Curran ClareHon CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Thank you Mr Speaker. There are fewer offenders in the community and in prison than there were two years ago: 30000 two years ago; just over 29000 today. So that's the evidence in fact. The National Party Opposition is not interested in actually talking about fact; they're interested in rhetoric and dog-whistling.This is a Government that is tackling the long-term problems facing this country. One of those problems is high numbers of people in our prisons the disproportionate number of Māori in our prisons the staggering number of prisoners with a diagnosis of mental health or substance abuse and 91 percent of our prisoners with a diagnosis of mental health or substance abuse. These are the long-term problems that we need to address. But I'm afraid that Opposition is not interested—not interested. They're interested in dog-whistling.We support this bill because it and the Supplementary Order Paper tabled by the Minister strike the right balance between moving to humanise our prison system while ensuring that the community is safe post the 15 March attacks and that we make necessary changes to keep people safe.It updates the Corrections Act 2004 and it's about improving processes to enhance the safety of prisoners victims and staff while Corrections can properly manage people in prison humanely and in line with their individual needs.Really how can you argue with that? Well I'm afraid the National Party has argued with it in what I consider to be a series of incoherent arguments. Let's start with the first one around double-bunking. I just want to refer to what the Minister said in the committee of the whole House stage on the shared cells practice. He said that the reality is—and this is where the facts come into play—that the previous Government knew that there was some legal ambiguity around the use of shared cells and that legal ambiguity in a worst-case scenario—which is a challenge in court to current practice—could result in a court decision requiring the Department of Corrections to reduce the use of cell sharing which would increase the pressure on available accommodation and impose substantial costs to the Crown.So ultimately this is about cleaning up the mess of the previous Government—cleaning up the mess. Oh but they don't want to acknowledge that. Not only that they knew for four years under four Ministers of Corrections and they did nothing. This Government is addressing it but oh no what we get is clouded rhetoric a lot of hot air and puffery which is actually not acknowledging what the real situation was.The second argument that they use for their opposition to this bill is that it doesn't include rehabilitation. Well let me tell you what the departmental report says about rehabilitation: Corrections was instructed in 2015"—so that's under the previous Government—"to include a provision in the bill that stated that prisoners are expected to participate in the development and implementation of their management plan and in any rehabilitation programmes that they're requested to attend." But during the drafting the Parliamentary Counsel Office—now that is not the officials that's not the Department of Corrections; it was actually the people that draft the legislation—advised that an expectation clause would have no operative or legislative effect. I'll say that again: no operative or legislative effect. Since such a provision would be unenforceable PCO—that's the Parliamentary Counsel Office who draft the legislation—recommended that the provision not be included in the bill.So that was from the instruction in 2015. Corrections also had concerns about the impact forcing unmotivated prisoners into treatment programmes would have on the effectiveness of those programmes for other prisoners. Research indicates that compulsory rehabilitation in prisons is generally ineffective. So unmotivated prisoners being forced to do rehabilitation affecting other prisoners and not being effective—that's what's called evidence. But oh no don't let research and evidence get in the way of a good piece of rhetoric from Nick Smith; let's not let that get in the way! Instead let's look at section 51 of the existing Corrections Act subsection 4 which says that each prisoner must have a management plan for offending behaviour to prevent reoffending and for successful reintegration. It's already in the Act. But what this Opposition is doing is that it's using spurious arguments—which it does over and over again—to outline their opposition to a piece of legislation which is improving our system for managing prisoners in the prison keeping the community more safe and doing it in a way that is humane. Surely that's something that the community should be getting behind.This bill is sensible it's practical and it goes a long way to providing an environment in which we can bring down the prison population which is what this Government is committed to and doing it in a way which is humane and effective. Unfortunately the Opposition—if they ran a good argument we could at least have a good debate. Unfortunately they haven't. I commend this bill to the House."