Goudie Sandra: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
Goudie Sandra: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:653;Page:2439] 
SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) 
: 
 I am delighted to follow the Minister in the chair Judith Collins who is doing an excellent job of showing the leadership that is required in the Department of Corrections. That leadership just was not there under the previous Government. We had 9 long years and what happened? It all went backwards. Not once did Labour members show a level of concern about what was happening in the Department of Corrections. They were far more interested in engaging in character assassination during the financial review of that department. We have only to look at the reoffending statistics. If members of the previous Labour Government had really looked at those statistics then they would have seen there was a problem that they needed to address but they did not. 
It is stated in the Auditor-General’s report that the chief executive and the department were telling the Minister that there were problems; the Labour members had only to read it. If they had listened at the time to what was being said then they might have addressed the problems. After the death of Karl Kuchenbecker corrections officers had to ensure that offenders complied with the particular requirements of their sentence or order and ensure that staff complied with Community Probation and Psychological Services procedures. This posed a significant cultural shift for some staff that could not be underestimated. The Minister of the day was told that at the time—and I understand that that Minister was Phil Goff the current Leader of the Opposition—but he was not listening. He did not take on board that advice and he did not recognise that it was a significant issue. 
So what did we end up with? We have 20 recommendations from the Audit Office and I will just run by members one of those recommendations. I will look at recommendation No. 11 which is that the department completes the required reintegration checklist during the first week of an offender’s period on parole. If we look at the reintegration of offenders into the community we see the report states that out of the 100 files that were examined the department did not complete the checklist fully for 19 offenders and for 30 offenders their probation officers had not determined the actions needed to address the reintegration needs that had been identified—and there is a whole list of reintegration needs. What happens if we do not address those needs and give support for reintegration into the community is that offenders reoffend. All the Minister at the time had to do was to look at the reoffending statistics and to ask himself what the problem was. He was being advised by the department at the time and that is made quite clear in the Auditor-General’s report. 
The report also goes on to state in another part that over the course of the development and implementation of the new community-based sentences introduced by the previous Government that Government had introduced a policy that it had undertaken no planning for. It had made no analysis of the future impacts of that policy. That Government had not given any consideration to the effect on the department or its staff of the whole cultural shift in the way in which the processes associated with offenders and their treatment were to be managed. All of that just compounded. The Minister at the time was told that this was a serious issue and that it should not be underestimated. That was the previous Minister Phil Goff who is the current leader of the Labour Party. He did not listen to that advice. 
Well there has been a whole new change in the department and I have to tell members that it is due to the excellent Minister Judith Collins. Finally someone is sitting up taking notice and saying—along with the Associate Minister of Corrections Dr Pita Sharples—that change is happening. We will not dump on the people who are already in that department. We want to get in there show some leadership and make a difference and Judith Collins is making that difference. The department welcomes that change. From those on the shop floor right through to the chief executive people welcome that change. They are welcoming the interest being shown by the Minister. There were five different Ministers of Corrections in the previous Government which shows us that no one really cared. Well I tell members that National cares about what is happening in the department. We will make a difference. Under the leadership provided by the Hon Judith Collins we will make that difference. When Opposition members decide that they want to take another call to start having a go at the department they need to think about what is happening in the corrections system really care about what is happening there and care about the fact that reoffending went up under their watch.