O'Connor GregGREG O'CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): Oh Mr Speaker I look up with some surprise to see yourself sitting in the Chair and can I just say how well the crown of Speaker seems to be sitting upon your head—a very natural position to take. So I'm going to enjoy my next 10 minutes under your tutelage.This bill is not a panacea for all ills that beset the justice system. This is something that is more of the manner in which this Government is now attacking the problem with crime attacking the problem with the increased population in our prisons and more importantly attacking the issue of rehabilitating people into our society. But before we start on the detail I think it's important to think why we imprison people. There are four main reasons: we imprison them to punish them we imprison them to deter others we imprison them to protect society and we imprison them to rehabilitate—they are the main reasons. So when we look at any legislation which is designed—which all legislation should be designed to do—to make New Zealand a better place we run a test against that to see whether we are likely to help or assist or whether any of the provisions in the bill are going to send us down that path. I think we can look at the provisions of this bill and think that while none of them are going to fix society overnight what they will do in their own way is make society or the things that they're designed to address that much better.Just before I go into the details of the bill I might say that as a younger man I worked as an undercover police officer. I used to hang around in pubs bars gang headquarters and the most dangerous time for me was when someone came out of prison because they came out of prison and—whether they'd been away for a year whether they'd been away for three years five years—they came back and they expected to come back to exactly the same place that they had left. They expected to walk into a bar or to a gang headquarters and to see everybody sitting around exactly as it was when they left so they could resume their criminal career. Of course if there was a new face there that hadn't been there two or three years before when they left they would immediately say Who's that?" So that was actually something that I was probably too young to really understand what I was seeing but what I actually was seeing was that people were coming out of prison with absolutely nothing having changed and they were coming back to resume where they left off. So in the time and in the opportunities I have in this House I would like to think that I can contribute to reducing that flow and that what we do has to be about reducing that flow so that when people do walk out that prison gate the chances of them going back in are reduced.So let's just have a look at some of the things that this is designed to do. Certainly interestingly enough I see some of the debate has been around double-bunking. Well it may interest those opposite to know that one of the advantages of double-bunking is it actually reduces suicide levels in prison because if there are two people in the cell and one of them tends to try to commit suicide there's someone there to stop them. So it's just important to understand that there are broad issues around all these things. So often and I see it in the speakers on the Opposition all one is looking for is the pill you can take that's going to fix this. Everything is integrated. The whole prison system in and out corrections system justice probation police—everything is integrated. It's important that we understand that and that when we're standing up making speeches around any aspect of this we understand that there are other things we'd have to consider.Just in so far as that double-bunking goes it's also important that the reason this has been addressed here is that—my colleague Clare Curran has touched on this—as it currently exists a legal ambiguity puts the New Zealand taxpayer and the correctional system at some risk and it has to be fixed. This bill is actually fixing that. So again to those who may have been watching that have been a little scared by the rhetoric of the Opposition: don't worry about it; this is actually fixing something and actually will make things better at the end of the day. Also the rehabilitation plans—now "rehabilitation" is a word that's thrown around. Isn't it an easy word? Yes. We're going to put "rehabilitation" into the bill and that's all we need to do. Unfortunately it's one of those tick-the-box exercises. I call it "counting the paperclips" because we've done that. We've put that in the bill; we don't need to think about it any more because we put "rehabilitation" into the bill. Well can I just say if you look at section 51 of the Act we talk about management plans. Now management plans are incredibly important because what they do is that when you try to force people into rehabilitation—"rehabilitation" is a word; "Oh! What are you doing? It's a soft option. It's just something I'll do to get out." Actually a management plan is very different—that which is in the Act. A management plan means you have to do certain things or you will not be considered for parole. You have to do certain things or you'll actually not get yourself into the pathway that will see you come out of prison. So that's why just throwing—and I have to say when I was on the select committee it was a little bit strange that we were taking the word "rehabilitation" out. Then I understood it meant nothing. It was a meaningless expression that was in there. So again anyone watching can see the fact that the word meant nothing—a tick-the-box exercise. Do you know why the evidence is that it meant nothing? I heard the Hon Tim Macindoe speaking about all the wonderful things that were being done in the last regime—well he must have ticked some boxes but it actually didn't stop the prison population getting to 11000. So obviously I'd hate to think how high it would have been if those things perhaps hadn't been done. But what we have currently of course is the Minister who not only has reduced through his actions the number of people in prison but actually the number of offenders in the community has reduced as well. So you might have thought "Ah! All they've done is push them out into the community." Actually no. The number of people in the community has actually reduced as well. So what we have is working because there are less offenders and that's what we are trying to achieve here. I go back to the broad picture.Also I'm going back to the changes in the mail system. Again the Hon Dr Nick Smith being outraged—I continue to be impressed by his ability to be outraged about everything that he stands up to speak on. Quite impressive. It does remind me a little of the boy who cried wolf but that's perhaps for another time. But again the mail system—I just listened. I thought somehow the Minister had written that letter the way he was going—the terrible terrible Minister had somehow gone to prison and had written this letter that found its way into the system. A terrible terrible thing Minister—but then I did listen and no no no: he was actually through the rhetoric apparently blaming everyone else. No what did need to happen was that we needed to ensure that currently when a letter goes out it's the harm that was "likely" to occur—that's the word at the moment—and that's quite broad. What really needs to happen is that harm "may" occur so much more broad criteria are able to be used now to ensure that not only will it go to an individual—because what tended to be the case is that when a letter went out it was going to an individual perhaps someone who had been a victim a family member who may be threatened by it; what this bill does now and what needed to be tidied up to ensure that the criteria can be used to ensure that it can't go to a friendly person—a friendly person who gets the letter and then turns it into an offensive letter which is obviously what's happened. So just broadening that criteria—again an excellent piece of this bill. Also it's a question of whether harm may occur directly or indirectly.So going back to this bill—again it is not a panacea. It is not going to cure everything from the common cold through to leprosy. But what it will do is again it will increase the chances that when that pathway of people come out of prison that opportunity now exists to actually get them on the right path.One thing it doesn't address and I'll say this is the gang situation because again there's been some talk about it—I was at the Police Association conference just last week hearing about just how bad our gang situation is. Of course that's manifesting itself in prison as well. So what we also will need to do and these things will feed into other provisions that are going to be required to depower our gangs—because we can do what we like in prison: we bring them out determined to break the cycle but they go back into the community and the gang has been looking after their family while they were in. Well they're not going to go anywhere else; they've got nowhere else to go. So again I can't reiterate it more: none of these provisions by themselves are going to be the panacea. As part of a range of provisions it has to address gang offending it has to address drug treatment it has to address mental health. But as long as these things—these Acts these bills this legislation that goes through—are against a criteria against a template that we can measure it against: is this going to make New Zealand a safer place? Then I as the last speaker thoroughly recommend this bill to the House. Thank you."