Cosgrove Clayton: Corrections Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading 
Cosgrove Clayton: Corrections Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading 
[Volume:651;Page:999] 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 Firstly I congratulate the Government on advancing the Corrections Amendment Bill (No 2). The bill was partially dealt with by the previous Government. I have to say that it is nice after almost 2 weeks of urgency to have a bill from the Government that has some substance— 
Hon Phil Goff 
: And went to a select committee. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: —and went to a select committee. 
Chester Borrows 
: Keep voting for them Clayton. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Absolutely we will be voting for it; we wrote it. It is nice that we finally have a bill that has been appropriately scrutinised by a select committee that has gone out for public consultation that is a bill of substance and that as the Minister of Justice said—and I agree with him—will have a huge and positive impact in terms of keeping New Zealanders safe. It is the first bill of substance to come through this Parliament in the last 2 weeks and that is because it was written by the previous Government. It is the first legislation that will take some huge concrete and positive steps in terms of public safety and law and order. We have seen two other bills that as we know were fictitious. They were a hoax. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Window dressing! 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: They were window dressing as Professor Geoff Hall noted about the sentencing legislation and as others have noted about the bail legislation. It has taken legislation written by the previous Government to be brought into the House for us to have a bill of substance. Over the summer break National members will go out and take the credit for it and say they are being tough on law and order. They will try to convince people that it was all their idea and that it was in their great 100-day plan. 
Mr Power cited a number of issues that have occurred in our prisons. It is interesting to look at the record of the previous Government and to talk about facts rather than just dredging up a salacious example—because we can all do that. I remember well the example that occurred under Dr Nick Smith’s reign as Minister of Corrections. It involved a prisoner who was elderly or in his retirement years. He was receiving medical treatment and he was hooked up to an intravenous drip. He was temporarily disabled because of the medical treatment he was receiving but he managed to escape from I think Middlemore Hospital. Hobbling crawling limping intravenous drip in hand—with stand—he managed to outrun the prison officials guards private sector folk or whoever they were who were attempting to secure him. We could go for little salacious examples but if we look at history— 
Chester Borrows 
: That’s the word for the day. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: —we see that under the previous Government—I will come to Mr Borrows in a moment; I read his contribution to the first reading which I thought was interesting. Maybe I should deal with it now. I noted in the first reading debate that Mr Borrows quite rightly I think drew on his experience as a young lawyer as he put it and quite interestingly said that he wanted further funding for the very good non-governmental organisations that provide prisoner rehabilitation and prisoner counselling in an attempt to rehabilitate prisoners. I think that was a good point that the member made in his speech and I look forward to holding him his Minister and his Government to account to see whether they do it. I see that the Minister is here and he may wish to contribute. I say to him that I was just saying that Mr Borrows had made an excellent contribution in his first reading speech when he noted there should be more funding for the non-governmental organisations and others that deal with the rehabilitation and counselling of prisoners. I look forward— 
Hon Simon Power 
: Help is on its way. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: That is excellent. We would like to know when how much and who will deliver it. 
If we look at the history of this matter in respect of the previous Government we see that substantial advances were made in this area. Prison escapes per 100 prisoners were just one-sixth of the escape number 10 years ago under the last National Government. That means that the escape rate fell by 84 percent under the previous Government despite the little examples the salacious items and news clippings that members opposite tend to read out. Drug taking in prisons was less than half what it was when National left office in 1999. Fewer inmates were returning positive drug tests. The last Government made it significantly more difficult for people to escape. It put in 17 kilometres of perimeter fencing and introduced single points of entry. 
Hon Simon Power 
: If I’ve heard that once I’ve heard it a million times. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Well those are the facts. The Minister should go back to his officials and check. There were not enough fences under the National Government pre-1999 nor were there enough resources or personnel. That is why we had people on intravenous drips limping out of hospitals and outrunning prison guards and others. That happened when Nick Smith was the Minister of Corrections. He may have been at the hospital at the time—I do not know—visiting the prisoner but that was the loose kind of arrangement we had under the National Government. 
Mr Goff as the Minister of Justice introduced this bill and partly put it through the House and it deals with some significant matters. Some may ask why we would want to amend the Corrections Act 2004 given that it is pretty recent in the scheme of things and what the drivers behind doing that are. Firstly the drivers are technology. As a person who was formerly employed in the telecommunications industry I know that telecommunications technology advances by the day. In respect of contraband I am sure that Mr Borrows will concede that although it will always be exceptionally difficult to stop all items of contraband from entering a prison the technology has advanced to the point where as the Minister said we can now jam telecommunications. It is interesting to note that the full implementation of the jamming technology will be completed by February next year. It was started under the last Government which put it through. So one of the drivers for amending the Act is technology. 
Also because it is almost impossible in every instance to prevent contraband from entering a prison it is necessary to incrementally and regularly amend legislation like this. Prisoners have one objective in life—well maybe a couple. Generally while they are incarcerated many of them sit there all day thinking about how they can beat the system and often how they can get out and inventing new and innovative ways to do that. 
The bill also deals with letters containing threats. The current legislation permits prison staff to read prisoners’ mail only if a test of reasonable grounds is met. That will now be bolstered. The bill provides that all prisoners’ mail may be read by an authorised officer except of course correspondence with members of Parliament and official agencies like the courts and others. We know that there have been communications with victims where threats have been made and that victims’ lives have been made a misery by those who continue to peddle their views misguided as they are from behind bars. 
The cellphone issue is an interesting one. I think Mr Power is right. One of the difficulties with the jamming technology is attempting also to allow legitimate cellphone use by non-prisoners and ensuring that where a prison is in a suburban area the technology does not interfere with the legitimate work of businesses and other entities external to the prison. Some have asked why it has taken some time to implement the technology but obviously we want to get it right. 
I think this legislation is sound. It deals with cracking down on drug use eliminating cellphones and enhancing powers of search in relation to inmates and for those working in prisons it adopts a policy of zero tolerance towards staff who pass contraband to prisoners. The penalties in that area are increased. The current term of 3 months in prison is increased to up a year and the maximum fine is doubled to $5000. The bill authorises electronic detection and jamming as we have spoken about. It extends prison officials’ powers to screen inmates’ mail as I have said and it creates a penalty for publishing unauthorised communications from inmates that prejudice the interests of victims. I think that is particularly important because we have had high-profile cases where inmates have acted grossly inappropriately and communications have been published to the detriment of victims. 
This is sound legislation. Of course this side of the House and I think most if not all parties will support it. It will make a real difference to the security of our communities to the integrity of our prisons and also to the professionalism of the corrections service. As with all Government agencies 99.9 percent of prison officials are honourable professional human beings. They have an incredibly difficult job and they often are under stress. We have seen occasions where prison staff have been victimised and threatened. They have an incredibly difficult job and I think this bill will enhance the integrity and professionalism of the corrections service and the staff within it. 
I come back to where I began and simply say that this is the first time in 2 weeks of urgency that we have had a bill of substance that will make a real difference to the lives of New Zealanders. Of course the bill was authored by the previous Government and is now being supported and put through the House by this Government.