Little Andrew: Corrections Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Little Andrew: Corrections Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 26 February 2013. Volume:687;Page:8191. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
ANDREW LITTLE (Labour) 
: 
 I take a call on the Corrections Amendment Bill. Unlike the member who has just spoken Jacqui Dean I draw this House’s attention to what this bill is actually about and what it is part of. The Department of Corrections when it is exercising its lawful authority is part of that coercive arm of the State that is part of depriving people of their liberty. People go into the care and the custody of the Department of Corrections because the person concerned has been through the proper judicial processes and has been found guilty therefore of having offended against our criminal statutes and against society and of offending so greatly that it is considered that they are best removed from society. That is what we are talking about: the deprivation of citizens’ liberty—those citizens who have transgressed who have breached our moral codes and our criminal codes and who must be removed. 
Surrounding all of that process until the point that they are placed into the custody of our Department of Corrections there are constitutional provisions and constitutional safeguards. We all understand in our type of society and in our liberal democracy that when the State takes the responsibility of depriving citizens of their liberty there will be appropriate checks balances safeguards and oversight and people will not be dealt with arbitrarily or improperly. It remains as important while they are in custody as it does when they are being treated by the police and the judicial system that there are safeguards and that they are not treated arbitrarily. The fact that the Labour Party and no doubt other Opposition parties stand for that idea in this Parliament puts us in distinct contrast to the Government which increasingly and more frequently rides roughshod over basic constitutional principle. That is why we are opposed to this bill. 
There are some sensible provisions in this bill that make some effective tidy-ups of the administration of the prisons and the Department of Corrections but there are other aspects that are more insidious not the least of which is the private prison approach that this Government favours. The reason why we are opposed to it is that we do not think that a private sector motive—the profit motive—should have any role to play when it comes to incarceration and the management of those who are incarcerated. When citizens have been through the judicial process have been sentenced and have been placed in the custody of our corrections and penitentiary system they are under the care and custody of a system that is motivated by the need to protect society to ensure that a person pays their penalty and to ensure that to the best extent possible they get access to rehabilitation or the care they need to correct their behaviour. That is what the corrections system is about and it is all motivated by the need to return a citizen to society in hopefully a better state than they were in when they went into the corrections system. They have done their time they have paid their dues to the society that they have offended against the Department of Corrections has done its bit to the best extent possible and somebody can leave the system and then be reintegrated back. 
None of that is helped or improved when they are placed in the custody of an organisation that has on the top of all that a motivation to maximise its profit—to maximise its revenue to minimise its expenses and therefore to maximise its profit. That adds an unacceptable slant to the role of a custodial organisation and that is why we are opposed to the bill. 
You can see the problem when you look in this legislation at two particular aspects: first of all the strip-search provisions and secondly the delegation of power or the delegation of authority provisions in this legislation. They define the very problem that we are talking about. Let us look at the strip-search provisions. Presently in law the State corrections department has two forms of mandated search. Both are strip-searches. One allows the prison authorities to search a prisoner when they have come back from release whether it is work release or community release; they can conduct a search. The second is also a strip-search but it is much more intrusive. It allows the use of mirrors and lights to examine and explore the anal and genital regions of a prisoner. This legislation takes away the less intrusive means of strip-search and mandates only one form of strip-search. As my colleague Phil Goff has said—he was there and he heard the evidence before the Law and Order Committee—the prison staff who have to administer those strip-searches are saying that they fear a bigger risk of reaction violent reaction from prisoners when faced with that form of strip-search. So why would you legislate for it? It is an abandonment of the balance and the fairness that we have had knowing that these are prisoners who are subject to the powers of a custodial institution. They have now lost that balance when it comes to the strip-searching. 
Then look at the next aspect of it. Clause 42 provides in new section 199AA that the Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections can delegate his powers and authorities to a contract prison—that is to say to a private prison. Subsection (3) of that section says: “A contractor or an employee of a contractor who appears to act under a delegation is presumed to be acting in accordance with its terms and conditions in the absence of evidence to the contrary.” Here is the kicker—here is the kicker. Subsection (5) says: “A delegation under this section does not affect the exercise of any function or power by the chief executive or the responsibility of the chief executive”—that is of the Department of Corrections—“for the actions of any person acting under the delegation.” 
Here we go. Under the private prison the Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections issues a delegation of power—issues a delegation of authority. It gets exercised. It is presumed that it is being exercised in accordance with the power and if it turns out that that is wrong who is liable? The Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections—not the private prison owner but the Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections. Who does the prisoner go to for their remedy? They go to the public purse. They go to the public official: the Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections. There is no constraint on the private prison. It can act as it wishes and it will claim all along the way that it is acting to provide the best service it can under its contract knowing and with this Government knowing that it is entitled to maximise its profit—it is entitled to seek revenue minimise its expenditure and therefore maximise its profit. And if it goes wrong as it surely will under this provision who pays for the mistake? Who ultimately gets called to account? The Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections. And who will pay the chief executive’s legal bill and any compensation that follows? It will be the taxpayer. That is how good the private sector has got it under this Government. Yet again it is another deal that benefits the private sector at the expense of the taxpayer. How many more times are we going to see this? How many more times are we going to see this? 
The next most insidious aspect of this bill is the fixing up of the problem with the no-smoking policy. It was declared from on high by the then Minister of Corrections Judith Collins it was found to be unlawful at the suit of a serving prisoner and now Parliament is being asked to fix it up not that the members of this Parliament have had the benefit of any oversight testing of the evidence or testing of provisions brought in by the Minister. They were introduced as a Supplementary Order Paper and brought in at the last minute to fix up the Minister’s mistake. 
Well I go back to the point I began with. Too often and too much this Government is seeking to ride roughshod over constitutional propriety and it is not acceptable. It is bad enough that those imprisoned by our judicial system those who have offended against our society will be sent off to private prisons where there are no real checks and balances and where the failures of the private prison system will be visited on the taxpayer when things go wrong but now we are being asked to ride roughshod over the protections that this Parliament ordinarily stands up for when a Minister wants to do as they wish. We have not been able to exercise a protection against it but it is happening in this legislation. It is happening in this bill and it is not acceptable. For those reasons we will be opposing this legislation. It is bad for the prison system—it will not help the prison system—it certainly will not help the prisoners and it will not help the people of New Zealand.