that the questions are unanswered that there is no planning in place that this is just part of the rushed process of this bill and that those planning arrangements will be cobbled together in the same sort of shambolic way that this legislation has been as we move through to Christmas. We know generally that the prison release policy takes place pre-Christmas and normally a little bit of space is created. The regulatory impact statement also points to this legislation being used in the early part of next year. 
I would be grateful if the Minister could give members and the communities those assurances because we know that these court cells are just basic holding cells. There are security issues for staff and basic transport and security issues for prisoners and the welfare of staff and prisoners has not been addressed. Will we ship prisoners off to the local football club to be showered? Will they be transferred back to a prison nearby during daytime hours so that the court can function and then shipped back in the evening? I ask what the cost of that will be. Where are the extra personnel who will have to do that task and where are the extra vehicles and all the other ancillary services that we will need? I would be grateful if the Minister would answer those basic questions. I am sure she has a huge knowledge of this bill and I am sure it will not be taxing given that it is only five clauses long and fits on one A3 page. 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 There are quite a number of questions that the Committee deserves an answer to in addressing the clauses of the Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill. I would really appreciate if we could have some answers from the Government to the following questions. 
First of all does the bill breach the Human Rights Act in New Zealand? I suspect it does. If it does the Government should explain that. Secondly does the bill breach any international human rights legislation? Thirdly now that we are converting our courts into jails some very practical issues arise. I presume that prisoners in jails have to be fed. I presume that they have to have showers and so forth. Will we have cooking facilities in our courts now? Will we have showers in the courts so that prisoners can be showered? Where will they have their exercise? Where will the prison guards who monitor them in these cells be located? In my second reading speech I asked where the people who normally would be in the court cells—people who have been taken to court—would go. Will they sit on the steps outside or will there be caravans outside New Zealand courts? We should be given answers to all those questions. This bill is being raced through this House with extreme urgency. Ordinary New Zealanders have no idea that this is about to happen. The debate has been shallow to say the least and why would it not be because we know hardly anything about the issue. The bill is 2 pages in length but nevertheless far-reaching in its consequences. So I believe we are owed an explanation of these issues before the bill goes through the House. 
How many courts in New Zealand are in residential areas? In many small towns the court is right next to residences homes and so forth. How many people will suddenly find that there is a jail next to their homes in their suburbs without their consent or without their even being informed? The extraordinary thing is that this bill acknowledges that in most cases it will breach the Resource Management Act because we cannot turn a court into a jail without breaching most district plans. There are rules about the location of jails. Suddenly we will breach all of the rules in district plans about setting aside specific areas for jails. Suddenly we will allow our courts to be turned into jails and we will grant an exemption so that nobody has a right to be consulted when a court in his or her neighbourhood is to be turned into a prison and so that nobody can challenge it. Does that sound reasonable? We have a whole resource management process we have district plans and we have a very clear process to go through for the establishment of a new prison. We have to go through lengthy consultation we have to abide by the Resource Management Act and we have to abide by the local district plan. But suddenly we can sweep all that aside with one little 2-page bill and allow courts all over New Zealand to be turned into jails that house prisoners and we will not inform New Zealanders in advance of that and we will not consult them. 
Has a select committee looked at this bill? Have we called for submissions? 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: No they messed up the plan. It is rushed. 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: Will there be submissions on this? [ 
Interruption 
] There are not going to be any submissions. This is extraordinary. This bill will significantly affect hundreds possibly thousands of New Zealanders. They will wake up and discover that their local court down the road is now a jail and they will not be consulted or informed about that. This reminds me of the national environment standard on telecommunications that was rammed through Parliament last year. It allows cell antennae masts and so on to be erected on any telephone pole anywhere in New Zealand. Mr Mallard rammed that one through. The Greens predicted in this House that it would cause outrage round New Zealand when it went through when people discovered that cell antennae and masts could be erected anywhere in New Zealand without their knowledge or consent even though they could affect their health and well-being and their property prices—their property prices could plunge by up to 20 percent. Have we been proven to be correct? Yes. All around New Zealand groups are outraged. Every week someone else contacts me. Last week a guy in Invercargill discovered that a 15-metre high cell tower was about to be erected across the road. It is a 6-storey tower and no one had bothered to inform or consult him. I was speaking to a woman from Christchurch yesterday. When she took her daughter to school there was no cell tower; when she came home at 3 o’clock to pick her daughter up there was a cell tower across the road from the school. Is this the sort of New Zealand that we think is acceptable? There is growing literature about the health effects of cell towers. In fact places like France are taking down cell towers near schools and here we are putting them up without anyone’s knowledge or consent. 
This bill does exactly the same thing. New Zealanders will be gazumped by this measure. They will ask: “How did this happen? How come we have prisoners in our courthouse? Nobody told us about it?”. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Bad planning. 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: It is not bad planning. The Government has rammed it through deliberately. Do not put it down to bad planning! How can such a bill not have gone to a select committee? It is about an issue of vital importance to New Zealand. We are converting our court cells into jails and nobody is allowed to make a submission. Nobody will be consulted on it. Nobody will even be told of this measure. Someone will wake up go to a courthouse somewhere in a suburb and suddenly discover that it is a jail. 
Would someone please explain how this measure will work? I see that we now have a Minister in the chair the Acting Minister of Corrections. I ask the Minister to please explain to the Committee where the prison guards who guard these court cells will be. Where will food be prepared for the prisoners? Where will they take their showers? Where will they have their exercise? What about the people who should be in the court cells; where will they be held? Will there be caravans outside our courthouses around New Zealand to serve as court cells? And why will the Government not deal with the root causes of crime instead of allowing more and more prisoners overflowing jails and the second-highest prisoner population in the world? How much is this measure going to cost us? It costs $70000 every year for every single prisoner that we lock up in jails or now court cells. 
This bill is an absolute travesty. The Green Party will be opposing it. We expect answers to every single question that I asked. 
Hon MITA RIRINUI (Labour) 
: 
 I stand to take a call because I think the timing is probably convenient if not perfect. As Labour speakers have made it clear we will be supporting the Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill. However some issues need to be addressed. I want to acknowledge the issues raised by the Hon Clayton Cosgrove and Sue Kedgley in relation to the impact that safety issues will have on court staff on the police and on the general public. As you know Mr Chair having been a former Minister for Courts and having visited courts court cells are not the most secure places in our communities. They are not intended to hold prisoners for long periods. I know that this bill will require those prisoners awaiting sentence to be held for 4 days only. But there are still issues surrounding holding an inmate awaiting sentence for that period of time. I will not call them prisoners because they are basically on remand. However issues need to be addressed. 
Certainly the House is aware of the reasons for which the Labour Opposition supports this bill. There were issues that we had to deal with in our time in Government and they meant that some inmates awaiting sentence had to be held in court cells for a limited period of time. But I wonder why the Maori Party supports this bill because there has been no clear explanation from them. I take this opportunity while the Minister of Maori Affairs the Hon Dr Pita Sharples is in the Chamber; I know that he is a strong advocate for community justice. I take this call because the Associate Minister of Maori Affairs the Hon Georgina Te Heuheu is in the chair and I do not really know what her views are in terms of retention of inmates in court cells. I hope that both Ministers will take a call. 
I know that the Maori Party supported the bill that was debated previously in the House the Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill and I wonder why that is the case as well given that the member for Waiariki totally opposes the establishment of the youth justice facility in the electorate of Waiariki for ideological reasons. He claims that Maori do not support the prison system and therefore should not support the building of those facilities in communities yet when it came to voting on the previous bill there was overwhelming support from the Maori Party. It is the same old story. It is the same story with National which says one thing when it is in Opposition and does another thing in Government. The Maori Party members say one thing in the community but in the House they say and do things that are completely the opposite of what they claim they believe in. I hope that the Minister of Maori Affairs will take a call and explain the reasons why he thinks that Maori should be owners of the prison system. That ideology clashes with the traditional Maori cultural view. He is aware of that as is the Minister in the chair. I wonder why they would not take the opportunity now to take a call and explain why they supported the previous bill that was in the House and why they support this bill. 
