Brown Peter: Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Bill — In Committee Procedure Third Reading 
Brown Peter: Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Bill — In Committee Procedure Third Reading 
[Volume:626;Page:20995] 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 We are debating Part 3 which amends the Human Rights Act 1993. I have not had a chance to discuss the part with my colleagues so I apologise to them but I picked up some informal legal advice and I hope the Minister in the chair the Hon Rick Barker will clarify whether I am right or wrong in this respect. I have been told informally that this legislation is one step away from allowing prisoners to sue for accident compensation. We are allowing them to sue for claims against prison officers and the Department of Corrections under the human rights legislation. We have denied them and all New Zealanders the ability to sue under accident compensation legislation and we have denied prisoners the right to be awarded compensation under that legislation. I am suggesting to the Committee as has been suggested to me that this bill is but a fraction of a step away from allowing prisoners to sue for lump-sum compensation in the event that they get injured by some “accident” in prison. 
The Minister in the chair is shaking his head but I suggest he give this some serious thought because huge pressure will be put on prison officers as a result of the bill. There will be a blurring of the line between a genuine accident and what one might call an abuse by a prison officer. The line will be deliberately blurred. I would not want to be a prison officer and I would not advise any of my friends or family members to be prison officers once this legislation comes in. Prison officers are being treated like second-best citizens. They will be prisoners in their own jails—maybe not physically but certainly mentally. Prison officers look after the roughest toughest thugs we have in this country and they will be set up every hour of every day of every week in order to have a claim taken against them and this Minister and this Government will award those prisoners thousands of dollars of compensation. We know that some of it will be stopped and victims will get the right to argue over the claim but we also know that there will be cases where these thugs will become relatively wealthy people and they will leave jail with a lot of money. 
In the House yesterday Keith Locke said that money is no good to a prisoner in jail. Yeah right! I tell him that if these thugs get $40000 or $70000 or whatever the Government will allow them to get they will use that money with evil intent. My colleague Dail Jones put forward a very very good Supplementary Order Paper. It would have stopped money from going to the prisoners in total—no ifs no buts no maybes. It recognised their ability to take legal action but it said that no money will go to a prisoner. That is the way most New Zealanders want it. Indeed they want it tougher. Dail Jones’ amendment was a very good midway position. It recognised the human rights of prisoners and their ability to take legal recourse but it said they will not gain from it. It removed the incentive for prisoners to take a claim against the Department of Corrections. 
We have here a protocol between the Department of Corrections and the Office of the Ombudsmen yet the Minister stood up here earlier today and said we need a review and we need a prison inspectorate. Let us look at the responsibilities of the Office of the Ombudsmen under this protocol. The Minister in the chair is looking as if he has never heard of this. It was signed up to by the Labour Government in 2003 and it gives the department some rights. It states that the Department of Corrections is responsible for the administration of prisons under the Penal Institutions Act 1954. Under the Ombudsmen Act 1975 an ombudsman can investigate decisions made by prison management that a complainant thinks are unlawful unreasonable or wrong. An ombudsman can also initiate own-motion investigations. That protocol was updated upgraded—call it what you will—in 2003. The Minister says the Labour Government is not mollycoddling prisoners. Well I do not know what it would do if it were mollycoddling prisoners. It would give prisoners every right it could think of. It is giving such rights to people like Gillies whom my colleague referred to earlier who virtually paralysed a law-abiding police officer who like all police goes out into the dark of night looking after the public’s interests. Gillies virtually paralysed that police officer with a screwdriver yet he got 40 grand because his feelings were hurt while he was in prison.