Young Jonathan: Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Young Jonathan: Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 17 November 2009. Volume:659;Page:7738. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth) 
: 
 I am very pleased to stand and speak in support of the second reading of the Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill. We have seen some very positive steps forward in making this country safer for all New Zealanders through this first year of the National-led Government. It certainly needed to take those steps because despite protestations to the contrary the previous Government oversaw the emergence of some extremely large social problems the greatest of which was the deterioration of the sense of safety that New Zealanders felt. Second only to the economy is the issue of law and order. It is not good enough to say that it is a 21st century problem. It is our problem in our country and we in this House are charged with the responsibility to address it. 
Although we grapple with difficult issues they can and must be redressed. Ineffectuality is essentially driven by indecision. Under the previous Government we saw services stretched thin in the corrections system by increasing community-based sentencing without sufficient Government support behind those services. When cracks were found particularly in our probation service those cracks were largely caused by the fact that services were asked to do too much with too little. The centre issue was the increasing demand upon our Department of Corrections and our prison facilities. Our capacity and capability failed to address those issues. The bill addresses the issues of both capacity and capability. Sadly we need to increase our capacity for prisons. That is an indictment on any society yet it is a reality. Such an ongoing increase severely impacts our ability to increase capacity. The bill addresses some aspects of the need to increase our capacity by making the management of prisons a contestable item in the Budget. It also brings in extra expertise beyond our own capacity but that is not the bill’s paramount reason. 
The bill is not just about cost effectiveness; more important it is about increasing capability. It is about making New Zealand safer and our society a better one. The intention of this amendment bill is to open up the prison service to innovation and improvement to make it even more effective and efficient and yes to grind down the costs of one of the most expensive aspects of Government. Let me ask members opposite why if what we have is so good are things also so bad in our society? Obviously we need to be open to change and we need to be open to innovation. With all those who work very hard and diligently in the service we also need to be open to new ways in which we can increase our capability. We must keep New Zealanders safe from criminals but we must also see fewer people committing crime and we must effectively rehabilitate those who do. On 21 September we had 8509 prisoners in our corrections facilities. Our record plainly tells us we need to lift our level in all three areas. If what we have is so good why do we face this indictment on our society? 
The contract management of prisons—something that the Opposition is extremely ideologically opposed to—is proving in many other jurisdictions around the world not only to be effective but also to bring excellence in the running of prison facilities to provide opportunity for innovation and change and to improve what we do why we do it and how we do it. Every person who enters a New Zealand prison will leave that prison and come back into society. We have a very high rate of incarceration. We have an extremely high rate of recidivism. We have problems and this bill enables different expertise—different ideas from different jurisdictions and from New Zealand of which my colleague from the Maori Party has spoken—to come in and create a climate of change in how we do things. We respect our corrections service but let us all be open to innovation and change. We need to find more socially effective solutions but we also need to find more financially effective solutions. 
I am very confident that this bill offers the New Zealand public a road forward that will bring positive change and improvement and with that safer streets and safer homes. Thank you.