Pugh Maureen; McLellan Tracey; Mitchell MarkPart 2 Amendments to Corrections Regulations 2005 CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Members we now come to Part 2. This is the debate on clauses 48 to 57 Amendments to Corrections Regulations 2005". The question is that Part 2 stand part.Dr TRACEY McLELLAN (Labour): Thank you Madam Chair. As is the nature of this bill there's probably just a couple of quick questions and I don't expect that the Minister will have any problems being able to just kind of answer them back and forth nothing terribly in depth but around the theme of I suppose a collection of things that are essentially new duties or certainly require work and I would just like to check with the Minister about what that means in a practical kind of arrangement. If we look at clause 54 "Regulation 113 amended (Visits not to be recorded without necessary approvals)"—and I suppose just as an example "Subclause (1) does not forbid the use of security surveillance cameras or other technology in a prison if—(a) the cameras or other technology—(i) record only visual images; or (ii) record sound and visual images for an intelligence purpose under subpart 4A of Part 2 of the Act; and (b) notices are predominantly displayed in visiting areas that inform visitors that they are in use [around] those areas." So that has a practical implication certainly in terms of people performing duties and resources. But when I looked at the regulatory impact statement which I know the Minister would have read the Ombudsman for one and some submitters certainly looked at whether—given resource constraints that were there at the time let alone now—a more targeted approach to that would have been appropriate. The regulatory impact statement certainly says that "Corrections is currently unable to identify all mail that should be withheld due to a lack of resources" and goes on to say similar things about the ability to monitor all phone calls. So by making this amendment to this bill and increasing the surveillance the monitoring and broadening the definition of communications for an intelligence purpose did the Minister consider utilising that in a more targeted way or can he kind of just provide us with a little bit more clarity about the practical applications of how that might work? I'm happy to go on to just ask another quick question just whilst that percolates for a wee bit: if we sort of skip over and look at clause 55 "Regulation 119A" there's a suite of amendments related to essentially just changing the wording from "non-lethal" to "less-lethal". That was something that was discussed in select committee as not only just kind of modernising it because the terminology has changed but also as was discussed yesterday it was descriptive rather than criticism. So because things can be lethal we shouldn't term anything that's used in that environment fait accompli as being non-lethal. So the suite of changes that go through those regulations—I just wondered did the Minister have any thoughts or was there any discussion that we might not be privy to about whether that's something that constantly needs to be updated or is that the sort of term du jour and are we kind of future-proofing it therefore if we choose to go down that path?The third question that I had just sort of off the top of my head was if we look at clause 57 "Schedule 7" 24A "Clauses 23 and 24 are subject to the sections 133A and 138A of the Act." that relates to amendments to privileges that can proceed without prisoners being present. Again there's a suite of sort of changes there but I think it would be handy if the Minister had any kind of comment again on how that might relate to the ability to perform those duties given that a lot of that back-office staff have been cut. You know that's where the cost savings really did hit in so far as finding the bulk of those cost savings were by definition in back-office staff because most of the staff in Corrections are front-office staff. So if the Minister had any comment along those lines in terms of being able to practically carry out these things in that environment that would be much appreciated. Hon MARK MITCHELL (Minister of Corrections): Yeah I thank the member for those questions. Look the reality of it is as you can see in the regulations—you know that the interception and monitoring of communications is taken really seriously by Corrections for both the safety of the staff the safety of the prisoners and also public safety. That's why there's got to be robust measures in place in terms of how that's done. It's got to be prescriptive and it is. In terms of capacity: look I agree with you that when the system is under stress then of course you have to start prioritising and this has been one of the big challenges without a doubt that Corrections has had to deal with and they've done a very good job of dealing with that. But the good news is that we're now seeing some very good results we're well above the rate of attrition. I've visited many of the offices that actually deal with this work. They're well staffed they're very professional they're outstanding and very efficient in the way that they approach their role.In terms of the switch from "non-lethal" to "less-lethal" I think the member herself did a very good job of explaining why we had to do that because although we all know what we mean when we say "non-lethal" the reality of it is this is not a perfect world we live in and we cannot guarantee that one of those non-lethal methods couldn't result in a death. And that has prompted along with some recommendations that have come out of the UN the change to "less-lethal"."