Labour members are very straight up front and honest about our views about why the Labour Opposition supports the bill that was debated previously in the House and why we support this bill. We are straight up front and honest about why we support that position. We are here to help the Government because it does not have a clue about what it is doing. It needs help. One year in Government and what has happened? It is scavenging for ideas. This legislation is the best it could come up with. National opposed this type of legislation when it was in Opposition; now it does not have to oppose the legislation because it is making it law. Well how about that! What does the member for Rotorua think? Will he walk down the streets of Rotorua and say to the community: “Don’t worry bros. We will hold you in holding cells for 4 days but the law says we can do it now.” How will he explain that to the Maori rangatira who supported him in some of the work he has done? 
Carmel Sepuloni 
: I don’t think they supported him. 
Hon MITA RIRINUI 
: They were at his meetings. They ate his food. They drank his coffee. I think we can accept the usual flip-flop behaviour by the National-led Government but once again I really really wonder why the Maori Party has come here today to be present in the Chamber. I am sure that its constituents are waiting with bated breath to hear why the Maori Party supported not only the previous bill but also this bill. 
CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour) 
: 
 I have a few issues with the Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill that are highlighted more effectively in the regulatory impact statement. I have one issue with regard to this point in the regulatory impact statement: “To ensure that all prisoners would receive their statutory minimum entitlements Cabinet has agreed that the maximum period of detention in court cells would be four days …”. My question to the Minister in the chair the Minister for Courts is what happens if there is still not a bed in a prison for them. What happens to them then? Is the period extended in which they are allowed to be housed in the court cells? Where do they go? Will they just be released? Will they be told: “Go home and we will come and get you when we have a bed.”? What will the Minister for Courts do? That is one question. 
My other question is with regards to resourcing and the ability to cater to the needs of these prisoners in the court cells. Four days is quite a long time. In my head I have this visual picture of about 20 prisoners crammed into one cell holding on to the bars like we see in American movies. I am just wondering whether that will be the case. Will all these prisoners have their own cells in the courts? Will it be one per cell or will there be double-bunking or triple-bunking in the court cells? I ask the Minister whether there will be one big cell where we put the prisoners all together for 4 days and just leave them to it. I wonder what will happen there. My colleague brought up the question of shower facilities washing facilities and food. How will we feed these prisoners? Will the courts be given a budget in order to feed these 30 prisoners that will be kept in a court cell for 4 days? What will happen and how do we go about that? Will the security guards leave their post and go out to Pak ’N Save to buy some food to feed the prisoners? I ask the Minister how this will all work. That is what I would like to know. 
One of the issues raised was that people who live in neighbouring areas will not be able to make a complaint about this legislation. They will not be able to ring up and say: “Actually I do not agree with the fact that there are prisoners held in the court cells next door to where I live.” What will happen if—or when—something goes wrong that affects the neighbouring community and the public’s safety is put at risk because of court cells being in an area where there people around. What will happen then? Will the Government respond to public safety concerns about any incidents that happen? Will it respond to those how will it react and what action will it take? I am not sure whether any of these things have been thought through given that we were presented with this bill only last night and it has not had time to go up for any public scrutiny whatsoever. I think the people who really would have liked to have made a submission on this bill are those who are situated close to a court cell. Those who are living in such an area would probably have some concerns and would have liked to express those concerns in the form of a submission to the select committee. But unfortunately the Minister and this Government has taken away the right of the public to have a say on this bill. It is not the first time this has happened; it is something we have experienced on an ongoing basis since this Government got in a year ago. 
Chris Hipkins 
: Standard practice! 
CARMEL SEPULONI 
: It is standard practice. The Government refers to the country when it was under Labour as the nanny State yet it has pushed through a number of bills that have had no public scrutiny whatsoever because it thinks it knows what is right for all New Zealanders. It thinks New Zealanders do not need to have a say on anything. That is what we call a real nanny State. 
Some of the issues that have arisen across the course of the debate have been with regards to security officer numbers and their shortage in our prisons. That has been pointed out in a number of different articles in the  
New Zealand Herald 
 and in various other sources. I ask what the Minister will do with regard to recruiting a higher level of security officers. Has she increased the budget for security officers in courts so they can cater to the needs of these prisoners; if so how much did she increase the budget to? We would like to know how much the Government is anticipating it will need. 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (Acting Minister of Corrections) 
: 
 I rise not necessarily to answer all the myriad issues that have been raised some of which I missed the argument on anyway but to comment on one or two things. As the members on the Opposition side know this proposal is about enabling temporary accommodation of corrections prisoners in court cells as a last resort where there is insufficient capacity in the prison system. Part of the reason I took this call was to acknowledge the Chairperson the Hon Rick Barker who of course did quite a lot of work previously in his role as the Minister for Courts to address this very issue of rising prisoner numbers and where and how to accommodate them. That is my first point and it is an important one. 
Sue Kedgley 
: Where are they going to be fed and showered? 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU 
: I tell the member I am coming to that. It is not new that we have people in these cells. It is not something new or different that we have never before catered for. As is done anyway with prisoners on remand accommodation is made to have them showered. They are taken to nearby prisons. Part of the implementation of this is that they do need to be showered and fed but those things are done anyway. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Soft on crims! 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU 
: No we are not soft on crims—not at all. But we do want to make sure that we can house the prison population properly. Issues such as how they will be housed and how they will be fed are interesting to raise but if that member thinks about it we have to do that anyway. People already use those cells just not in relation to using them as prisons. The issue about— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Cost? 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU 
: —no no—double-bunking and triple-bunking is I think a red herring. There is no intention for that to occur in the cells. For a minute one could let the imagination run wild with this; I do not know where triple-bunking came from and I do not know how it would arise anyway. I do not think it is worth spending much more time on. 
As I said corrections brings food into cells because the people who are locked in those cells have to be fed. Exercise will be on site if possible but more likely they will be returned to the prison for that and for showering. During the day court proceedings will take precedence and prisoners will be returned depending on whether there is enough room in the cells either to the cells or to the prison. 
The real reason I wanted to stand up was to address the issue that I believe was raised by the member Sue Kedgley regarding human rights implications. It is proper that that is raised. The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights affirm the right of every person deprived of liberty to be treated with humanity and respect. The Act and the Corrections Regulations 2005 provide for prisoners held in New Zealand prisons to be treated in a manner that complies with these international instruments and it is consistent with the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners. 
Among other things this legislation sets out prisoners’ minimum entitlements requires certain categories of prisoners to be separated—for example youth or unconvicted remand prisoners—and provides access to inspectors of corrections and other complaint mechanisms. All requirements of the Act and regulations will apply to prisoners who are detained in court cells and these requirements will be met. The proposal to limit the period of detention in court cells to a maximum of 4 days will assist in that regard. Depending on their implementation because everything is in the implementation the proposals in this bill appear to be consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. We have not ignored it and I believe that goes some way to addressing the concerns raised in particular by the honourable member Sue Kedgley. 
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? 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour) 
: 
 I take a short call to raise three matters. Before I do so I refer to something my colleague Sue Kedgley said. She is absolutely right that there are many drivers of crime. Government members have made the Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill a crime issue as well so it would be useful if Government members could address this when they are looking at the drivers of crime. Ms Kedgley is right that the notion of television violence ought to be looked at again because a precautionary risk management approach was recommended some time ago. It ought to be put alongside a host of other factors that result in the rise in crime and criminality. I hope Government members will do that but I rather suspect they will not because it is far sexier to take one driver as if it will answer everything. It will not but that might be what members of the public want to hear in the “get tough on crime” rhetoric that we often hear from Government members. 
