Sepuloni Carmel: Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Sepuloni Carmel: Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 24 November 2009. Volume:659;Page:8188. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour) 
: 
 I have to take a call because my colleague Mita Ririnui did not get to finish the scenario he was putting to the Minister of Corrections. I really need to finish explaining that scenario because it is a scenario that could happen and the Minister needs to take it seriously. The Government has not had enough time to consider these types of scenarios because it has not put the Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill through the appropriate select committee process. 
I shall carry on from where my colleague Mita Ririnui was when he finished. The issue relates to courts and their distance from prisons. He talked about courts like those of Whakatane Tauranga and Opotiki which do not have a prison in the near vicinity and which are quite a distance away from the nearest prison. In fact to get from the Whakatane court to the Turangi prison which is the closest prison takes about 3 hours. 
Hon Mita Ririnui 
: Plus. 
CARMEL SEPULONI 
: It takes 3½ hours. I have an issue in regard to what the Minister said earlier in terms of sanitation and the health of the prisoners. She said that the prisoners will be driven to the nearest prison so that they can shower. We thought about that and we thought that it would be difficult for the security officers driving the vans to provide the prisoners with food and everything else. Perhaps along the way on their 3½ hours’ drive in the security van during which they are listening to Bob Marley and singing they will drive through Kentucky Fried Chicken and get a feed and on the way back they will drive through it again so that they can pick up a party pack for the prisoners’ mates back in the court cells in Whakatane. So on their way there they will get a feed and then they will get to the prison where they will have a shower. The security officers will then turn round and drive for another 3½ hours to get those prisoners back to the court cells where they are being held. What if one of the prisoners all of a sudden thinks it would be really funny to soil himself so that he would have to be driven for another 3½ hours all the way back to Turangi to be cleaned up? The security officers would not want to leave him like that; they would not want the other prisoners to feel any discomfort because one of their mates has just soiled himself. I do not know whether the Minister has actually thought that one through and thought about that sort of scenario. It is the kind of very real scenario that she might be faced with after the Government has brought this legislation through the House. 
As I said earlier—and as all the Labour members have said—Labour will support this bill. We are supporting this bill because the National Government is in crisis over this situation. It is in crisis over it. It knows that its prisons will not have the capability to deal with the numbers of prisoners it is expecting due to the rise in crime that is already happening and the expected further rise in crime. So Labour has to support this bill. We in Labour know that the Government needs somewhere to put those prisoners and the only option for it is the court cells. This issue has come up before. It is not a new thing; it is something that has happened before. But the National Government is taking it to the extreme in legislating for it and it is doing that because it is in crisis. Its prisons will not be able to deal with the sheer number of prisoners coming through because of the amount of crime being committed. 
My colleague from the Green Party Sue Kedgley brought up a very very good point earlier on in relation to the regulatory impact statement which points out that prisoners can be held in court cells for no longer than 4 days—I think it is 96 hours. That is the longest time they can be held there. She pointed out that although that provision is mentioned in the regulatory impact statement it is not in the bill itself. Therefore if that aspect of this bill is not fixed up the Government will be able to house prisoners in court cells for as long as it wishes—for as long as the need is there for as long as the prisons are in crisis and for as long as crime is on the rise. More crimes are being committed and the Government cannot cope with the numbers of prisoners. The Government now can keep prisoners in court cells. That is a real issue especially given the fact that the public have not had a chance to make submissions on this bill. The public are at risk—that was pointed out in the regulatory impact statement—in regard to court cells holding prisoners given the proximity of court cells and courts to people living nearby. That has not been addressed and we need to address it. The public would have a concern about it. So I thank the Green member for pointing out that issue. 
She also pointed out that there is perhaps a secret agenda of the National Government to convert the courts into prisons.