Collins Judith: General Debate 
Collins Judith: General Debate 
[Volume:652;Page:1851] 
Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Police) 
: 
 We have just heard why the ACT Party is doing so well as opposed to the Labour Party; it has actually talked about something that is important. Instead of the deputy leader of the Labour Party giving us 5 minutes of personal abuse let us talk about something that is important. People on this side of the House want to talk about what is important and what actually matters to New Zealanders. I will take a few minutes today to talk about the Auditor-General’s report into the management of offenders on parole which I can tell members will not be and has not been brushed under the carpet and ignored. I know that is what Labour would have done with it but I am setting higher standards than that. My focus and the focus of this Government is on public safety. I know that Labour would have brushed that report under the carpet. 
Labour has never ever—not once—referred to the issue of public safety in all its many press releases many questions and many many hours spent on this matter. Not once has Labour ever addressed the issue of the report—which is public safety—not once did Labour mention it. In fact the Minister who was in charge of the Department of Corrections and who is now the Leader of the Opposition the Hon Phil Goff was in charge during the whole time of the audit. He was in charge for that whole year and he should have checked. Instead unfortunately he just relied on what he was told without taking any basic steps on the issue. One thing we know is that after the coroner’s report came out Mr Goff said: “Well look everything is obviously fixed; the coroner’s report has said that.” because that is what Labour was told. He said that that was great: “We’re so proud of that.” That is what Mr Goff said but unfortunately he never bothered to check. He was so keen setting himself up to become the next leader of the Labour Party his eyes were not where they should have been. 
It is important that the Department of Corrections whose primary role is to keep the public safe and its chief executive enjoy the full confidence of the public. I am very pleased that the chief executive has committed to rebuilding my confidence and the public’s confidence in the department and in him. In the coming months I will be expecting Mr Matthews to work hard to gain that confidence. I will be holding him to very high standards and I expect that the State Services Commissioner will hold him to similarly high standards. My concern was and remains that the serious public safety issues be addressed in the department. I have done everything in my power and will continue to do so to ensure that that issue is addressed. The State Services Commissioner has recommended that the chief executive and I engage an independent person to chair an expert panel to review the Community Probation and Psychological Services’ procedures and performance measures. We are working towards that. I think that that will bring a great mix of internal and external participants with expertise in change management to assist Mr Matthews to lift up the performance at the department. I am confident that with that support Mr Matthews will be able to undertake this task. If not I expect that the State Services Commissioner will hold him to account. 
The Department of Corrections deals with large numbers of society’s most difficult and dangerous people and we know there are always going to be issues. Unfortunately when there are an awful lot of very dangerous people locked up together bad things will happen. That does not mean though that we should ever accept that the Department of Corrections’ failures should be taken as a matter of course. When I received that report from the Auditor-General I was staggered at the extent of non-compliance given that the audit took place after Karl Kuchenbecker’s murder. Following that terrible tragedy the previous Government gave assurances. One of the things Mr Goff said was that: “We must learn from failings which occurred during this tragic episode.” Well yes! His Government even said that it had “moved swiftly to tighten up the way probation was managed.” I do not really think so. That Government said that it identified and addressed the issues—no it did not. It also claimed that it had remedied the deficiencies in the system that were made apparent by the Karl Kuchenbecker tragedy. I do not think that actually happened and that is the tragedy. How many people have to die before anybody cares? Unfortunately we have heard everything from Labour’s members—because it was all on their watch; every single bit of this was on the Labour Government’s watch—except anything about public safety and improving the system.