Clause 4 of the bill seeks an exemption from the Resource Management Act; the regulatory impact statement says that this prevents residents and others affected from challenging overnight accommodation of prisoners in court cells. That is pretty clear. I am not familiar with all of the cells that are associated with our courts around the country but perhaps the Minister in the chair the Hon Georgina Te Heuheu could clarify for us whether this provision applies to all of them or whether some are in such a position that they would be precluded from being accessed through this particular provision. If so how does the Minister intend to go about regulating for that or making it clear? That might assist those who are losing their rights to take the matter further through the Resource Management Act and it might satisfy them that their concerns will be addressed if there are good reasons why particular courts with cells in them should not be used for this purpose. I would like to hear the Minister talk a little about that so that those listening can be satisfied. 
There is also a reference in the regulatory impact statement to an agreement between the Ministry of Justice and the Department of Corrections. I would like to hear a little more about what is to be in that agreement. It simply says that there will be an agreement but what kinds of things will be in that agreement? Other members of the Opposition have identified some elements but there are others as well. What has been the experience of using this facility in the last few years and how will that impact on this particular agreement? What risks are there and how will those risks be managed? 
People have also raised the question of guards and how their needs are to be met. We would like to hear a little more about that agreement between the ministry and the department— 
Sandra Goudie 
: I think we’ve heard enough. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: I say to Ms Goudie that we have heard nothing about those agreements. Perhaps Ms Goudie has been sleeping. I know she is bored by this discussion but if she had been following the discussion she also would have raised this question. Perhaps she will raise it in her caucus; perhaps she ought to. Certainly we are not bored by this; it affects people and it affects many in the communities in which we live. 
The third point I raise is reasonably serious. The regulatory impact statement states: “it is considered that the option of using court cells for over-flow prisoners needs to be available on an ongoing basis”. In much of what members opposite have talked about they said that this provision was a temporary thing. But the regulatory impact statement states that it is an ongoing provision; there is nothing short-term about it. We would like it to be clarified whether it will be used for ever or whether it will be used for the short term. We would like the Minister in the chair to address that. Thank you. 
Hon Dr PITA SHARPLES (Associate Minister of Corrections) 
: 
 I would like to take a short call on the Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill. We agree with most of the speakers—there are a lot of dangers in this legislation. Although we will support it we think there are a lot of things that have to be taken care of before it proceeds. I am not worried about the food I am not worried about the latrines and I am not worried about the showers. I think those issues can be dealt with. But I am worried about safety. Safety is a major issue. There have been several break-outs from court cells— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairman. I think we had better check. I think Sir Roger is asleep but I just want to make sure it is not something more serious. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I say to the member that that is not a point of order and the member should reflect upon that and what it does for the Committee. 
Hon Dr PITA SHARPLES 
: I would like to carry on after being interrupted by the observant member Trevor Mallard. As I said those safety issues need to be taken care of. There have been several break-outs from court cells. One was through a window and another was through the ceiling. In fact I think one of my nephews got away from the Waipukurau prison in that way. I think it is important that 18-year-olds continue to be kept separate from older prisoners even when in a holding period and not in a semi-permanent period. 
This measure has to be temporary; it cannot be any longer than that. Given that those things are taken care of the Maori Party will support this bill but only as a temporary measure. The reality is that by June next year more cells will be needed to incarcerate the many people who are in there now. We are in this situation because prison numbers swelled under the previous Labour Government. Numbers went from about 5000 in 1996 to 8400 now. So I am not saying that Labour is at fault for all of that increase but quite clearly that is what happened over that period. 
We need to do something about it and to me the solution is the work that we do in our society. We have to create stable families. We have to put our effort into the community. It is through education and well families that people will turn away from a life of crime. I think we all have to work on that across parties as well. 
I will humour the member Mita Ririnui as to why I supported the Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill last night. I gave two speeches—[ 
Interruption 
] I guess he must have been asleep at that time but never mind. I supported the bill for a number of reasons. One of them is that a lot of groups want to go into partnership with iwi and have a joint venture if you like. Now the number of Maori in the population has not dropped as a percentage but Maori make up more than 50 percent of the people in jail. What is there now has not worked so we should try something different and that measure is an option. 
In terms of recidivism we have some buildings in the pipeline called Whare Oranga Ake which is basically a rehabilitation institution. It is still a prison; it caters for the last part of an inmate’s lag. Prisoners will put into a programme of therapeutic analysis so they can analyse their own situation. They will be reconnected with the community and with family. They will be trained in an occupation and so on. They will live in self-care units for four persons. But they will have to earn their way to get into these units. 
The good thing about this whare is that if we have a whare for 32 or 36 people then the majority of the people will not reoffend. So we are actually creating 32 more beds each time there is a roll-over whereas right now in prisons we are just refilling the beds sending the inmates out and then getting them back in again. To me the first emphasis has to be on the rehabilitation of those inmates in jail now and on attacking the recidivism rate. The second emphasis is to look at alternatives to deal with the prisoners in jail now. Over the years the job of prisons has been to just incarcerate not to rehabilitate at all. Despite brilliant attempts by a lot of people to do a lot of things the reality is that the prison system as it is now is a “good guy bad guy” place where they learn a lot of stuff that is not helpful when they get out. 
It is very important to me that we break the cycle of recidivism but it is also important that we do more than just incarcerate people and then send them out. If prisoners cannot make it when they get out and if the support is not there they re-associate with the former inmates they have known and sooner or later it is easier for them to go back to jail. A lot of recidivism is deliberate. They find it difficult to make it out there so they commit a crime knowing that they will ultimately be caught and they go back into prison. I have been there when prisoners have been readmitted. I have seen them walking down the corridor. 
I remember going to the annex which is where inmates go for the last part of their sentence before they leave Paremoremo prison. I remember some guys who were going to go flatting. They were going to do this and that—they were full of ideas and hope. I visited them a month later and there were no light bulbs in the flat there was no money and there was no food. They were down in their boots and they had no jobs. Two months later they were back inside. 
I have seen people go back inside walk down the corridor and say: “Hi Jim hi Joe. Still got my guitar? Put me on the list for Christmas.” and this and that. They are back home again. That is what we are dealing with and that is what we have to break. That is the reason that I supported the legislation last night. Let us try something different something innovative. Kia ora tatou. 
Hon MITA RIRINUI (Labour) 
: 
 I thank the Minister of Maori Affairs who is also the Associate Minister of Corrections for his contribution to the Committee stage of the Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill although I am flabbergasted at some of his comments. He stands up in the Chamber and says that questions about this bill need to be asked and answered. But he is the Associate Minister of Corrections so he should have all the answers. He should come here and provide the answers. There should be no issues with this bill. The problem is that as usual the Minister is not in the loop. 
Sandra Goudie 
: Well the Opposition is thwarting it. 
Hon MITA RIRINUI 
: I am not surprised that the chair of the Law and Order Committee does not want this bill to go to the select committee. She does not want to hear about the problems that it will create. She wants it to pass through the House uninhibited without any problem whatsoever. Well life should not be like that. Any bill that passes through this Parliament without proper and full scrutiny will be flawed. 
I take it from the contribution of the Associate Minister of Corrections that the major flaw in this bill is that he did not know anything about it. He may have stood up in the Chamber last night and made some grand statements about Maori owning the corrections facilities but he has made that statement on a purely commercial platform. He also has this ideology that if we change the nature and the way that prisons are managed then Maori will not reoffend. Well life is not like that. We have to deal with the social circumstances that affect these people if we are to reduce recidivism. The Associate Minister of Corrections may have made two speeches in the Chamber last night but I did not hear them. He thought I was asleep in the Chamber but actually I was in his electorate listening to the concerns about his performance in the Chamber on the emissions trading legislation on the two corrections bills and on a whole lot of other issues that he has failed to deal with. However he is learning the realities of politics on the front line. 
