Kaye Nikki: Corrections Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Kaye Nikki: Corrections Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 28 February 2012. Volume:677;Page:636. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central) 
: 
 I am very pleased to support the Corrections Amendment Bill. At the heart of this bill is public safety. Most of us get into Parliament to help people and one of the most common things that members of the public tell me they expect from members of Parliament is to make New Zealand a safer place. We cannot do that if the people who come out of our prisons come out in a worse state than when they went in. That is why at the heart of this bill are three core aspects.  
Firstly there is rehabilitation. If we allow the people in our prisons to come out more addicted to drugs than when they went in that is a sorry state of affairs. We are very clear that the provision in this bill will assist in terms of more efficient strip-searching and drug testing but also what we on this side of the House know is that we have a very good record in rehabilitation. We have seen crime drop. We have seen more people get National Certificate of Educational Achievement qualifications and that leads me to the next provision within this bill which is so important.  
We know that so many people reoffend when they leave prison because they do not have the work experience and the skills to be able to get a job. I have seen some of these people come through my office and they have actually said to me that it was easier to reoffend than try to live out there without being able to get a job. So we have been very clear in this bill to ensure that prisoners get some basic skills and work experience while they are in prison.  
We have also been clear to ensure that there is greater health provision within our prisons. But on this side of the House we are very clear: not only do we have a responsibility as parliamentarians to ensure that our community is safer by having things like tougher sentencing by ensuring that we reduce violent crime and by having more police on the beat but also we think that we must ensure we have proper rehabilitation in our prisons.  
I will leave you with this one story. I had the privilege of attending the New Zealander of the Year awards and one of the people who won was a guy called Henare O’Keefe. A wonderful story was told by Lawrence Yule. He told a story about a gentleman who has worked tirelessly within the New Zealand community and who walked into one of our prisons and came to a person who had been causing quite a bit of trouble in the last few weeks. He was about to be released and Lawrence tells an amazing story of Henare walking into that prison cell and asking the gentleman why he was causing this trouble. He was very clear because he said: “I don’t have a father.” Henare said: “I will be your father.”  
For me what this sums up is that if we do not ensure that the people within our prisons have access to good skills and if we do not ensure that we do not have drug addiction in our prisons then we cannot make our community safer. Regardless of what you hear from the Opposition this bill is about ensuring that we have good rehabilitation and we make our communities safer. I am very pleased to support the Corrections Amendment Bill.