Bennett DavidHon DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. We all know that the Labour - New Zealand First Government is soft on crime and we see that every day in their approach in this House to the criminal justice system—Hon Andrew Little: Especially blasphemous libel.Hon DAVID BENNETT: Yes we thank the last Minister the Minister of Police for his speech and the Minister in front of him the Minister of Justice but they are cooking up some ideas around the Department of Corrections that are yet to be put out into the public arena and we look forward to them actually saying what they are actually going to do.This bill is a great bill because this bill was actually done by Louise Upston when she was the Minister. This is Louise's work. It was the Minister Louise Upston who prepared this bill—actually not all of this bill. There are one or two things that have been added which are minor but they have been added and there are one or two things that were major that were taken away from this bill by the Labour - New Zealand First soft on crime" Government and we see that every day in this House. So I just want to first of all have a look at some of the bits of this bill that were taken out and that's really around rehabilitation. That last speaker the Minister made a very good point that if someone is in prison there should be an opportunity for that person to get the skills to be able to go out into the workforce when they leave prison to get the confidence in themselves that they have another future ahead of them to actually probably engage with their communities to understand their culture their heritage so that they actually have that self-belief and that ability to then be an active part of our community. To do that you need the thing called rehabilitation which was a big part of the bill that the Minister Louise Upston had prepared and has been removed by the Government from this bill. So I challenge the Government to actually explain why they took out the rehabilitation clauses of this bill. If they say—and they're genuine about it—that rehabilitation is needed for prisoners then why did they take out the rehabilitation plans that were going to be there for individual prisoners? Why did you do that? Why did you take out the one thing that would make the major difference to prisoners? It's bizarre that they would do that. Then they left the bill which has got about 16 points which are points that are needed to tidy up the system—there's no doubt about that. But they're not the main driver of turning somebody's life around. Rehabilitation is and it's been taken out of this bill. We know that they're going to be very soft on crime soon. Hon Members: Oh!Hon DAVID BENNETT: We know that the New Zealand First - Labour "soft on crime" Government has actually got some plans that they won't tell the community. Members may be shaking their heads in the front row there but they don't actually know what their Ministers are thinking of at this time because what happens when you're a backbencher like yourselves? They don't get told until it goes to caucus the day before it actually comes in front of the Parliament. But your colleague across the aisle there Mr Andrew Little—he knows exactly what's going on. He knows exactly that they're going to be soft on crime and he knows exactly how they're going to do that and just hasn't told you. And New Zealand First will be the last to know. New Zealand First the lapdogs of this Parliament—the people with principle that always talk about how high and mighty they are. But when they see a bit of power they just crumble away and become just the lapdogs of the Labour Party and it's great to see that we've got a couple of the fuzziest new members of that lapdog community here in those new members.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order!Hon DAVID BENNETT: Mr Assistant Speaker getting back to the bill—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Yeah I want to refer the member to Standing Order 111 about relevance. I do want the member to come back to the bill now please. Hon DAVID BENNETT: So when we look at the bill there are those 16 points that are in there and they go through some of the issues like tattooing—that the Minister spoke about—imaging of those people that may be visiting a corrections facility restraints on prisoners cell sharing and other things like that that are really an important part of our corrections programme and what we do in our corrections facilities. But it doesn't take away from that fundamental point that whatever we do in corrections if we're not actually making a difference to that person's life it's fundamentally just a band-aid approach. This has taken up some of the good points that needed to be done in the corrections system that Louise Upston had put forward but it doesn't cover the really important part of the corrections facilities and that is the rehabilitation. Darroch Ball: Ha ha! I can't believe you're doing this.Hon DAVID BENNETT: These members laugh. They laugh at rehabilitation. They have got no sense of what is actually needed to turn somebody's life around and it is—Hon Member: Disgraceful.Hon DAVID BENNETT: Well someone says it's disgraceful. I don't know if we'd go that far with the New Zealand First Party but there's time. But you know when we look at what could have been in this bill from the Labour Party we could have seen actually how they intend to reduce the prison population by 30 percent. How do they actually intend to do that? That could have been in this bill because they're working frantically on it now trying to work out how to do that. This bill could have been an opportunity—Darroch Ball: This is a corrections bill. Hon DAVID BENNETT: Yes and corrections is the prison population. That's where you know prisoners go to corrections and the parties that you're involved with have made it clear that they want to reduce the prison population by 30 percent. Thirty percent of prisoners will be out on the street under a Labour - New Zealand First "soft on crime" Government. That is exactly what they are doing here. Members will see the result of that very soon and I encourage the Labour Party to come out and be honest with New Zealanders tonight and say how they are going to achieve that. Why can't they come into this House and debate why and how they're actually going to release 30 percent of New Zealand's prisoners? What is so hard about putting those ideas in front of this House tonight? They have them. Andrew Little knows exactly what he wants to do to achieve that target and it's a question of when and how they do that and what does that actually mean. Are they going to relax the bail laws? Are they going to reduce the sentencing? Are they going to make sure there are less remand prisoners by going soft on crime? Those are the real things that the Labour - New Zealand First Government are looking at at the moment and this legislation is needed but it is simply taking the legislation that Louise Upston had prepared in the last Government and reusing it here. It is not the fundamental change in corrections that we know is coming from the Labour - New Zealand First Government—a fundamental change that will release 30 percent of prisoners from our prison population into the general public. That is the plan that we will see from the Government and I wish they had actually had the guts to come into this House and debate it here tonight and to actually be straight with the New Zealand public and tell them what their actual intentions were of how to achieve that rather than hide behind legislation that has been prepared by the previous Government—needed legislation I must admit but still prepared by the previous Government—and with the biggest issue reduced and taken out of this legislation around rehabilitation. So the New Zealand National Party will be supporting this legislation through its first reading. We want to see these issues be tidied up in our corrections system. As I say they are things that will actually make the system work better and that are important for many members of the corrections facilities that are there as inmates but also to enable the activities of corrections to be actually undertaken in a more thorough and successful way. They take into account new technology they take into account some changes in the system that have been sitting there for a while that needed to be tidied up and we will support that. That is something that is important for corrections' facilities and approach but it doesn't take away from the fundamental thing that we are seeing coming forward from the Labour - New Zealand First Government and that is a reduction in prison population at a time when all the indicators are that there will be an increase in prison population. They are seeking to reduce it by 30 percent. They will not tell us how they're going to do that. We know they're looking at options around that of reducing sentencing of removing bail conditions and they are looking at how to reduce that prison population by being soft on crime and this something this bill should address as well."