Chauvel Charles: Corrections Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Chauvel Charles: Corrections Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 13 February 2013. Volume:687;Page:7832. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 I am keen to ask the Minister in the chair the Attorney-General some questions about the effect of one particular clause in Part 1 of the Corrections Amendment Bill and that is clause 5 because it is the principal reason for the Labour Opposition’s objection to this legislation. Clause 5 would permit the delegation of powers from the Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections to private sector employees. As far as I am aware this scheme of private prison administration is the first example in our system of laws where powers of a Public Service chief executive are proposed to be delegated to a person not employed by the Public Service. I would like the Minister to tell the Committee whether or not the full ramifications of this issue have been considered because of course when delegations of power are made from the public sector to the private sector all the safeguards that have been carefully worked up to apply in the public sector no longer automatically apply. 
For example could the Minister tell the Committee whether or not the Public Service code of conduct will apply to employees in the private sector to whom public powers are delegated; if not why not? Will the Department of Corrections code of conduct the Department of Corrections’ internal disciplinary and professional standards procedures apply to such employees when they are exercising powers delegated from the Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections; if not why not? Will other statutory safeguards that apply in the public sector apply to such employees? I am aware that in general terms many of the wider safeguards are imported by earlier amendments to the corrections legislation as far as the running of private sector prisons is concerned. But when these particular powers are delegated will for example the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act apply to the actions of employees in the private sector when they are exercising public functions—the functions that have hitherto been confined to the public sector? 
These are very important questions. The fact that they have to be asked in this way indicates I think that there has not been a full thinking through of the desire on the part of the Government to delegate powers out of the public sector and across to the private sector. What are the ramifications in full of that decision and what exactly will the Committee and then the House be agreeing to if this proposal is passed? 
That is just one of the concerns that the Labour Opposition has about this legislation: the ill-thought-through proposal that powers should be delegated out of the public sector and into the private sector without all the controls—professional and otherwise—that do exist and do apply in the public sector environment. I think the Committee would find quite useful an explanation of what is intended to be the entire legal regime that will apply to such powers if this legislation passes. 
Of course the question of whether or not the regime is ill thought through or otherwise is not the only problem here. We have a fundamental opposition to the idea of inmates being incarcerated by entities that are run for profit. This bill will of course advance that agenda for ideological reasons and presumably also for cost-saving reasons whereas what we ought to be doing by way of a priority in our corrections system is absolutely focusing on the need to reduce reoffending to get our prison numbers down to get our number of offenders down and to stop offenders from going through the revolving door that our prison system has been for as long as I can remember. I cannot see anything in clause 5 that will advance that cause in any way and I do hope the Minister of Corrections will take some advice and get to her feet to discuss these points. 
The other concerns that I have about Part 1 of the legislation are ones that I spoke to in my second reading speech which I gave yesterday. Clause 26 relating to strip-searching is one of those concerns. We heard evidence at the Law and Order Committee that the proposal contained in clause 26 to standardise the manner in which strip-searches are conducted to a very intrusive means of strip-searching is going to cause a number of operational problems. I would like the Minister to indicate to the Committee whether she has actually turned her mind to these potential problems and whether she thinks there are solutions that can be had to them. The problems include the fact that the proposed standard procedure is a much more intrusive one than one of the procedures that can be applied at the moment. At the moment if it is proposed to strip-search a prisoner then there are two types of searches that can occur. One is a relatively routine one that is generally applied if somebody for example has been out on work release. The other is when there is reasonable cause to suspect that the prisoner is concealing for example contraband. That much more intrusive procedure—involving as clause 26(3) says “any instrument or device designed to illuminate or magnify … the mouth nose ears and anal and genital areas;”—will become the standard procedure to be applied in all strip-searching situations. 
The select committee heard evidence from the Corrections Association the professional body and union of most prison officers in New Zealand that this would lead to disorder it would be provocative it would be unduly invasive and it would not only lead to prisoners who were subjected to the more intrusive procedure as an automatic consequence of any proposal to strip-search them acting up but also pose a risk to our corrections officers themselves. And that just does not even begin to touch on the issues of dignity and privacy that making this particular procedure a standard one starts to invoke. So I do hope that the Committee will hear from the Minister about why it is that this particular proposal has come forward in the bill. The evidence as to its need is questionable. 
We heard from Mr Goff in the second reading stage yesterday about the fact that there has been a big decline for example in drug use detected in our prisons and I have been able to confirm that when I have visited prisons. Most of them are uniformly reporting that when they are undertaking drug testing the level of drug use appears to be diminishing quite drastically and that is because of the very good security arrangements that have progressively been put in place in our corrections institutions. People will have seen the work that was done by the previous Government to make it a matter of standard security that every prison is now enclosed by a perimeter fence and other secure measures are taken to ensure that prisons are drug-free by and large. I am not saying that there should not be constant vigilance as to these matters; what I am saying is that we do need to have a proper explanation in this Committee stage as to why it is proposed to have this more intrusive procedure made standard particularly in the face of evidence from the professional association of officers at the coalface that it would not actually make anything safer and would likely result in a less safe workplace for its members. 
That was not the only evidence that was heard in the committee that was critical of the proposal that is contained in the clause. The Office of the Ombudsmen was critical of it. The Ombudsman obviously is the body that under our international obligations is charged with ensuring that prison complaints—complaints by inmates—are properly investigated. It is the complaints mechanism for our international obligations concerning the need to protect people from torture and unfair conduct. So when it expresses a concern we should be I think on our guard. The New Zealand Law Society and the Salvation Army also joined with the Office of the Ombudsmen in being highly critical of this clause. 
So I do hope that we will hear from the Minister on this and also on the proposal that I spoke to earlier to delegate powers out of the public sector and into the private sector without I think a properly and carefully thought through consideration of what the consequences of those proposed delegations are given that in private sector employment none of the safeguards automatically apply that do in the public sector.