I turn now to the Minister in the chair the Hon Georgina Te Heuheu. Some very practical issues are involved with this proposal. The Minister raised the first one and I thank her for responding to the queries raised by the Green member and by my colleague Carmel Sepuloni about the safety issues and logistic issues with the bill. I take it that the Minister probably has not been into a courtroom holding cell because if she had she would have a better understanding of the way they are constructed. They are far different from prison cells. They are far different from police cells. They are not staffed by trained security people or police officers; they are staffed by court staff. They are staffed by people who are administrators of court procedures and the like. These people are not trained to deal with inmates who are held on remand awaiting sentence by the courts. 
The problem is that the Minister and the Government have not given this proposal a lot of thought. One thing the Minister is very good at is exalting your good work Mr Chairperson as the previous Minister for Courts. The Minister certainly seems to know everything about that. I endorse everything she said and I say well done for that period of time. 
I wonder whether the Minister apart from answering the questions raised by my colleague Rajen Prasad—and there were only three so she should not have any trouble doing that—can take a call on this scenario. She said that inmates will be taken to the nearest prison for showers and other facilities. I suppose she would dial a pizza and the inmates would be fed. Take for example the district courts at Whakatane and Tauranga which have holding cells. The nearest prison is something like 3½ hours’ drive away right next to her electorate office in Taupo and further south in Turangi. It seems to be a huge drain on resources to get a security vehicle staffed by two members to take prisoners 3½ hours down the road for a shower and then bring them back—and I suppose they will want to go to the toilet while they are there. They might even want to be fed on the way there and on the way back. I know that the Minister’s portfolio is not resourced to handle those sorts of contingencies because the Minister of Finance is cutting back. 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 I would like to make a number of points about the Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill. The first is that we have been told by the Associate Minister of Corrections—and I thank him for responding to some of those questions—that we should not worry because prisoners will be held in court cells for only 4 days at a time. I thought that that was interesting so I looked through the bill and I found nothing in it that says they are to be used for only 4 days at a time. There is nothing about that in this bill. There is no regulation and no legislation to require that prisoners will be held for 4 days only in court cells. Let us be absolutely clear about that. The regulatory impact statement says that Cabinet has agreed that prisoners will be there for 4 days only. But what will happen if it has another meeting and agrees to extend that time? Cabinet can extend it without regulation without legislation without even having to go through the charade of ramming another bill through Parliament under urgency and without allowing any submissions to be made. It can just quietly agree to extend the time period way beyond 4 days. Let people be absolutely clear that nothing in this bill states that this measure is for 4 days only. 
The second point which my colleague pointed out very well is that the Government has said that this measure is just temporary. We are told we should not worry because it is just temporary. But the regulatory impact statement says this option needs to be available on an ongoing basis so let us at least have a little honesty in this debate. This measure is a permanent one that will be used to convert courts into prisons. It is permanent—it will be used on an ongoing basis. The spin says it is temporary; the spin is that the time period will be 4 days only. But nothing in the bill limits the practice to 4 days and the issue of prison overcrowding will be ongoing. 
One cannot help but wonder what the Government will do next. Once it has converted court cells into prisons where will it go next? Will prisoners come to Parliament? There are some spare select committee rooms here. Perhaps we could convert those into cells. At least we have some facilities here; at least prisoners could have showers here. At least they would not have to travel for 3 hours to have a shower as we have been told would be the case with many of the court cells and at least they could get their food from Bellamy’s. I think that would be a much more cost-effective option than the use of court cells. Furthermore we have security here so we could even double up on security. So my suggestion is that we start by looking at using Parliament before we look at using court cells. 
One of the things that astonished me is that the Associate Minister himself—in fact both the Ministers who have spoken—acknowledged that there are huge issues here. There are huge unanswered questions. Nobody knows— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Someone talked to the Associate Minister. 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: Yes the Associate Minister says he does not know the answers to these questions. We have been told that prisoners will travel to the nearest prison to have their shower but as some of my colleagues said that could mean travelling for 3 hours. There is a world of difference between a prisoner going to a court cell for a few hours and a prisoner being kept in a court cell for 4 days and 4 nights. My prediction is that it will be for 4 months—it will be ongoing. Nothing in the bill restricts the length of stay to 4 days. 
We have all those unanswered questions. The Associate Minister himself says there are serious security issues here. The court cells are not built as prison cells so there are huge security issues. The court cells are staffed by court staff. Will we suddenly have prison guards coming in from Rimutaka Prison and so on to patrol and to look after prisoners who are holed up in the court cells? We do not have answers to any of these questions. This is astonishing. A bill is being rammed through Parliament in the dead of night—actually during the day I must admit—and the Government has allowed not one New Zealander to be consulted on it. 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 I want to pick up on something that Mita Ririnui said. It is a serious issue and it raises questions about management inside the Government and inside Cabinet. Dr Sharples got to his feet said that he was supporting the bill and that the Maori Party was supporting it—we are not quite sure whether that includes Hone but I put that aside. 
Hon Member 
: He’s in limbo. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: That is right. Here is the serious issue: Dr Sharples is the Associate Minister of Corrections. He got to his feet and I concede that he raised some very legitimate questions. He asked for answers. I have a question through the Chair to that Minister. He shares an office somewhere down the corridor from the Minister of Corrections. He shares a portfolio called “corrections” with the Minister of Corrections and as Sue Kedgley and others pointed out that Minister who is a member of the executive has raised serious questions about a bill that comes under his portfolio. He does not know the answers. 
That raises a serious issue. It could mean a number of things. It could mean that he has not read his briefing papers—and we know from the financial review that the Minister of Corrections received in the order of I think a couple of hundred briefing papers. The Associate Minister of Corrections received 17 in a year. So either he does not read his briefing papers or—and I suspect that this is closer to the truth—the Minister of Corrections does not communicate with her associate. I would have thought that the Associate Minister would when he was in the Chamber be the Minister in the chair not Georgina te Heuheu the Minister for Courts. This issue is not within her portfolio brief. I would have thought that the Minister of Corrections would be in the chair because she knows this bill—all five clauses one A3 piece of paper and 3½ pages of the regulatory impact statement on a website—backwards and she would have been able to rattle off in a microsecond the answers to the legitimate questions around security transportation sanitation and budgetary costs. 
Here is the point: the Associate Minister gets up and makes history by questioning his own bill. He worries about the consequences of the actions in terms of implementation in a bill that is under his partial control as the Associate Minister of Corrections. I ask to members opposite what show they are running in a Government an executive. What is the management around this issue? The bill has been brought in with 8 parliamentary days to go and the Associate Minister of Corrections has questions. I used to be the Associate Minister of Justice. When the Minister of Justice was not here I often took the chair in the Committee stage of bills. I was expected to be able to answer questions about justice bills. Why? Because the Minister of Justice and I talked to each other we read our briefing papers and we took an interest in bills as we had shared responsibility for them. 
But today we have made history. The Associate Minister of Corrections gets up laments worries and raises legitimate questions about a bill that he is partially responsible for as the Associate Minister and he cannot or will not answer those questions himself because either he was not briefed or he was not treated in a mana-enhancing way. I mean that in all seriousness. 
