O'Connor Damien: Whanganui Iwi (Whanganui (Kaitoke) Prison and Northern Part of Whanganui Forest) On-account Settlement Bill — In Committee 
O'Connor Damien: Whanganui Iwi (Whanganui (Kaitoke) Prison and Northern Part of Whanganui Forest) On-account Settlement Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:670;Page:16928] 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour) 
: 
 I follow on with regard to Part 1 on the issue raised by my colleague the Hon Nanaia Mahuta. 
Hon David Carter 
: Turn your tie off. 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR 
: Thank you. 
It is not for me to relitigate in any way the quite complex issues that were discussed through the settlement process which was based on addressing the grievance that the Crown had acquired land cheaply and at the time assured Ngati Apa that they would benefit greatly from it but of course they found themselves effectively in poverty and trapped. I ask a question that was in my mind as Minister of Corrections when the proposal to utilise the prison land was brought to me: is there a potential conflict of interest? I raised it briefly in my earlier speech. 
If the settlement is indeed intended to pass on to Ngati Apa some prosperity then we have effectively by transferring prison land ensured that the benefits that accrue from the rental from prisons will benefit Ngati Apa. But the sad and tragic reality is that 50 percent of the population inside that prison may very well be Ngati Apa as well so poverty will come from this deal too. If we consider that incarceration of Ngati Apa people—those who have committed crimes and have gone through the justice system—is indeed the way that we pass on prosperity to Ngati Apa then we have a conflict of interest. 
I do not think anyone in this House would want another grievance to ensue through the settlement process so I just raise this word of warning. I may be raising it from a slightly distorted view of the matter or maybe from a fresh new view; I do not know how people may see this matter. But I for one—and I know my colleagues as well—would not like to see any poverty or any further grievance flow from this settlement. 
As my colleague Nanaia Mahuta said the danger of course with the current National Government is that it is going to privatise some of the prisons. That is a tragic and in my view unethical move by a Government that has no moral standards. If that next step were to take place and that prison were to be privatised we would really entrench the potential for further grievance poverty and loss for Ngati Apa. I raise the questions; I do not have the solutions. I do not want to relitigate the settlement and I trust that the elders of Ngati Apa and those who have negotiated this settlement will have realised this potential danger. 
Of course at the time of negotiation Labour was in Government and we believe firmly that incarceration and management of the entire justice system is the role of the taxpayer and of Government. Transferring a big portion of that system into the private sector as National and the member over there for Timaru—Aoraki—wants to see— 
Jo Goodhew 
: Rangitata. 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR 
: Sorry yes. I am sure the people of Timaru like “Rangitata” although I think they would probably prefer “Aoraki”. But anyway I do not want to relitigate that issue—one thing at a time. 
I just say that in Opposition we have a responsibility to raise the potential problems that might flow from legislation. No matter how well intended legislation may be I think each and every one of us knows that whenever legislation is passed by this House there will be faults in the wording or in the outcome of it. We have to trust the advice from officials overseen by the Minister—in this case Mr Finlayson no doubt but assisted by Judith Collins. I know she wants to privatise the whole prison system. 
I am not sure whether the Minister in the chair the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations can see the potential danger in what he is doing. I do not think he would genuinely want to create a further grievance. I trust and hope that the Minister in the chair can if not in the passage of this legislation then in further discussions at Cabinet level ensure that through the process of privatisation or some other distortion of the justice system which National seems to be intent on further grievances cannot occur. I hope he ensures that the Ngati Apa tribe which this legislation is aimed at is not disadvantaged in some perverse way whereby incarceration of their own people is the only way to generate benefit for their own iwi. We would hate to see that situation. I raise that issue because I think it is a realistic possibility and one that we hope will not eventuate. Kia ora.