Kedgley Sue: Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Kedgley Sue: Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 24 November 2009. Volume:659;Page:8176. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 There are quite a number of questions that the Committee deserves an answer to in addressing the clauses of the Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill. I would really appreciate if we could have some answers from the Government to the following questions. 
First of all does the bill breach the Human Rights Act in New Zealand? I suspect it does. If it does the Government should explain that. Secondly does the bill breach any international human rights legislation? Thirdly now that we are converting our courts into jails some very practical issues arise. I presume that prisoners in jails have to be fed. I presume that they have to have showers and so forth. Will we have cooking facilities in our courts now? Will we have showers in the courts so that prisoners can be showered? Where will they have their exercise? Where will the prison guards who monitor them in these cells be located? In my second reading speech I asked where the people who normally would be in the court cells—people who have been taken to court—would go. Will they sit on the steps outside or will there be caravans outside New Zealand courts? We should be given answers to all those questions. This bill is being raced through this House with extreme urgency. Ordinary New Zealanders have no idea that this is about to happen. The debate has been shallow to say the least and why would it not be because we know hardly anything about the issue. The bill is 2 pages in length but nevertheless far-reaching in its consequences. So I believe we are owed an explanation of these issues before the bill goes through the House. 
How many courts in New Zealand are in residential areas? In many small towns the court is right next to residences homes and so forth. How many people will suddenly find that there is a jail next to their homes in their suburbs without their consent or without their even being informed? The extraordinary thing is that this bill acknowledges that in most cases it will breach the Resource Management Act because we cannot turn a court into a jail without breaching most district plans. There are rules about the location of jails. Suddenly we will breach all of the rules in district plans about setting aside specific areas for jails. Suddenly we will allow our courts to be turned into jails and we will grant an exemption so that nobody has a right to be consulted when a court in his or her neighbourhood is to be turned into a prison and so that nobody can challenge it. Does that sound reasonable? We have a whole resource management process we have district plans and we have a very clear process to go through for the establishment of a new prison. We have to go through lengthy consultation we have to abide by the Resource Management Act and we have to abide by the local district plan. But suddenly we can sweep all that aside with one little 2-page bill and allow courts all over New Zealand to be turned into jails that house prisoners and we will not inform New Zealanders in advance of that and we will not consult them. 
Has a select committee looked at this bill? Have we called for submissions? 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: No they messed up the plan. It is rushed. 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: Will there be submissions on this? [ 
Interruption 
] There are not going to be any submissions. This is extraordinary. This bill will significantly affect hundreds possibly thousands of New Zealanders. They will wake up and discover that their local court down the road is now a jail and they will not be consulted or informed about that. This reminds me of the national environment standard on telecommunications that was rammed through Parliament last year. It allows cell antennae masts and so on to be erected on any telephone pole anywhere in New Zealand. Mr Mallard rammed that one through. The Greens predicted in this House that it would cause outrage round New Zealand when it went through when people discovered that cell antennae and masts could be erected anywhere in New Zealand without their knowledge or consent even though they could affect their health and well-being and their property prices—their property prices could plunge by up to 20 percent. Have we been proven to be correct? Yes. All around New Zealand groups are outraged. Every week someone else contacts me. Last week a guy in Invercargill discovered that a 15-metre high cell tower was about to be erected across the road. It is a 6-storey tower and no one had bothered to inform or consult him. I was speaking to a woman from Christchurch yesterday. When she took her daughter to school there was no cell tower; when she came home at 3 o’clock to pick her daughter up there was a cell tower across the road from the school. Is this the sort of New Zealand that we think is acceptable? There is growing literature about the health effects of cell towers. In fact places like France are taking down cell towers near schools and here we are putting them up without anyone’s knowledge or consent. 
This bill does exactly the same thing. New Zealanders will be gazumped by this measure. They will ask: “How did this happen? How come we have prisoners in our courthouse? Nobody told us about it?”. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Bad planning. 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: It is not bad planning. The Government has rammed it through deliberately. Do not put it down to bad planning! How can such a bill not have gone to a select committee? It is about an issue of vital importance to New Zealand. We are converting our court cells into jails and nobody is allowed to make a submission. Nobody will be consulted on it. Nobody will even be told of this measure. Someone will wake up go to a courthouse somewhere in a suburb and suddenly discover that it is a jail. 
Would someone please explain how this measure will work? I see that we now have a Minister in the chair the Acting Minister of Corrections. I ask the Minister to please explain to the Committee where the prison guards who guard these court cells will be. Where will food be prepared for the prisoners? Where will they take their showers? Where will they have their exercise? What about the people who should be in the court cells; where will they be held? Will there be caravans outside our courthouses around New Zealand to serve as court cells? And why will the Government not deal with the root causes of crime instead of allowing more and more prisoners overflowing jails and the second-highest prisoner population in the world? How much is this measure going to cost us? It costs $70000 every year for every single prisoner that we lock up in jails or now court cells. 
This bill is an absolute travesty. The Green Party will be opposing it. We expect answers to every single question that I asked.