So there is a management issue within this Government. Surely Dr Sharples could take a call and answer his own questions. And I do mean it; I say that to “The Maestro” Dr Coleman over there. He has an Associate Minister of Immigration. I wonder whether they talk to each other. I wonder if there were an immigration bill whether Kate Wilkinson could take the chair or whether she would have another folic-acid moment. There is a serious management issue within the executive of this Government. I am astounded that an Associate Minister could not get to his feet and say that he would put up his hand and answer those questions rather than raising questions himself and saying that those issues have to be satisfied and dealt with. 
I ask him where he was when the bill went through Cabinet. Where was he when the bill was drafted? Why did he not raise those issues with his own Minister? Or if he did why did she not listen to him? She cannot have listened to him because he has raised those same issues on the floor of Parliament. He is looking quite legitimately for some parliamentary support which he has not received from his own Government. 
CHRIS TREMAIN (Senior Whip—National) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour) 
: 
 I have to take a call because my colleague Mita Ririnui did not get to finish the scenario he was putting to the Minister of Corrections. I really need to finish explaining that scenario because it is a scenario that could happen and the Minister needs to take it seriously. The Government has not had enough time to consider these types of scenarios because it has not put the Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill through the appropriate select committee process. 
I shall carry on from where my colleague Mita Ririnui was when he finished. The issue relates to courts and their distance from prisons. He talked about courts like those of Whakatane Tauranga and Opotiki which do not have a prison in the near vicinity and which are quite a distance away from the nearest prison. In fact to get from the Whakatane court to the Turangi prison which is the closest prison takes about 3 hours. 
Hon Mita Ririnui 
: Plus. 
CARMEL SEPULONI 
: It takes 3½ hours. I have an issue in regard to what the Minister said earlier in terms of sanitation and the health of the prisoners. She said that the prisoners will be driven to the nearest prison so that they can shower. We thought about that and we thought that it would be difficult for the security officers driving the vans to provide the prisoners with food and everything else. Perhaps along the way on their 3½ hours’ drive in the security van during which they are listening to Bob Marley and singing they will drive through Kentucky Fried Chicken and get a feed and on the way back they will drive through it again so that they can pick up a party pack for the prisoners’ mates back in the court cells in Whakatane. So on their way there they will get a feed and then they will get to the prison where they will have a shower. The security officers will then turn round and drive for another 3½ hours to get those prisoners back to the court cells where they are being held. What if one of the prisoners all of a sudden thinks it would be really funny to soil himself so that he would have to be driven for another 3½ hours all the way back to Turangi to be cleaned up? The security officers would not want to leave him like that; they would not want the other prisoners to feel any discomfort because one of their mates has just soiled himself. I do not know whether the Minister has actually thought that one through and thought about that sort of scenario. It is the kind of very real scenario that she might be faced with after the Government has brought this legislation through the House. 
As I said earlier—and as all the Labour members have said—Labour will support this bill. We are supporting this bill because the National Government is in crisis over this situation. It is in crisis over it. It knows that its prisons will not have the capability to deal with the numbers of prisoners it is expecting due to the rise in crime that is already happening and the expected further rise in crime. So Labour has to support this bill. We in Labour know that the Government needs somewhere to put those prisoners and the only option for it is the court cells. This issue has come up before. It is not a new thing; it is something that has happened before. But the National Government is taking it to the extreme in legislating for it and it is doing that because it is in crisis. Its prisons will not be able to deal with the sheer number of prisoners coming through because of the amount of crime being committed. 
My colleague from the Green Party Sue Kedgley brought up a very very good point earlier on in relation to the regulatory impact statement which points out that prisoners can be held in court cells for no longer than 4 days—I think it is 96 hours. That is the longest time they can be held there. She pointed out that although that provision is mentioned in the regulatory impact statement it is not in the bill itself. Therefore if that aspect of this bill is not fixed up the Government will be able to house prisoners in court cells for as long as it wishes—for as long as the need is there for as long as the prisons are in crisis and for as long as crime is on the rise. More crimes are being committed and the Government cannot cope with the numbers of prisoners. The Government now can keep prisoners in court cells. That is a real issue especially given the fact that the public have not had a chance to make submissions on this bill. The public are at risk—that was pointed out in the regulatory impact statement—in regard to court cells holding prisoners given the proximity of court cells and courts to people living nearby. That has not been addressed and we need to address it. The public would have a concern about it. So I thank the Green member for pointing out that issue. 
She also pointed out that there is perhaps a secret agenda of the National Government to convert the courts into prisons. 
CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
Motion agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That clauses 1 to 5 be agreed to. 
Ayes 112 
New Zealand National 58; New Zealand Labour 43; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 4; Progressive 1; United Future 1. 
Noes 9 
Green Party 9. 
Clauses 1 to 5 agreed to. 
Bill reported without amendment. 
Report adopted. 
Third Reading 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (Acting Minister of Corrections) 
: I move  
That the Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill be now read a third time 
. This bill makes one amendment to the Corrections Act and a consequential amendment to the Resource Management Act. This bill will provide the Government with increased flexibility in its response to the growing prison population. This bill is part of a range of measures both short term and long term that the Government is introducing to help manage the growth of the prison population. Passing the bill before the House rises on 22 December will mean that the changes in this bill can be put in place in time to be used in the new year if necessary. I commend the bill to the House. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 This started off as a pretty mundane sort of debate with Labour supporting the Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill because there needs to be some flexibility in the use of court cells. But as the debate moved forward a number of legitimate questions were raised about how this five-clause bill would be implemented. The Green members raised questions my colleagues in Labour raised questions and the Maori Party’s Associate Minister of Corrections himself the Hon Dr Pita Sharples raised questions on his own bill. We will get to that in a minute. 
The Minister of Corrections did not take a call in the Committee stage never sat in the chair never answered any questions and now has not taken a call in the third reading. The Associate Minister of Corrections was presumably not allowed to sit in the chair to have questions put to him. Rather he bizarrely raised questions on his own bill. Nor was he presumably allowed to read at least his third reading speech as Associate Minister of Corrections. One has to ask why. 
As I said in the Committee stage a number of possibilities present themselves. Dr Sharples says that he and the Maori Party support the bill—presumably Mr Harawira does wherever he is. We think so but we do not know. But the most bizarre thing to come out of this debate is something I have not seen in my 10 years in this place and that was an Associate Minister raising questions on and expressing dissatisfaction or concerns about a bill before the House. The question is: why? Either he did not raise those concerns with his Minister or his Cabinet colleagues or he did raise them and they were completely dismissed or he did not have his eye on the ball or he was not shown the respect that an Associate Minister should be shown by his Cabinet colleagues and by the Minister herself. One or a multitude of those possibilities have to be true because otherwise why would an Associate Minister of Corrections come down to the Chamber and lament and raise concerns and risks about the implementation of a bill that he is partly responsible for? What is the answer to that? I hope we might have a call from him. Sandra Goudie is over there giving him the benefit of her vast experience and knowledge on those matters feeding him lines. I think Dr Sharples is not a bad bloke so I advise him not to take any advice from Sandra Goudie at all. 
Legitimate questions have been raised about this bill. There will be extraordinarily large costs dealing with the logistics of transportation food security for staff and security for the community especially in relation to transportation. As Mita Ririnui a former Associate Minister of Corrections pointed out it is a 3-hour drive from Whakatane to the nearest prison. None of those issues have been addressed and I thought they would be addressed. This bill in its essence takes away the right of a community to object. We support that because we have to house these prisoners somewhere but I would have thought that the Government or the Associate Minister especially would use its time in the House to at least address the basic logistical issues of implementation that we and others have raised to give those communities a level of comfort especially around the issue of security. 
