Mitchell Mark: Corrections Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Mitchell Mark: Corrections Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 28 February 2012. Volume:677;Page:632. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney) 
: 
 I am pleased to be able to take a call on this the first reading of the Corrections Amendment Bill. As a member of the Law and Order Committee I look forward to reviewing this bill. It has been a great pleasure to be in the House today and to listen to the great results delivered by the Minister of Health the Minister for Social Development and the Minister of Education and I see this bill as continuing with the theme that is building around efficiencies and delivering world-class services. The current legislation is sound. However this bill has taken a positive step towards removing barriers allowing the management of prisoners in an even more safe secure humane and effective way. I am proud that under a National-led Government we have seen public confidence in the Department of Corrections rise to 53 percent higher than what it was in June 2008 and that prison escapes are at their lowest ever with only two in the year ended 1 October 2011. Personally I find this statistic very comforting as my own electorate Rodney has Paremoremo maximum security prison in the area; it houses some of the country’s worst and most dangerous criminals.  
In a previous life I was a police dog handler. What that meant was that I was the first one called out when there was an escaped prisoner. I spent a week on the Coromandel hunting for four dangerous and armed prisoners who had escaped from Paremoremo. What I saw was a community that became traumatised living in fear and disruption caused by the escape of these prisoners.  
I would also like to address an observation that was made by one of the Opposition members in relation to the use of mechanical restraints. I would like to draw attention again to the fact that these relate directly to protecting a prisoner from self-harm—protecting prisoners from themselves. In my experience I have seen prisoners inflict serious injuries to themselves very very quickly by doing something as simple as throwing themselves against a wall or as extreme as trying to gouge their own eyes out. This amendment allows a prison manager who is present on the spot to make a decision which still has to be backed up by the opinion of a medical officer—so there are checks and balances in place—that that restraint is necessary to protect that prisoner from self-harm. This is a policy that drips with common sense. It will make the process far more efficient for those having to deal with the practicalities of prisoner management and safety. I note that my colleague Mrs Lole-Taylor who probably has got more experience than anyone sitting in this House of dealing in the corrections field made one comment today about this bill and that was that it was common sense. I agree with her completely. I was very pleased to see that she supported this bill as well.  
What also appears to be a common-sense policy is the removal of the requirement for a corrections officer to obtain the prison manager’s approval to conduct a strip-search of a prisoner whom the officer believes on reasonable grounds possesses an unauthorised item. These corrections officers are the personnel at the coalface and are well qualified through their training and their experience and using their gut instinct to be able to make a reasonable decision as to whether or not a prisoner possesses an unauthorised item whether it be something that could be used as a weapon or contraband.  
I would like to finish by saying that I commend this Corrections Amendment Bill to go to the select committee for a review. I think that it is a bill that contains straight common-sense practical steps to continue—as we have done with the police and as we have done with our health services—to equip our front-line providers with the tools that they need to be able to provide the best world-class services. Thank you very much. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Before I call the next member I just advise that it is a split call—5 minutes each. The bell will go at 4 minutes.