Bennett DavidHon DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): Thank you Madam Chair and I acknowledge the Minister in the chair the Hon Kelvin Davis. I just must admit that I feel a bit sorry for the Minister because he's having to deal with a promise that has been landed on him by the Labour Party and that is to reduce the prison population by 30 percent in the next 15 years. That Minister may have had the best intentions when he took on that promise as well but he is soon coming to the very stark reality that that is a promise that he cannot deliver and will not be able to deliver.It will mean one of two things for the Labour Party: either they have to backtrack on another promise to the Parliament and to the public of New Zealand that they went to the election with or they have to have a significant reduction in the prison population. When you're looking at a prison population which is over 10000 prisoners at the moment and a projected decrease to around 7000 to meet the goal that that Minister and that Government set—and that prison population is projected to actually increase further not decrease going up to over 14000 prisoners. That means that that Minister will have to actually effectively reduce the prison population by half—by half—to actually achieve their goal.Now when you consider that 70 percent of all prisoners are there for serious offences how are they going to reduce that prison population by half and keep the New Zealand public safe? You just can't do that. New Zealand First I know are shaking their heads. It's one of those situations where New Zealand First will talk the big talk but actually will be silent on this matter in this House over the next 2½ years as it knows that this is part of that coalition agreement they signed up to and they have to enable this to happen. That means that the New Zealand public will face 7000 prisoners in their communities in the next short while—otherwise you can't achieve the promise that's been set.Now that is the stark reality of what will happen. Let's see if the actions of the Labour Party support that—of course they do; they didn't build Waikeria Prison. Instead of building a prison for 1500 prisoners that had a projected cost of $950 million that Minister signed off a $750 million prison for only 600 prisoners. That is a gross negligence on the behalf of the Government in regards to the safety of New Zealanders. If there was a plan of how that prison population will be reduced we would love to see it but there isn't. All we have is some summit that's going to come up in a few months' time and that will be used as a mechanism to try and endorse the policies of the Government of the day. But then there is help coming because we know that this Minister has said there will be 976 pop-up beds in our existing prison network taking some of our bigger prisons to over 1000 prisoners in each of those. And there will be no rehabilitation services given in addition to the current rehabilitation funding. The Minister said that at Estimates. He said there will be no extra funding and then a couple of weeks later in the House he corrected himself around that and said there may be some. There's none in the Budget. In fact rehabilitation funding in the Budget is going down. When National was there it was a 13.7 percent increase year on year; there's only been a 6.7 percent increase under this Minister. Effectively it has gone down from what it should be. The Minister isn't spending on rehabilitation. Now we'll hear about this lauded mental health programme for 100 prisoners at Waikeria. I bet you that's what the Minister's going to stand up and talk about and say This is going to make a difference." Well that's 100 prisoners out of a population of 10500 at the moment going up to 14000—and you've got to let 7000 out. So how are we going to rehabilitate the others when we know that there are serious mental health issues within the prison population?The Minister has been landed with a promise he cannot deliver. He knows that and the Labour Party and the Green Party and New Zealand First will spend the next two years trying to manage the fallout from failing to deliver that promise and all that will do will be to put our prison officers at risk for their safety put New Zealanders at risk in their safety—[Time expired]"