So I just express quite a bit of amazement that the Associate Minister of Corrections has presumably been treated so shabbily by his Minister and his Cabinet colleagues. I cannot see how that sort of treatment being meted out could be considered mana-enhancing according to National and the Maori Party’s coalition relationship. Maybe things are starting to fall apart on the back of the emissions trading scheme Hone’s comments and other things. I would have thought that the Associate Minister would at least phone Judith Collins—maybe he has. Maybe between the Committee stage and the third reading he has phoned Judith Collins and said that he has some concerns about this; maybe he asked her to at least listen to those concerns before they tick off the bill. Obviously that has not happened. That says a large amount and it tells us and the community a lot about the management style and culture inside this Government. 
This is a five-clause bill on a piece of A3 paper bolstered hugely on a website by a regulatory impact statement that was not even included with the bill because the bill was so rushed. As the Green member and others have pointed out—and I am sure communities will be interested in this—the so-called maximum period of time that we can house a prisoner in a court cell according to a regulatory impact statement that is on a website but not printed with the legislation is 96 hours. So the question then is: is it by regulation or Government fiat that those hours and those days can be increased? Maybe the Associate Minister of Corrections might be involved in these future discussions but I would not bank on it. 
I am told by reliable sources whom I trust and who work in the Department of Corrections that as we speak some 800 beds are available and free to house prisoners in. I believe those sources because they are in the front line. I will not name them for obvious reasons: Judith Collins may administer the political version of the crusher. But if that is the case the question is: why is this bill being rushed through? Why has it taken until there are 8 parliamentary days to go in the year for the Minister to ante up throw a bill on the Table and say that we need to do this? It could have had correct parliamentary scrutiny through a select committee. 
Carmel Sepuloni 
: They must need it before Christmas. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Well that is interesting. That is the contradiction. Is it required before Christmas? We do not have the prison forecast on this side of the House. If 800 prison beds are indeed—and I believe my sources—available today then why is the bill being rushed through? Why could it not have been given the parliamentary scrutiny of a select committee? It is a five-clause bill. Ms Goudie reared up and said we were being repetitive. Well we are. We are raising legitimate concerns that are not rocket science. How will we feed people? How will we make sure prison officers are secure? How will we make sure the community is secure? How long will these folk be incarcerated in a court cell? Where will the money come from to transport them the 3 hours my colleague Mita Ririnui talked about between the Whakatane District Court and the closest prison? Where will the staff come from to do this? What will be cut out of the baseline? 
I must give Georgina te Heuheu credit. Even though corrections is not her portfolio—it is Pita Sharples’ portfolio—she attempted to actually answer some of those questions. Given that it is not her portfolio I extend some goodwill because she made as decent a fist of it as she could. She was not aided or abetted by the Minister of Corrections and she was not aided or abetted by the Associate Minister who sat through the whole debate. 
This bill is flying through the House and it will go through with our support for practical reasons of security but none of the issues raised by members across this House have been addressed. They are not political issues; they ask how we will transport people how they will be secured how prison officers will be looked after and what logistical arrangements will be put in place for prison officers. They are not political issues; they are practical issues of implementation. None of those issues has really been addressed. 
I will talk for a moment in conclusion about the nature of this debate. In the earlier speeches in the first reading debate members got up and said a couple of things. They said it was a disgrace that we have so many people in prison. They were the same members from the same political party—the National Party—who trumpeted the fact before the election that the then Labour Government was not locking enough people up and that the Government had done nothing when it had built four prisons. They were the same people who went to the country at the last election with a party manifesto that said that if they implemented every law and order policy they had they anticipated a doubling of the prison population. Then they say that they did not know about this problem. Judith Collins says she did not know about this even though she was planning pre-election for a doubling of the prison population and even though the day she took up the warrant the limousine the salary and the flat she got a briefing to incoming Minister giving her the prison forecast which everybody knew anyway. Most journalists knew—for the last few years anyway—because the forecasts were made public. But she says she did not know. 
Those members try to say of course that the Labour Government did nothing to incarcerate prisoners. Well I invite them to go into the four prisons we built. We did not drop containers from the sky or off the boat; we built four prisons. We selectively double-bunked where we needed to with the agreement of staff and with resources provided; we did not just cobble together a deal and bully some staff then end up with staff taking us to court and the department being at war with itself. We did not then rush down to the House with 8 parliamentary days left this year because we did not have a plan and then try to rush through a five-clause bill. We did have a plan. So I say to the Minister and to the National Party that it would be helpful if they answered some questions. 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country) 
: 
 I rise in support of the Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill and I state that upfront because it would have been fairly difficult for people listening to this debate to know which bill the Opposition is debating. I will run through the list of questions that the Opposition has asked repeatedly over the last few hours: why are we doing it now where are those prisoners going to be fed how will they be showered will they be safe and is this the most suitable use of legislation to cover that issue? All of those questions have been canvassed in the last few hours. 
I say to members on the other side of the House that I have a few questions of my own. Why is this necessary now? After 9 years of the previous Labour Government and all of the forecasts it was presented with and all the warnings the Opposition gave it as early as 2005 it did not build sufficient accommodation. Those Labour members talk about how they built four prisons. We know about the cost of overruns of those four prisons. We know what a shambles that was. We have not heard why it closed prisons like Ohura Prison. The Opposition corrections spokesperson— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: We closed it down because there was sewerage going right through the town and it was going to cost $12 million to fix it! 
SHANE ARDERN 
: Well there we go. Finally someone from the Opposition knows why it closed it down. It was going to cost $12 million to fix it. How much did it cost to build the new prisons which did not meet the standards? That member should take a call. 
In his excitement to speak in Opposition for something Labour is voting for—and another question is why it is voting for the bill—Clayton Cosgrove said that he wished there was another election coming. Well so do we but I cannot understand it. There is something wrong with the psyche of someone who loves to be thrashed by the amount he would be if there was another election tomorrow. 
I say to members over there that there are a few questions they need to answer. Another question—and the Hon Trevor Mallard will no doubt have a crack at answering this—is why are we in this situation where there is a crisis in the accommodation for prisoners after 9 years of the previous Labour Government? 
Dr Rajen Prasad 
: You’re in Government now. What’s your plan? 
SHANE ARDERN 
: I tell that member to go and look at what the plans are going forward. Dr Prasad made a very interesting point when he talked about the good work that he has done in terms of trying to put the ambulance at the top of the cliff of identifying problems with families and looking at doing something about that. I acknowledge him for the work he did. But Dr Prasad did not say how this Government has picked up on that work and is putting more resources into it than the party he now represents did for 9 long years. His party picked up work looked at it and said: “It is not broken. We’re not going to fix it—we’ll support it.” I say to Dr Prasad that when he stands in the House and starts accusing us of inaction he should know that when we were in Opposition and we did not support something we voted against it. 
For this whole debate we have heard that Labour is supporting the bill but its members speak against it. If that is not speaking with a split tongue then I do not know what is. I think that is probably enough from me. The points have been made. Our whip is giving me the nod so it is presumably time for me to sit down. Thank you. We support the bill. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I have been stimulated by the member opposite Shane Ardern to make a speech which I was not going to do. The Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill is about the use of court cells. The vast majority of that speech was about prisons why they are open and why they are not open. I have never heard of a local member so ignorant about the reason for a prison closure in his own electorate. There were complaints from his electorate. There was complaint after complaint about the Ohura Prison and the effect it was having on the local sewerage system which was not working. Stuff flowed down the streets whenever the water levels of the Ohura River came up. Complaints were made to the local member. The previous Labour Government had the choice of putting in a $12 million sewerage scheme an extra scheme that was unnecessary or picking up the prison and taking it to Rangipo. 
I think I know why that member is complaining. We know that Ohura Prison was known as the gentlemen’s prison. It was the prison that was out in the country. There was no perimeter fence. It was a holiday camp. It was not locked at night. I think the reason the member did not want it to shift to Rangipo was that it was just too far for him to visit his mates. It was too far for him to go and visit his gentleman mates who had been held in the gentlemen’s prison at Ohura. It was a very low security prison. What has happened? The logical thing has happened. The buildings have been picked up and shifted across to Rangipo. That means that fewer court cells have to be used. 
SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) 
: 
 I am delighted to speak in the third reading debate on the Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill. It is a very sensible bill and of course one that is supported by Opposition members. One would not think so though from all their rhetoric. To give members a little bit of background 10 blocks of court cells—that is 111 cells—are currently gazetted as being part of Department of Corrections prisons. However using the cells to house overflow prisoners is subject to section 9 of the Resource Management Act which includes a requirement to comply with the rules of district plans. How many people would have any idea that the rules of district plans had some jurisdiction in regard to cells? I think this bill is a very sensible move to remedy that anomaly in the legislation. I commend the Minister of Corrections for bringing it before the House. I am delighted that it is done and dusted and will be enacted in due course. 
DAVID CLENDON (Green) 
: 
 The Greens will continue to oppose the Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill. The principle that underpins it seems to be one of passively accepting that the number of people in our prisons will continue to increase. This is deemed to be inevitable apparently. The prison forecasts suggest that current capacity will be exhausted from June 2010 presumably even with the imposition of the very dangerous and undesirable practice of double-bunking which has been flagged for some of our prisons. The corrections officers at the sharp end of this debate are resisting this option as well they might given that they will suffer the inevitable negative consequences in terms of the safety and security of both staff and inmates. Given the date of June 2010 as the crisis point it is surprising and I have to say disappointing that our Labour colleagues—who have made some very strong well-informed and powerful statements opposing this bill—nevertheless choose to support it. There is still time for a proper process to engage decently and properly with this issue. We have according to these documents until June of next year to have a proper process around this matter. 
The regulatory impact statement accompanying the bill notes that the option of using court cells to accommodate overflow prisoners has been used during periods of acute accommodation shortage. The word “acute” suggests something unexpected and short term. Here we have in fact a long-term and chronic problem that demands a long-term vision a long-term strategy and some decent investment in real solutions. The bill is a classic band-aid solution—or an attempt at a solution—and it does not even pretend to address the long-term chronic issues and problems that demand urgent attention. 
Court cells are designed to properly house people in custody while they are appearing in court. They are designed for short stays and as such they have never been designed or constructed to provide the level of basic facility or to meet the minimum requirements of longer stay prisoners. My colleague Sue Kedgley who has been supported in a number of the Labour speeches has identified the very basic issues. How will prisoners’ meals be delivered and prepared? What toilet and bathroom facilities will be available to them? What facilities will there be to provide for family visits or other support? Where will prisoners exercise their right to physical exercise? How will prison staff be provided with adequate facilities as prescribed by their employment conditions? How will rehabilitation programmes—which are invariably highly sensitive to interruption and depend on a carefully staged managed and sustained engagement—be sustained or maintained? 
We are asked to simply accept that administrative safeguards will be put in place to ensure that this wholly inappropriate treatment of prisoners will occur only if it is strictly necessary and that prisoners will continue to receive their statutory entitlements. This test of strict necessity is an interesting one and I wonder what criteria what indicators and what standards will be established against which this very vague and amorphous notion of strict necessity will be measured. The statutory entitlements of prisoners that are referred to in section 69 of the Corrections Act include entitlement to physical exercise to a bed and bedding to food and drink to access to private visitors to access to statutory visitors to access to legal advisers to receive medical treatment to send and receive mail and to be able to make outgoing phone calls. How will any of these statutory minimums be met in the context of a court cell? 
We are assured but by no means reassured that the normal functioning of the courts will not be compromised. An interesting experiment could demonstrate the veracity of that assumption. Perhaps we could require the courts and the police at one or two of our larger courts to function for a few days at a time without access to the court cells—let us just assume for the moment that those cells are full of long-term prisoners—and see what effect this has on the proper functioning of the court system which already works under considerable pressure. That fairly simple experiment would quite readily at no cost reveal the shortcomings of the propositions of this bill. 
Some reference has been made to the likelihood of transgressing the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. We already have case law.  
Taunoa v Attorney-General 
 relates to a situation where it was deemed that the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act had been contravened when a person who had been held in custody did not have a cell with sufficient standards of hygiene where bedding and clothing fell below standards established by prison regulations where there was inadequate monitoring of inmate mental health and where exercise conditions were inadequate. All of these conditions are likely to apply in court cells. Clearly we now have legal precedent that there will be responses and implications from those conditions. 
A rather sneaky mechanism in this bill that is being used to achieve its outcomes is an amendment to the Resource Management Act that overrides the authority of district plans. The Resource Management Act speaks of enabling people and communities to provide for their social economic and cultural well-being and for their health and safety. The processes of preparing and enacting district plans demand a very high level of public engagement. An absolute requirement is placed on territorial local authorities to hear and respond to the public’s views and incorporate their preferences into the plans. The plans themselves are very powerful and influential documents. They enable and constrain members of our communities in the use and development of natural and physical resource. It is critical to the ongoing success of the Resource Management Act regime that there is a high level of public confidence in the process of plan preparation and enactment. This very brief but pointed bill being pushed through under considerable urgency is a very shabby mechanism indeed that will almost certainly undermine people’s confidence in the integrity of the plan preparation and Resource Management Act processes more generally. 
Over many years I have been involved in a number of issues and disputes around provisions and processes related to the Resource Management Act and I know very well that in recognising its central and even unique ability to influence so much of our daily lives members of the public become highly engaged—and indeed passionate—about the content and the application of the legislation. The initial surprise of any community that has worked long and hard to get provisions that meet their needs and ambitions in the plan will very quickly turn to cynicism with the whole process to the extent that Parliament passes a bill such as this that very neatly circumvents the work done to make district plans operational. The complete absence of any consultation on this bill the lack of a select committee process—all of this signals to the public that this Government is willing and able to jam through legislation that will have negative social and indeed economic impacts and that the Government will provide absolutely no avenue for members of the public who will be affected to participate in the decision making. 
We do not actually need to surmise what the practice of putting prisoners into court cells will lead to. We have the benefit of overseas experience. There is a very interesting report from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Court Administration in the UK dated 20 August 2007 where inspectors from the inspectorate visited court cells that were being used in the context of significant prison overcrowding. The report “raises serious concerns about the use of such cells.” which is exactly the practice that this bill is intended to facilitate. It highlights that “it is in the early days of custody that prisoners are most vulnerable:” and that most self-inflicted deaths occur within the first days yet none of the support systems to prevent these tragedies existed in court cells. There was a lack of any “proactive reception or healthcare screening” “Prisoners were being held in bare cells over a weekend with no activity no natural light … and with no exercise facilities” “Prisoners spent long periods travelling in cramped vans … often arriving late and having to leave early the next morning” “Prisoners could not contact their families”—indeed families of prisoners did not even know where their family member was—and “Shower facilities were inadequate and there was no opportunity for prisoners to change clothes so they slept in what they were wearing.” The inspectorate highlights that this was no shortcoming of the prisons or the court staff. 
This is an abysmal bill. It is a disgrace and the Green Party opposes it in its entirety. 
RAHUI KATENE (Maori Party—Te Tai Tonga) 
: 
 The basic proposal in the Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill is that the Department of Corrections will have access to court cells in order to house overflow prisoners from the first half of 2010 when the court cells may be needed. Once the bill has passed today the Ministry of Justice and the Department of Corrections will fast track work specifying the cells that may be used for overflow prisoners the circumstances in which the cells will be made available for this purpose and how the cells will be operated. So in many respects we are already well down the road towards implementation while this debate proceeds. This is not unusual of course. The Department of Corrections has been forecast to run out of baseline beds early next year so there is an immediate issue around prisoner accommodation and public safety. We are in this situation because prisoner numbers swelled under the previous Labour Government from about 5000 in 1996 to 8400 now. 
