Sepuloni Carmel: Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Sepuloni Carmel: Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 24 November 2009. Volume:659;Page:8153. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour) 
: 
 Labour supports the Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill but following on from my colleague Trevor Mallard I will outline a number of ironies that we need to point out with regard to the bill. 
First I will go over the purpose of the bill. The bill amends the Corrections Act 2004 to enable the temporary accommodation of corrections prisoners in court cells as a last resort when there is insufficient accommodation in the prison system. The bill provides that the requirements of section 9 of the Resource Management Act do not apply to the detention of prisoners in court cell blocks that are declared by notice in the  
Gazette 
 to be parts of a corrections prison. The bill does not contain restrictions on the accommodation of overflow prisoners in court cells. However administrative safeguards will be put in place to ensure that this will occur only if it is strictly necessary that the normal functioning of the courts will not be compromised and that prisoners will continue to receive their statutory entitlements. 
Labour supports the bill but finds it somewhat ironic that National is pushing through a bill to allow prisoners to be housed in court cells even though it criticised us for doing the same thing. I want to point out some of that criticism. On 14 June 2005 Tony Ryall said that the growing use of police and court cells was a warning of a jail in crisis. 
Brendon Burns 
: Who said that? 
CARMEL SEPULONI 
: Tony Ryall—the current Minister of Health—when in Opposition in 2005 said that the growing use of police and court cells was a warning of a jail in crisis. 
We are aware of the fact that there is a crisis going on with regard to crime in New Zealand and that it has been going on since National took office in 2008. When we refer back to what Tony Ryall said it just confirms what we already know. It is a message that we need to get out to the public with regard to what this Government is not doing to resolve the problems that we have with crime. Another person from the National Government Mr Simon Power said on 22 November 2005: “With prisoners being housed in vans showered at rugby clubs and kept in police and court cells how can the Minister convince the members of the New Zealand public that they are safer since he became the Minister of Corrections?”. 
Last night we debated the Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill. It was pushed through because the National Government believed that private prisons will be safer better and cheaper for New Zealand. Yet here we are now with the Government pushing through a bill that is basically opening up the prison system so that more prisoners can be held in court cells because the Government knows it will not be able to contain them in the prisons we have. There is a certain irony there that I really feel I need to put out. 
One thing I really want to highlight is that we are here discussing the need to find accommodation for an excess of prisoners who will not be able to be held in our prisons due to the fact that there will not be enough accommodation for them. Yet one thing the National Government is not discussing in detail is the fact that crime is on the rise. It has been on the rise since National took over in 2008. 
The National Government continues to ignore the fact that there is a strong correlation between crime unemployment and poverty. Unemployment and poverty are the two things that this Government is not addressing. It will continue to put through legislation that acts as an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff but it will do nothing to ensure that we reduce the numbers of people committing crimes. 
I found an article on The Standard that discusses the leap in crime. Recorded crimes per person leapt 2.8 percent in the June year as unemployment climbed from 4 percent to 6 percent. Obviously it is not a coincidence. As Mr Ryall pointed out before crime is a symptom of a society in distress. It shows that there is a crisis and that is something the National Government has to take full responsibility for. 
On a number of occasions Government members have said that the previous Labour Government did nothing with regard to crime and they have created the perception with the public that crime increased under Labour. I refer to a press release from the University of Auckland—not from the Labour caucus but from the University of Auckland. It is dated 26 February 2008 and it states: “Contrary to popular perception according to a recent study the incidence of crime in New Zealand has steadily decreased over the last decade says Julia Tolmie co-editor of … Criminal Justice in New Zealand and associate professor of law at the University of Auckland. What has changed is that the amount of people who are being prosecuted and the sentences that they are getting have both increased.” 
Now that happened under a Labour Government. The prosecutions and sentences increased but the crime decreased. In other words the numbers we are locking up for committing crimes have rapidly increased in recent years even though crime is not growing. The perception that crime climbed under a Labour Government was put out by National members and it was incredibly irresponsible. Now they are in a situation where they are in charge they are experiencing a crisis they know they cannot house the number of prisoners who will be coming through the prisons and they are looking to privatise. But even with the benefits they perceive from that around rehabilitation and reintegration they know they will have an overcrowding problem in our prisons. Therefore they have to push through this bill. 
I want to touch on the main provisions of this bill. Clause 4 inserts a new subsection that ensures that if a court cell block has been declared by notice in the  
Gazette 
 to be a part of a corrections prison then section 9 of the Resource Management Act 1991 does not prevent that cell block being used to detain prisoners. Clause 5 makes a consequential amendment to the Resource Management Act to signal that section 9 of that Act does not apply to the detention of prisoners in a court cell block that is declared by notice in the  
Gazette 
 to be part of a corrections prison. 
As I said Labour members support this bill but the issue we are discussing is the irony of this measure—and I am not allowed to use the word which Mr Mallard pointed out that starts with “h”. But that is the word we are discussing here and that is the issue we are discussing. 
I want to go back to the bill that was discussed previously tonight and I discuss it in correlation with this one. That bill was the Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill which is known to most people as the “Privatisation of Prisons Bill”. I go back to what we discussed about the Government’s argument that for some reason or another private prisons would be better safer and cheaper despite the fact that the vast majority of the submissions showed us that that would not be the case. 
In recent months we have experienced a major issue with regard to a shortage of court security officers and we have also experienced some major upheaval with our justice employees with regard to the working conditions they are being forced to work under under this National Government. Here we are putting through this legislation and knowing that a higher number than usual of prisoners will be kept in our court cells. But do we really have the capacity in terms of staff to ensure that the staff remain safe? Are security measures in place to ensure that the public is also safe? Do the working conditions for the security staff ensure that they will not be on strike every 5 minutes because they are fighting with the Government over what they should be entitled to? 
I refer to a  
Manukau Courier 
 article that was put out on 16 April this year—that is under this Government. It states: “Judges are publicly backing a third budget bid by the Justice Ministry to increase the number of court security officers nationwide. Security staff at the court wear stab-proof vests because of the number of knives they seize from people entering court says the Public Service Association the union for state sector workers … PSA national secretary Richard Wagstaff says there aren’t enough officers to cover the three courts at all times … That shortage is ‘mirrored at courts across the country and threatens the safety of the public’ Mr Wagstaff says.” 
This is an issue that the National Government will have to deal with as it brings this legislation through. It is no good saying that prisoners who cannot be accommodated in our prisons can be housed in court cells if it does not have in place the security measures to ensure that not only the staff who are working there but also the public are safe. It is a very real issue that I really thought I needed to bring to the attention of this Government. The other issue I touched on before was with regard to the pay disputes that have been happening across the justice sector.