Borrows Chester: Corrections Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
Borrows Chester: Corrections Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
[Volume:645;Page:14502] 
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 I rise to indicate to the House that the National Party will be supporting the Corrections Amendment Bill (No 2) and that it takes great pride in the fact that a number of the issues raised through this legislation were initially brought to light by my senior colleague Simon Power. 
The bill seeks to do a number of things such as create new search detection drug testing and offence provisions to help the control of contraband; improve consistency in the monitoring of inmates’ mail; improve information sharing about high-risk offenders; and jam and disable unauthorised wireless transmissions—mainly from cellphones. It adds prejudice to a victim’s well-being as a ground for the offence of unauthorised communication with a prisoner. It also does something else that seems to be slightly out of kilter but nevertheless is very important in that it allows inmates to consume Communion wine as part of a religious sacrament. 
The legislation seeks to take account of two factors: the tenacious abuse of any right reward or opportunity to offend on behalf of the inmates; and the huge inequity of power between the prisoner and the prison officer. Sticking up for prisoners’ rights and freedoms is not a popular activity within this country. If we look at the difficulty that groups such as the Prisoners Aid and Rehabilitation Society have in raising money we see that it is very similar to the difficulties that groups seeking to provide support for young offenders within the youth justice system have in raising any sort of money other than what they can obtain through Government funding. It has been a particular hallmark of this Government that those groups seeking to make better the lot of offenders in our society are not funded for the work that they do. In fact some of them consider themselves fortunate to be funded for 70 percent of the cost of the real work that they do with young people who are offending within our country. 
As a young solicitor—well maybe not young but a fairly green solicitor—I found it quite ironic that some of the draconian measures within the Penal Institutions Act still exist when it comes to trying to exert the rights of prisoners. For instance a visiting justice of the peace who is going to hear a complaint or a charge brought against a prisoner has the right to decide whether that prisoner is legally represented in that hearing—a hearing that the justice of the peace is about to sit on—under the law as it currently stands. 
However I digress slightly. I cite the many issues raised by Simon Power over recent months that have been pooh-poohed by the Government as non-existent or as trivial and barely requiring any sort of response from the Government. One of those issues was the corruption at Rimutaka and other prisons. The comment was made that there was just a few bad apples. Well if we look across the prison service at the large staff that it has we see that there may be comparatively few but the truth is as we have found in some of our other services that a few bad apples can have an extremely detrimental effect on those around them. I guess that is why we refer to them as bad apples. 
Points raised by my colleague related to for instance Rachealle Namana the killer of “Lillybing”. She claimed that whilst in prison she had access to a range of drugs including P and she had a cellphone on which she downloaded pornography. In 2006 a prostitute was found in the grounds of Rimutaka Prison having been procured by an inmate using a cellphone. In 2006 at least two inmates in Christchurch Prison were sending obscene text messages to women. We recall the incident where Scott Watson a very high-profile prisoner in New Zealand was able to send obscene photographs of himself over the Internet. In 2006 P and KFC were being ordered and consumed in the yard of Mount Eden Prison. These matters have needed addressing for a long period of time. 
It was found on investigation that prison officers were responsible at least in some part for procuring items—and in some cases favours and services—for inmates whom they were charged with the care and custody of and over whom they had extreme inequity of power. 
It is important to note that the National Party supports this legislation because it has been calling for a strengthening of the Penal Institutions Act and the Corrections Act for some time. It looks forward to support from across the House not only to hold accountable those prison officers who let the team down but also to strengthen the rights of those people who are vulnerable within the service—that is the prison officers but also the inmates whom they are charged to care for.