Lole-Taylor Asenati: Corrections Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Lole-Taylor Asenati: Corrections Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 13 February 2013. Volume:687;Page:7855. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Le’aufa’amulia ASENATI LOLE-TAYLOR (NZ First) 
: 
 Malo le soifua. Fa‘afetai mo le avanoa. When I was unfairly interrupted in my speech earlier on it cut me off from moving on to the smoking ban and I am now very happy to stand up on behalf of New Zealand First and address the issue of the smoking ban. Last night I actually made a point of talking about some of the important areas where this smoking ban is a concern. I believe and we believe that the introduction of the smoking ban in prisons has not ceased cigarette smoking. I have to reiterate that it has not ceased cigarette smoking. Instead it has created difficult situations where the pressure has now shifted on to families on to friends and on to visitors and staff in general. 
The interesting thing is that you will have prisoners who are inside the wire who will be selected to go out on external party work programmes. For example you will have a prisoner called Mr Collins Tolley getting up in the morning getting ready to go outside the wire to either a farm or a forest where he will be working. At that time Mr Collins Tolley will be allowed to smoke because the prison smoking ban does not extend to those environments outside of the prison wall. This is a part that the department has failed to incorporate into its smoking ban. 
The other thing I want to emphasise here is that the assaults on corrections officers will continue and will always happen. We will also continue to hear of further tobacco-related incidents. People do not know how hard it is to be a corrections officer. People do not understand how impossible it is for corrections officers to enforce any regulations or any rules that this House is responsible for introducing. I can speak from my 6 years of experience in that environment that it is not easy to try to maintain a cool posture when you are actually dealing with prisoners especially in situations where they are desperate for a smoke. I can assure you that prisoners will find a way because they are so intelligent. That is the reason why they got there in the first place because they are too smart for their own good. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: They outsmarted the Government. 
Le’aufa’amulia ASENATI LOLE-TAYLOR 
: Absolutely. After all they won the case. So Minister the situation over the smoking ban needs to be reviewed. It is an unrealistic attempt to ban smoking in prisons when prisoners on the Release to Work programme are free to smoke. You cannot expect them to leave the wall go outside and work on those external working parties where they can smoke all day long and then come back to the prison and give it up just like that. The Government is doing more damage to the prisoners by introducing something that is impossible—impossible—to be monitored and to be carried out. 
The next thing I want to say about the smoking ban is that the Government instead of introducing a smoking ban would do well to introduce a comprehensive ongoing stop-smoking education programme for all prisoners. That is a realistic approach. It is not realistic that prisoners will be banned from smoking while staff who cater for them can carry on smoking. How ridiculous that is. So it is a stroppy attempt that comes with unfair implications—for example in respect of human rights. It is impossible for you to say to the prisoner—or for the corrections officers themselves to say to the prisoner—“I am taking you out on a working party. You can’t smoke and I can.”