11. Prisons—Waikeria PrisonHon DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) to the Minister of CorrectionsPrisons—Waikeria Prison11. Hon DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) to the Minister of Corrections: Does he stand by all of the statements made in prison network capacity papers including that the planned 1500 bed facility at Waikeria is the most efficient and cost-effective way to add quality and capacity to the prison network" and that large-scale prisons "allow a full range of specialist facilities and rehabilitation programmes"?Hon KELVIN DAVIS (Minister of Corrections): Yes. Good decision-making is about taking your time to look at all the options. That is exactly what we did. In the end we made the right decision to build a smaller prison and a specialised mental health facility. We know the option to build a smaller prison is more effective in providing real rehabilitation. What is not cost-effective is building mega-prisons which churn out better criminals and not better people.Hon David Bennett: When his Cabinet paper of 28 May 2018 describes the 1500-bed Waikeria Prison as an American-style mega-prison what specifically about the build makes it American-style given his Cabinet paper—SPEAKER: Order! Order! The question's finished.Hon David Bennett: No it's—SPEAKER: It is finished.Hon David Bennett: No I've got to explain—SPEAKER: No you don't "got to explain" at all. You've asked the question.Hon David Bennett: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I haven't finished the question because it's got a "given"; that was the point.SPEAKER: And you're not allowed "givens".Hon KELVIN DAVIS: American-style prisons are bigger and house more people. What we will do is build a smaller prison with mental health facilities. Only on "Planet National" is building a mega-prison a good idea.Hon David Bennett: Why then in his Cabinet paper of 20 December 2007 did he propose to build the 1500-bed Waikeria proposal saying it was the only sensible plan of action?Hon KELVIN DAVIS: The member's got it wrong because what we were talking about is continuing the preparation work in anticipation of building something. If we didn't do that we could have had to foot a big bill.Hon David Bennett: I wish to table a document showing that the Minister said—SPEAKER: Is the document publicly available?Hon David Bennett: It has been released recently; yes it is but—SPEAKER: Well I'm not going to put it to the House. Hon David Bennett: Can he confirm that he said at Vote Corrections Estimates that no additional specialist facilities and rehabilitation programmes for the pop-up beds proposed in the prison capacity Cabinet papers are funded in Budget 2018?Hon KELVIN DAVIS: I'm sorry Mr Speaker. Could he repeat the question.Hon David Bennett: Can he confirm that he said at Vote Corrections Estimates that no additional specialist facilities and rehabilitation programmes for the pop-up beds that are proposed in his prison capacity Cabinet papers are funded in Budget 2018?Hon KELVIN DAVIS: In terms of the pop-up units that I think the member's referring to there will be some facilities but not to the extent that you would get in a—such as what we're building at Waikeria.Hon David Bennett: I'd like to table the transcript where the Minister said that there would be—SPEAKER: Is this a select committee transcript?Hon David Bennett: Yes.SPEAKER: If the member proposes once more to table something which he knows can't be tabled and won't be put to the House I will treat him—as previous Speakers have done with members proposing in that manner—as being disorderly.Hon David Bennett: How does the Minister reconcile his answer that there would be additional funding when at the Vote Corrections Estimates he said there would be no extra funding for those services?Hon KELVIN DAVIS: No that's not what I said. I'll tell you what the facts of the matter are now. When we became Government the prison population was some 10400. It is now lower than what it was when we inherited the situation. In fact it's decreased by some 600 since March. Whatever the member is trying to get at the fact of the matter is that what this Government is doing not just in corrections but also across the justice sector with my colleagues the Hon Stuart Nash and the Hon Andrew Little—what we are doing is working; we haven't changed a single bit of legislation and yet we are getting these decreases in the prison population. Now it's early days yet. It may be just a bit of a blip. As I have said previously we have to wait for a few more months' worth of data to see if this is an actual trend but we are doing better now in nine months in Government than those people did in nine years of Government.Hon David Bennett: Does he think that $750 million for just 600 beds at Waikeria Prison is good value for money when the $1 billion to build 1500 beds would have managed demand as well as including better rehabilitation and mental health facilities according to his Cabinet papers?Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Again they're missing the point. What we're doing is reducing the prison population. It's started to go down. We're doing a lot better. But only on "Planet National" is there spending $250 million on capacity that is not necessarily a good thing.Hon David Bennett: Can he confirm in his 28 May 2018 Cabinet paper saying that on 9 April Cabinet directed the Department of Corrections to place its planned procurement of a new prison facility at Waikeria into a state of managed delay that at that stage no contract for a public-private partnership (PPP) had been signed by the Department of Corrections despite Grant Robertson saying on 20 June 2018 that the PPP contract for Waikeria Prison was in place and that breaking it would have cost significant sums of money to this Government?Hon KELVIN DAVIS: At that stage a procurement process was in place. But look we just took a pragmatic position. A PPP is going to build the prison and as I've said earlier the Department of Corrections will be the organisation that will run it and so they should."