Swain Paul: Urgent Debates — Corrections Department—Ombudsmen’s Report 
Swain Paul: Urgent Debates — Corrections Department—Ombudsmen’s Report 
[Volume:639;Page:9837] 
Hon PAUL SWAIN (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 I will start my speech as other members have started their speeches by offering my condolences to the Ashley family. As the Minister has said quite correctly this death should not have happened and that young man should have been separated from the older prisoners. I will say in defence of the Minister—and I congratulate him on this—that not long after that event he issued an instruction that all over 18-year-olds should be separated from all under 18-year-olds. I think that this one instruction targeted the critical issue that was identified at that particular time and I congratulate the Minister on doing that. There was some obscurity about a lot of the instruction before then because I think it stated “where practicable”. The Minister has now made it quite clear that it must be done in all circumstances. Again I congratulate him on doing that. 
We are here really to debate the Ombudsmen’s report but people have said a couple of things that I would like to address and I do this as a former Minister of Corrections. The first thing is that this area is a particularly difficult area of Government responsibility. With all due respect to my friend Ron Mark when I hear him talking about what he would do if he were the Minister I tell him to be careful what he wishes for because one day it may well come to pass. The important thing to remember is that this is a difficult area because the Department of Corrections deals primarily with people whom other people in society do not want around them; they want them locked up and kept away from them. We designate a department to look after that group of people and it is extremely difficult. 
I agree with quite a lot of what Peter Dunne said but I disagreed with him fundamentally when he said there was a climate of thuggery in our prison system. When I was Minister of Corrections I went to every single prison. The vast majority of Corrections officers who are often in charge of prisoners who are serving life sentences are doing their damnedest day in and day out to try to turn round some of those lives. They are doing it humanely and with good humour and are providing role models for those prisoners many of whom have never had role models in their past. So I pay tribute to the vast majority of good hard-working and honest officers in the Department of Corrections. 
As has been said the Department of Corrections has two major goals: keeping the public safe—because that is what the public demands—and reducing reoffending. Of course we must do that as Nandor Tanczos says within a climate of dealing with people humanely because that is what the Corrections Act rightly states. But the musters have doubled since Peter Dunne was in charge of this area 17 years ago. It is due to the public’s response to crime particularly serious crime and the Labour Government has listened to that. That is why the musters have risen now to over 8000. But we do have to explain why New Zealand as a country has the second-highest imprisonment rate in the OECD. I think that the biggest shame in New Zealand—one that is still not known widely enough—is that Maori who represent 15 percent of the population make up 50 percent of our prison population. We need to do more work on that issue. 
However the area is a difficult one and Labour has done some pretty good things. For example let us get some of this stuff out. In the last 10 years prison escapes have fallen 78 percent. I heard Mr Ryall dribbling on before. It is all very well to try to run this department from the Opposition benches but the truth is that when the National Government had its chance back in the 1990s the prison escape rate was 78 percent higher than it is today. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: But why would you want to escape? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Keeping the public safe is really important. The National Government was embarrassed day after day—as I remember by Phil Goff. Of course serious assaults on staff have reduced by 90 percent. A lot of fencing has gone up. The detection of contraband has gone up. Random drug testing showed that drug usage was at about 34 percent in the late 1990s. It is now down to about 13 percent. There are more and more activities to try to improve reintegration. A lot of positive things have been done and lot of effort has been made. As I said before Mr Tony Ryall was advising what he would and would not do. He was a disaster and a hopeless Minister when he was in charge of a department. It galls everybody on this side of the House to hear him lecturing on how the Government should deal with the justice portfolios. 
Let us come to the Ombudsmen’s report. Overall the report is a good one. It is important to have an independent assessment of these matters. I support the Department of Corrections independent complaints system and as Nandor Tanczos said the sooner we get that into place the better. I think that will improve public confidence on this issue. One of the Ombudsmen’s recommendations talks about the national office taking steps to acquaint itself better with all aspects of prisoner transport as implemented in the different prisons with a view to determining best practice. I agree that best practice should be in place on a national basis. I think that is fair and reasonable. Many of the recommendations in the report are good. Some of them are in place or are being done. There is no question that others need to be addressed but they also have to be sensibly implemented practical and reasonable. 
I want to address just some of the recommendations because we have not heard much about them. As I said before we are often dealing with extremely difficult people. The Ombudsmen talk about seatbelts and transportation. There is a lot of discussion in the report about prison officers saying that prisoners could wear them with others saying no that they could self-harm and others saying further that if the vehicles had them the prisoners would not wear them. There is a lot of debate and discussion there. But it also has to be remembered that there has been discussion about having seatbelts in school buses and by and large for a whole pile of reasons that recommendation has not been followed. I think there would be public outcry if seatbelts were required in prison vehicles but not in school buses. Whether we should do both I am not sure but clearly there has to be a similar kind of standard. 
Then the Ombudsmen talk about the need for seat squabs or padding and I agree. Travelling a long way on a hard seat is extremely uncomfortable. He said that there is a degree of discomfort that is not acceptable and I agree with that. But I am told by the Minister that the department has made a lot of effort to try to provide squabs that first of all are fire-resistant; secondly stand up to the huge punishment they get from many prisoners; and thirdly are not used either to self-harm or to harm other prisoners. These are practical things. It is all very well to talk about them in this House but these are the practical things that have to be addressed on a daily basis. People should be allowed to stop for toilet breaks but this cannot be done all the way down the highway. They would have to be taken in secure areas otherwise people will run away. That is what happens when we let people out of buses. Toilet breaks have to be taken at places like prisons and police stations. The report states that prisoners need exercise every 3 hours. That also has to be practical. We cannot have people wandering away from the bus because given an opportunity they will wander away. 
The report also talks about emergency exit hatches and their availability to prisoners. That is clearly impractical. The report states that in some vans the cages can be kicked open. But then again if we do that prisoners who should be segregated will be mixing with prisoners who should be separated from others. The issue of emergency exits has to be looked at. Also there is the issue of having the means to fire raze or the carrying of lighters. But then again if we get into strip-searching too much people will complain to the Ombudsman who would probably disagree with that practice. 
What I am really saying is that there are many issues in this report that need careful consideration. The broad thrust of it is that we need to do something about prisoner transport and we need a national system of doing that. But some things in the report have to be thought through carefully. For example if we allow self-exiting escape hatches then everybody would be up in arms at the thought of people running around the countryside. We would have prisoners who have done bad things to the public running around because they have been able to get out of a prison van as a consequence of some concern about being able to get out if there is an accident. 
I do believe that prisoners need to be transported humanely but the solutions have to be practical. “Practical” is the critical word. I think it is important that people in this place—before they get on their high horse and talk about what should and should not be done—remember that by and large the Department of Corrections is doing a good job and doing it with extremely difficult people. I do think we need to take the report seriously and I hope the Minister will be working on it as soon as possible. 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.