Clendon David: Electoral (Disqualification of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Clendon David: Electoral (Disqualification of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:669;Page:15967] 
DAVID CLENDON (Green) 
: 
 Kia ora koutou. I was asked a few days ago whether I would be speaking to the Electoral (Disqualification of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill and if so what I would be saying. I said that in essence I would be saying the same things that I have said in earlier readings. 
Frankly having heard the member who introduced this bill Paul Quinn I think I could be quite justified in simply rereading a speech from an earlier reading of this bill. I am quite sure that that is what the gentleman did in his initial speech. We heard the same old clichés. We heard about the opposition to this bill coming from chardonnay socialists from people who dwell in ivory towers. We heard exactly the same language from the speeches of members who spoke earlier. We heard him once again fail to persuade anybody that all prisoners are guilty of serious offences which immediately puts that member at odds with the analysis of the Attorney-General in whose report the word “irrational” appears a number of times in relation to this bill. 
The Attorney-General of course found this bill “unjustifiably inconsistent” with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and the word “irrational” popped up in the analysis. The Attorney-General said: “The objective of the Bill is not rationally linked to the blanket ban on prisoner voting.” He made the point that fines defaulters for example whom most people would not deem to be serious offenders would nevertheless be caught up in a 3-month sentence and would lose the right to vote. 
The Attorney-General pointed out that the bill would “introduce irrational inconsistencies in the law where mentally impaired prisoners detained in a hospital or a secure facility for less than three years could vote while all prisoners serving sentences of less than three years in prisons would be disenfranchised.” I ask where the logic is in that. The Attorney-General said: “The blanket ban on prisoner voting is both under and over inclusive.” People convicted and sentenced for 2½ years will lose the right to vote. Someone convicted for a 3-month period that happens to straddle an election would lose the right to vote. The point is made again by the Attorney-General: “The irrational effects of the Bill also cause it to be disproportionate to its objective.” 
That is quite strong severe language coming from the Attorney-General who is generally a relatively moderately spoken person and it cuts to the nub. This is wholly irrational legislation. It has no value. It wastes the time of this House to even debate it at a time when we have a crisis in corrections in this country. 
This bill is a misguided attempt to appeal to the perceived populist groundswell of support for the short-sighted view that locking up people for longer and giving them more punishment in prison is somehow desirable. There is no evidence that there is a popular groundswell for or a popular belief in that perception. All of the evidence shows that people will and do support solutions that make our society safer that keep people out of prison and that reduce crime and recidivism despite the nonsensical extremism of vocal pro-prison groups such as the Sensible Sentencing Trust which it seems is more interested in manipulating the victims of crimes and perpetuating their grief and their anger in the interest of continuing to fuel this falsehood that New Zealanders are calling for longer and tougher sentences rather than taking positive actions to try to heal that anger or to relieve some of that grief. 
We are wasting our time with this nonsense bill. Not even its author can make a sound and rational argument for it. This is at a time when despite a steadily declining crime rate the reporting of crime is increasing and is therefore feeding the perception that we are in a worse state than we are. 
We recently have heard bragging from the Government that it has doubled the number of places available for prisoners to receive treatment for drug and alcohol rehabilitation. We will now treat perhaps 1000 people per year rather than 500. We know that the real need is something like six or seven times that number. While we continue to spend 70 percent of the $1.2 billion a year allocated to corrections on keeping people locked away inside concrete and steel jungles and spend about 12c in the dollar on practices that would actually serve to reduce their offending and to break that cycle of reoffending we are doomed to be on the same track. 
We know from the 2010 National Health Committee report that almost nine out of 10 inmates have substance abuse issues. Over half of the prison population have psychotic mood or anxiety disorders. Only a handful of these can expect to get any mental health treatment while they are in prison. Perhaps one in 20 will receive any treatment for their mental health issues. Instead of dealing with those very real and very treatable problems we are dealing with nonsense like this supposed solution which will not reduce crime. It will not serve the interests of any one offender and it will not make anybody in society safer or make them feel safer. 
The failed corrections policies of this and previous Governments are burning up vast amounts of money destroying social cohesion and reducing human potential. Nothing in this bill will do any positive good. A vote for this bill is a vote for pursuing failed policies. It is a vote for looking back to a 19th century mindset. Instead of doing real work in this House and assigning some of that $1.2 billion to positive solutions that work is being left to the volunteers sector the community sector—those organisations and volunteers who know what the solutions are as do many of us in this House and who are applying those situations. 
I was privileged to be at an event in Ruakaka recently where I met a gentleman who was a former gang member who had done his time in jail. He had come out the other side and he understood that his role from here for the rest of his life was to try to stop other people from offending to keep others out of jail and to heal those who were unwell and who were committing crimes. I saw a man stand up and come very near to tears in admitting that he had been guilty of violence against his family that he had abused them verbally and that he had intimidated them. That man has now turned round and will not reoffend because he has been involved in a community-based programme driven and led by volunteers. 
It is to the shame of this House and to the people who perpetuate this sort of policy nonsense that we are not supporting and we are not contributing more to those real community-based solutions which in the longer term are the only solutions that will contribute to breaking the cycle of offending and reoffending and remove the stain on our nation’s pride: the fact that we are the second highest in terms of incarcerating people in the developed world. It is one area where we have not only caught up with Australia but exceeded Australia despite some people’s fondness for referring to Australia’s background and the history of the settlement of that country. 
We are in a crisis in terms of corrections. We are in a financial crisis: we are spending $1.2 billion a year. That will soon become the single-largest cost on the public purse. There is a cultural crisis: more and more people are being confused and frightened by the belief that crime is increasing when in fact it is not. We have a crisis in this Government’s policy: a failure of imagination a failure of thinking and an unwillingness to accept and adopt real solutions. In preference the Government would rather offer us this sort of meaningless policy this meaningless bill without any substance which will do no one any good. We will continue to oppose it. Kia ora.