Changes in New Zealand’s criminal justice policy in the past decade have been extraordinarily rapid and this rapid change is set to continue. But another facet of this increase in the prison muster is of note. From 1997 to 2007 although the number of those sentenced to prison increased by 37 percent those remanded into custody increased by a staggering 214 percent. This bill is an attempt to do something about housing those prisoners and to do it quickly. 
We know that this bill fits into the context of a range of other measures that are being taken to address prison population pressures including approval for extended double-bunking at five prisons. However there is some uncertainty about the ability to access the additional double-bunked capacity which may mean there may be insufficient accommodation for prisoners from June 2010. It is estimated that a further 5000 beds will be needed by 2018. One of the more controversial operations has been the proposal to establish a 60-bed container unit at Rimutaka Prison. This is the first such project of its kind in New Zealand and the emphasis has been on the fact that it is cheaper and faster to construct than facilities for a new prison. We in the Maori Party are not convinced as to whether the recycled container solution is an effective solution to the overarching issue of prison numbers but we will leave that and the double-bunking issue for another time. 
Today’s debate is basically the option of last resort. The proposal is that once the regional capacity at police jails is exhausted court cells will be used to accommodate overflow prisoners. Although there are currently 10 blocks of court cells some 101 cells that have been gazetted as parts of prisons the Resource Management Act prevents them from being used for the overnight accommodation of prisoners. The approval sought in this bill is to amend the Corrections Act so that the requirements of section 9 of the Resource Management Act do not apply to the detention of prisoners in court cellblocks. In effect this means that where there is an acute shortage of prison accommodation court cells can be used to accommodate overflow prisoners without undue delay or cost. The Maori Party is willing to give begrudging support to this bill to basically ensure that there is short-gap inmate accommodation in place for prisons to access if there is no other facility available. The last thing we want in prisons is overcrowding triple-bunking or for our prisons to be under any more stress than is necessary. 
But there is an important rider that we place on our support. The Associate Minister of Corrections Dr Sharples raised during the Committee stage the issue of safety and spoke of some break-outs from court cells in the past. He spoke from his wide experience of some 35 years of working in the prisons and courts but he made it clear that the Maori Party is supporting this bill as a response to the crisis over prison cell shortages. We recall that more than half of the most serious prison escapes in the 2006 financial year were made from court cells. In that year six of the 11 break-outs took place from courts throughout the country. In one of the more embarrassing cases two remand prisoners escaped by breaking through the ceiling of their cell. In another case an inmate was just 20 minutes into a 9-month prison sentence for burglary when he escaped from a holding cell at Waipukurau District Court. Concern has been raised about prisoner deaths while in custody in court cells given they are multiple occupancy. There are some real issues around public safety that may fall out of this new proposal which I trust the Minister will give attention to. 
Another key issue is the one around the emotional and physical safety of prisoners located in cells. The investigation of the circumstances surrounding the death of Liam John Ashley reported that Liam a 17-year-old teenager had been held in a court cell with adult prisoners for the whole of the day on which he received his fatal injuries. Action for Children and Youth Aotearoa a coalition of non-governmental organisations and individuals interested in children’s rights drew on this situation to petition the Law and Order Committee about the Department of Corrections. I draw the attention of the House to that recommendation namely that the department should ensure that when prisoners under 18 years of age are moved to court cells either the department or the police ensure that they are kept separate from adult prisoners. 
There is however a much bigger debate that needs to be held in this House which forms the broader context for this bill on the use of court cells for prisoner accommodation. It is the urgent need to comprehensively review the criminal justice system and particularly the high levels of incarceration—specifically of Maori. 
Many of the speakers before me have referred to the fact that the Vote Corrections budget continues to escalate as a result of prison being the priority response to offending by both the previous and current Governments. The total appropriations for the Department of Corrections have increased by $368.731 million or 33.54 percent since last year. The total vote is now over $1.5 billion per year. This is a substantial increase given the context of the world’s deepest recession in at least 60 years. We are aware that Treasury projections for Vote Corrections 2020 are a massive $2 billion per year. 
There are fiscal reasons why we need to review the overpopulation of our prisons. But there is a far greater moral and ethical issue about the rising trends in prison populations. In 2007 the Ombudsman Mel Smith carried out an investigation into issues involving the criminal justice sector. His report suggested a royal commission of inquiry should be called to undertake a comprehensive review of the criminal justice system. The overrepresentation of Maori should be an area of significant focus of any commission of inquiry. One of the reasons why the Ombudsman made the suggestion for a commission of inquiry is that it will allow an opportunity to stop and reflect on why the punitive treadmill seems to grow and pick up speed. It is hoped to find constructive ways to slow it down. 
The Maori Party believes that crime prevention needs to be looked at in a different way—holistically—to try to change contextual factors as well as the outcomes. A kaupapa Maori justice strategy will be a starting point for doing things differently—doing things from a Maori values base of restoring and transforming. The idea is to have a strategy that will address practical things that whanau hapu iwi marae communities organisations and institutions can do to get going with the doing of creating alternatives to police courts and the prison system. The Maori Party supports the good work that the Associate Minister of Corrections has been doing to this end. We will as we said earlier give begrudging support to this legislation to use court cells as an emergency stopgap measure until the more enduring solution is available. 
CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour) 
: 
 I begin by pointing out some of the comments that Mr Ardern made earlier. I think that the noise from his tractor has impaired his hearing in some way because he has not really been listening during the course of the debate. One thing he continues to say and a number of National members continue to say along with a few other members in the House is with regard to Labour’s track record for law and order over the last 9 years. It is one of their catchcries. They like to say what Labour did in 9 long years. Well what we did was reduce crime. They point out however that there was an increase in violent crime mostly family crime—domestic violence. I point out that Labour members on this side of the House will not apologise for an increase in reporting family violence during the 9 years that Labour was in Government; we will not apologise for that. The fact that there was an increase in reporting family violence is due as far as we are concerned to the fact that we did as much as we could to help women in violent situations. The fact that there was a high level of reporting says a lot about what the previous Labour Government did and we will not apologise for that. 
I point out to Mr Ardern and his colleagues that since the National Government has been in office we have seen a real increase in crime. It has been a real increase not just a perception that a few members of the House have decided to put out there. This increase has been recorded. 
I say to Mr Garrett who never yells in the House that for his sake I will look at the  
New Zealand Herald  
and also at a press release put out by the university that gives information on the fact there has been an increase in crime since the National Government came into power. We all know there is a correlation between poverty unemployment and crime. This Government has done nothing to solve the problems around unemployment and poverty. In fact all it has done is to implement policies that do nothing to help those who are the most vulnerable and therefore we are seeing an increase in crime. The reason this Government is putting this bill through as we have pointed out on a number of occasions throughout this debate is that it is in crisis. 
Mr Cosgrove pointed out something earlier that is a little bit concerning and would be concerning to the public. Why does National need to push this bill through before Christmas? We know there is something like 800 beds available in prisons at the moment. So why is there such a push to get this bill through—all of a sudden—before we hit Christmas? What is concerning to us is that the Government has access to forecasted numbers; we do not. So is it anticipating an even steeper increase in crime over the Christmas period? Is that the reason for getting this bill through to cope with the sheer numbers of prisoners whom it will not have the capacity to hold in the actual prisons and who will need to be held in court cells? If so the Government needs to take responsibility for that. Crime rises in line with poverty and unemployment and unfortunately it looks like we will possibly see an increase in crime during what should be our festive season. 
An issue that has come up over and over again in this debate concerns the security guards who are in the court cells. It has been pointed out that they are not trained prison officers; they are security guards in the courts. 
Sitting suspended from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.