Cosgrove Clayton: Corrections Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee 
Cosgrove Clayton: Corrections Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee 
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Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 I do not intend to take a long call on the Corrections Amendment Bill (No 2) for a number of reasons. I will start off by indirectly posing a question through the Chair. It is interesting to note that this bill and the next two bills to be debated tonight under urgency—the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Bill and the Oaths Modernisation Bill—are all previous Labour Government bills in the name of former Labour Ministers. 
The bill we are debating now— 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I think it is worth noting for the information of the member that the House is not in urgency. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: The member is correct but that is not a point of order. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: I am indebted to Mr Brownlee who as is apparent from that point of order is becoming a learned member of the House through his study of the Standing Orders. I appreciate his point of order and I correct the record. We are not in urgency. I bow to Mr Brownlee’s superior knowledge of the Standing Orders. 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: You can say that again. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: I bow to his superior knowledge of the Standing Orders. Not many people even back at school have ever accused Gerry of having superior knowledge but I do it again. 
I just note that maybe Mr Brownlee has by accident reconfigured the Order Paper. I am surprised that this bill and the two bills that follow it all of them previous Labour Government bills in the name of former Labour Ministers—in fact the Corrections Amendment Bill (No 2) has the name of the former Minister and now Leader of the Opposition Phil Goff printed on it—are ahead of all other Government business. Opposition members are gratified at that because like the Government we support the bills that Labour when in Government put forward. I just wonder whether Mr Brownlee mixed up the batting order because it is a great honour for the Hon Phil Goff that this bill is one of three pieces of Labour legislation in the so-called 100 days of manic activity that the National Government is trying to portray to the people of New Zealand that have been put ahead of all other National Government priorities. I think that is fantastic. 
We on this side of the House support this bill. This is serious legislation and if we look at the opening clauses we see it builds on the history of Labour in Government where for instance prison escapes were reduced by 84 percent. The aim of this bill as seen from the nature of the clauses in Part 1 is obviously to crack down on drug use eliminate the illicit use of cellphones in prisons enhance the powers of search in relation to inmates and for those working in prisons and adopt a zero tolerance towards those nefarious staff members amongst the generally good and honourable staff who would pass contraband to prisoners. Penalties will be increased from 3 months to up to 1 year in prison and the maximum fine will be doubled to $5000. 
We go on to the authorising of the electronic detection and jamming of all cellphones used within prisons. Of course one of the key drivers for Labour in Government and for the Hon Phil Goff when he introduced this bill was the acknowledgment of the huge and fast-moving technological developments that those inside the wire and their supporters outside the wire can use to try to beat and bust the system. The bill also extends prisons’ powers in terms of screening inmates’ mail for unlawful or harmful communications. Mail as well as telecommunications can be subject to surveillance and of course the bill creates a penalty for publishing unauthorised communications from inmates that prejudice the interests of victims. 
It is interesting to note some of the achievements in the track record of the previous Labour Government which put forward this bill. We made it significantly more difficult for folk to escape from prisons unlike the large number of escapes from police custody and also from Department of Corrections custody that we have seen in the so-called 100 days of the Minister being in office. We made it more difficult for people to escape from prisons by putting up things like fencing wire in an extra 17 kilometres of perimeter fences. That is probably a good thing to do I would have thought if we want to keep people inside prison—unlike National when it was last in Government. Under Labour prisoner escapes per 100 prisoners were just one-sixth of those 10 years ago under the last National Government. As I have said that means an 84 percent decrease in prison escapes. Drug taking in prisons was less than half what it was when the National Party left office in 1999 and fewer inmates were returning positive drug tests when Labour was in Government. 
We support this bill absolutely. I think it allows us to keep pace with and hopefully jump ahead of technology. We support the bill.