McLellan TraceyDr TRACEY McLELLAN (Labour): Thank you Mr Chair and thank you Minister for those opening remarks. I appreciate the fact that you've set out a little bit of the context to this Corrections Amendment Bill. It may look like small bill in two parts but the regulatory impact statement is a hefty document as are several of the pieces of advice that the Minister of Corrections previous and current would have received and certainly the select committee process had lots of things to consider as we worked our way through this bill.There are several themes that the questions today will address. I think the Minister has certainly touched on one. Whilst it would be certainly the intention to go through in a systematic way and perhaps to do the sort of back and forth as the preference of the committee is with regard to asking and answering questions I think what I will do today is just set out a little bit more of that context. I know that I have colleagues who will be very keen perhaps in themes but also as questions arise to pick up and circle back over various other considerations and concerns that we have with this piece of potential legislation.So the Corrections Amendment Bill as the Minister has correctly said was first introduced by the previous Government because there was—and we acknowledge—a need to update and keep modern and ensure that our corrections facilities and our corrections department are always up to date with best practice because as the Minister has mentioned safety of both staff and of prisoners is critically important. It's a dangerous environment. It's an environment that's complex that's full of all sorts of considerations because it's full of human beings. So by virtue of that alone it's one of those complicated ones indeed. So the several proposals the several legs to this bill as was first introduced by the previous Government have largely been retained. We will have some questions about the practical applications of that as we go through this process of the committee of the whole House. But as the Minister has also touched on the fact that the Minister and Cabinet made an explicit decision to remove Te Tiriti provisions and not only reference to Treaty but the principles and the other bullet points essentially that we will go through one at a time from what has now come before this committee we think is such a shame is so atrocious. It completely guts and quite frankly ruins large suedes of the intentionality of this bill that it's something that we intend to spend a considerable amount of time on working our way through because the implications are so profound. It's not just a principle it's not just in principle but everything else that's in this bill was guided by the legislative foundation that that simple clause in the early stages of the bill guaranteed and supported. Without that there is a different lens to which we now must examine the rest of this bill and that's what we intend to do.As I said that's the foundation and there will be colleagues not only from the Labour Party but from whānau in the Green Party who will take up various aspects of this because this is a really big question. It's not just a bill. It's not just a simple black and white two-dimensional clause on a piece of paper; it was an opportunity to provide the legislative framework from which the rest of this made sense. People and colleagues will approach it from several different angles but I just want to ask the Minister as a means by which to prompt and to give notice I suppose in terms of his own responses and his own thinking if he could certainly turn his mind to that and think about the means by which the justification can be made and also the specifics as we go through the clauses as to what the practical implications might be.So I have a few questions. As I said we had hoped to go through in a systematic way but we're going to skip to the clause that I think is the most contentious—clause 7— and that is one that has been completely removed from this bill. The section it referred to was 6A—[Bell rung] Mr Chair?CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Dr Tracey McLellan.Dr TRACEY McLELLAN: I promise I will get to my questions quickly so that we can afford a little bit of back and forth. The section is 6A Tiriti o Waitangi/Treaty of Waitangi. Originally it was drafted and it was included in the bill as introduced in order to provide the Crown's intention to give effect to the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi—the Treaty of Waitangi.I suppose my question to the Minister is: whilst you've touched on it and whilst I've read the documents and I've read the advice I'm just interested to hear a little bit more from you as to why you thought it was necessary to remove this section that underpins so much else in this bill and gives effect not only to the operational strategy and the documents but what was the harm in making that explicit? What was the harm in keeping it in? What was the harm in showing—not saying but showing—your intentionality to do something that gave effect to the fact Māori are overrepresented in our prisons and after years and years and years of trying to redress that shameful statistic we finally put something in legislation that had some oomph that had some intentionality that was in black and white and you've just turfed it out? Can you talk me through the process that's not as simple as it was part of a coalition agreement it was part of a 100-day plan and to suffice all of those relationships you decided to prioritise that instead of doing what I believe is the right thing for the people of Aotearoa and for the people and the families and all of the individuals who are affected by this who find themselves with friends relatives whānau in the prison system? So can you just give me a little bit of an update on that and clarify your thoughts? We'll come back with more specific questions as time goes on.