O'Connor Damien: General Debate 
O'Connor Damien: General Debate 
[Volume:631;Page:3151] 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR (Minister of Corrections) 
: 
 Last weekend two significant events took place in this country. One took place at Upper Hutt; the other somewhere else in New Zealand. One was a conference on justice issues run by the Prison Fellowship; the other was a regional conference of the National Party where the leader Don Brash spoke on law and order. I will take the time to congratulate the organisers Kim Workman and the Prison Fellowship on their conference. They had a distinguished line-up of speakers speaking on the very difficult issue of prison muster numbers in this country. Don Brash on the other hand was speaking to the party faithful—well I guess they are at the moment; they soon may not be—and he was saying things like: “National supports the justice system.” it “advocates” it “supports” it “believes” it “knows” and it “proposes a focus”. There was not one thing on policy or what National would do. 
I have to go back to 2004 to look at National Party policy in this area. The policy at that time stated that National would abolish parole and would be prepared to accept 3000 more prisoners going to prison—at a cost of about $1.5 billion of capital; $500 million a year. That policy comes from the party that we just heard Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith say would give tax cuts to everyone. I cannot reconcile that contradiction; neither can the wise people of New Zealand—neither can the people who spoke at this restorative justice conference such as Dr Warren Young Professor Pratt Judge David Carruthers and Bonnie Robinson from the Salvation Army. They are all learned people with a genuine commitment to try to move New Zealand ahead in this difficult area of corrections management. 
I acknowledge that Simon Power came along to the conference for a day. He was honest enough to admit that he did learn some things. I hope he takes that wise judgment back to his caucus and speaks to his leader Dr Don Brash to try to change his view in this area although I do not hold out much hope—of course I do not hold out much hope for Don Brash either. 
We are moving ahead as a Government in this area. We have a number of things going on because it is embarrassing and shameful to have New Zealand locking people up at the second-highest rate in the Western World. This happens in a country where most of us know one another. We are 4 million people living in small communities caring and looking after one another—or we should be. 
There are some visionary people in the National Party. We do not hear from them often though. We could take for example one Tau Henare. He knows that there are a lot of people in prison who do not actually belong in prison. Their crimes do not actually require that they should be locked up like the other prisoners. Don Brash tried to paint a picture of us letting people out of jails. We are not doing that. What we are proposing and thinking and talking about is that the 30 percent of people who are in prison for fewer than 12 weeks may better serve their penalty and repay their debt to society and to victims in ways other than just being locked up in expensive prisons. That is what we are talking about—and Tau Henare agrees with us. 
Who else in the National Party agrees with us? Well we have a very learned new member who is not allowed to speak from Marlborough. He too thinks we should have a fresh approach—along with all the people who were at that conference at Upper Hutt—not at the regional National Party conference though because people attending that conference were fed a load of garbage. Colin King obviously cannot have been at that conference because he said: “I am not suggesting we go soft on crime but argue that there is a problem when as a nation we lock up criminals at a rate second only to the United States.” He went on to say: “We must look at a totally new way of dealing with crime while still insisting that if you do the crime you will do the time.” Well I agree. Colin King along with the Government thinks that there should be a fresh way of looking at this problem. 
Simon Power 
: It’s hardly a revelation. 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR 
: And I hope that Simon Power Don Brash and most of the people in the National Party who would like to see 3000 more people locked up in prisons will look at the lessons coming from the conference in Upper Hutt not from the National Party regional conference.