Uffindell SamSAM UFFINDELL (National—Tauranga): Thank you Madam Speaker. Good to rise and talk on this bill noting that the National Party is in support of the Corrections Amendment Bill. We do have a reduced prison muster at the moment that's received plenty of attention over the past fortnight or so and we believe that there are some steps in this that are positive. We support this bill through to the select committee stage and of course we'll support common-sense measures to help those in our prison system. Obviously this is an area where we want to reduce—where we want to get people rehabilitated. What we don't want is a revolving door. But also what we don't want is people in society who are you know a real and credible threat to society. I think that's probably where this Government has overbalanced a little bit in depopulating the prisons. And as a result we've seen crime numbers go up a fair bit; gang numbers are up significantly. But on this we support offence-based rehabilitation and we would like to have seen rehabilitation services made available across all of the different programmes. We note that just under half of the prisoners in there are on remand and there's a fair chunk of those who actually spend their entire sentence—they see out their sentence in remand. That's probably a bit of a call-out to how poorly our justice system is operating at the moment. We have a Government that's more focused on hate speech and other bits and pieces in the justice sector instead of actually getting the courts moving. I note in my home town of Tauranga we had been promised a new courthouse just to see the justice Minister recently kick that one down the road. That doesn't help us get through with the processing so as a result a lot of prisoners are spending their sentence in the remand facilities. And if they don't have access to the whole range of services there and you know a fair chunk of them are spending a chunk of time in remand when they do their sentences then they're not going to be rehabilitated. That is a bad thing for the prisoner it's a bad thing for the victim and it's ultimately a bad thing for society because what we are going to do is send these people back out into society no better off necessarily than they were when they went in there and potentially they're worse off. If someone has got addiction issues then we want them to be able to access those services when they are in the prison facilities whether that be remand or the general jail system. If someone has more specific requirements whether that be around violent or sexual offending or whatever it may be then we believe that they should be able to access those services as soon as possible because it's essential that they do get that help that they need and not just generalised motivational courses or a few life skills courses. We really want those people to be getting the rehabilitation they need from day one when they get into the remand system. And we note that prisoners have suffered a fair bit recently. Mark Mitchell called it out when he was speaking as the second speaker today on this bill and noted that there are a shortage of corrections officers. We're not talking about the officials in the back offices but we're talking about the people that are in the front lines on the ground doing the hard work and dealing with an increasingly violent prison arena. We note that violence against prison officers has escalated quite significantly. I think when I was looking at the statistics last year it looked like it was up about 90 percent since 2017. And the net result of that is that people don't necessarily want to do that job any more. And then the Australians very cunningly put on a lot of ads as they are right across the economy at the moment trying to get our skilled workers over there. And you know from someone who has lived there it's a pretty good life. I think people are looking at that and an increased income and probably a corrections Minister and a system that backs them up a bit more gives them what they need to defend themselves and their peers and then they're going Well you know I don't necessarily want to be dealing with Mongrel Mob members all day and not having a system that backs me up. I might look at other options." But the net result of where I'm going with all of this is that quite often there aren't the prison officers there on the ground as Mark Mitchell referred to today to allow those visitations to take place which are such a key part of ensuring—often they are you know young angry men—that they do get the support that they need from whānau family friends and loved ones to enable them to keep those key connections. It's been noted that a lot of them spend a lot of time just on their own really or maybe bunked up but a lot of time disconnected from their loved ones and from their sense of belonging. So if we were focused a little bit more on listening to the front lines—and I thought Mark Mitchell put it very well today when he said the best thing this Government could do in this area would be to listen to the officers on the front line go out there and listen to them like he was today and make sure that they are getting backed up because if they are feeling safe and they have the numbers there then they will be doing their job properly. They will be safer the prisoners will be safer and ultimately they'll be able to have a lot more of the visitation rights that they haven't been able to have this year. So while we support this bill Mr Speaker—I note that you have switched from the previous Speaker during this call; I'm glad I got the pronoun correct—we do want to see some changes some common-sense changes which I have outlined in this. And I will note that we support this bill. Thank you."