Mark Ron: Corrections Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee Procedure 
Mark Ron: Corrections Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:617;Page:13010] 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 There have been some very good contributions and I have to tell the Minister that a couple of contributions from the National Party have left me quite stunned. It really does appear of late that the National Party itself has had a bit of a road to Damascus experience. It is good is it not to hear the party that had the Government benches for 9 years—and 18 months along with New Zealand First—finally talking about punishment. 
If I recall correctly the word “punishment” featured regularly in the New Zealand First manifesto for the last two elections. It is very encouraging to hear the National Party now referring to the need to punish. Stealing National Party policy is not something New Zealand First is renowned for. In fact I suggest it is quite the opposite. One can always tell when one has got National Party members excited—they cannot stop chirping away like a bunch of parakeets on the sideline. 
What I want to talk about now are clauses 49 50 and 51 which contain an issue I have brought to the attention of the House before. I tabled in the House a legal opinion from Chapman Tripp. I warned the Minister and the Government in question time—and it was a further extension of the arguments put up by the National spokesperson and the Hon Richard Prebble—that there is a danger in trying to legislate the detail of what are operational matters. It is an operational matter whether barrack block A changes its bedding with barrack block B or barrack block C; whether they wash their undies at a certain time of the week or whether there are procedures and plans for rehabilitating inmates. The moment we legislate for that—the moment we make it a statutory obligation of the Department of Corrections to rehabilitate those people—we bring about a risk to the Crown. I have argued that and I note that the Government still says it is not a problem. However it has moved to make a number of changes to clauses 49 and 50 in its Supplementary Order Paper. 
My point is that—and I have made it before—the moment the State says that the Department of Corrections is responsible for putting in place a sentence plan designed to rehabilitate the inmate the moment a person’s time in prison is templated to say that he or she will do an anger management course or this or that sort of course all aimed at turning that person around is the moment we set ourselves up for failure. We all know that 80 percent of inmates who have been paroled have reoffended 5 years later. [ 
Interruption 
] It is around 79 percent after 5 years. 
The problem here is that it is quite conceivable—in fact very probable according to Chapman Tripp—that those inmates will then be in court blaming the Government. They will be saying: “I asked for this course and I didn’t get it. I wanted to do a course at polytech to get skills and I was denied. It was that denial over 4 5 or 10 years that led me into a situation where I couldn’t get a job and I had to revert to my former profession of burgling homes and stealing cars to survive. Had the Department of Corrections given me the course I wanted I would not have been in that situation.” 
I seriously challenge the Government. There is no need for those clauses and it should take them out. There is a method by which the Department of Corrections according to its own plans and policies and under its standard operating procedures can make certain courses available. They do not need to be legislated into being.  
I again remind the Minister and the Government that there is enough literature around internationally that states—in fact the department’s own annual reports themselves state—that rehabilitation in most areas is not working. Only the Kia Marama example can be held up. Even with straight thinking there is nothing out there that suggests or proves that all the work that has been done on straight thinking has been effective in the long term. This policy is setting up the Government for failure.