Ghahraman GolrizGOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. This bill essentially includes a number of different types of amendments to the way that we run prisons and the way that we administer them. I won't address every single detail in the bill but I will start by speaking about the requirements that it introduces in terms of the management and segregation of prisoners at risk of self-harm. We know that over the past five years 30 people in our prisons have committed suicide and one in five attempted suicide. That's compared to 5 percent in the general population which is still high. We know that our prison population generally suffers from incredibly heartbreakingly high rates of mental illness brain injury and trauma. So knowing that the population that we hold in our prisons contains people that are actually at incredibly high risk of self-harm and that come to our prison system with a history of their own types of victimhood it is important that at this point we're going to introduce some management plans and some requirement that they be accommodated in ways that take account of the risk that they have of self-harm. Some of the requirements are that an assessment of self-harm risk be done on new entrants into our prisons. It's incredible that that wasn't already a requirement. There's a new requirement in this bill that ongoing assessment of self-harm risk is done and a health plan is implemented for those prisoners that are identified to be at high risk of self-harm and that accommodation that they are put into is deemed to be appropriate based on that plan. Unfortunately the Justice Committee wasn't able to reach agreement on one aspect of the self-harm treatment approach to prisoners at risk and that was in terms of their strip-searching. Officials advised that as the bill stands the requirement to strip-search prisoners who are at high risk of self-harm might not be appropriate because it may actually be traumatic and in particular in terms of those prisoners who have suffered things like sexual abuse it may be particularly re-traumatising. They recommended that an individualised approach be taken in those cases to balance both the risk that they have something on them that may be used for self-harm with the risk of re-traumatisation making them more at risk of that harm. So the Minister has—rightly I think—indicated that he's going to introduce Supplementary Order Papers to give effect to the advice of the officials and to protect against that. The next thing that I think is something to be celebrated in this bill is that it creates new chief executive powers to review at the request of a mother who is a prisoner the decision not to allow her to keep her baby in placement with her. We know—and the Children's Commissioner constantly does remind us—of the need to accommodate mothers with new babies because of all of the kinds of damage that can happen if attachments are broken at that young age. Attachment disorders lead to all sorts of other mental health issues like anxiety depression and other harms that come down the way. So to allow for mothers and babies to be together where the mother is for whatever reason incarcerated is something that will benefit New Zealand actually in terms of minimising the harm that the whole family the whānau and the community suffer when one person—especially a new mother—is held in prison. So hopefully with the review provisions this will allow for fewer of those cases in terms of the separation of mother and child. There is also the provision made here—and this probably relates back a little bit to the strip-search provisions under the self-harm risk prisoner segments—that allows for imaging technology to be used for any prisoner where a search is now necessitated. So that is a far less intrusive far less traumatic experience. Again whether or not a prisoner is deemed to be at high risk of self-harm or not we know that the prison population is filled with people who have suffered trauma. So to maintain a sense of dignity in our prisons is important and the self-imaging provision allows for that. To turn to one last issue the bill provides for certain offences to be created and one of those is for anyone in prison contacting someone in breach of a court order. Presently that is only an offence if the contact is akin to an abusive type of contact. But we know that in terms of in particular domestic and sexual violence victims any kind of contact from an offender or an abuser would be particularly traumatic. Those types of contacts may actually be positive from the prisoner's perspective but they're incredibly traumatic and are in breach of a court order. So they should be an offence in our corrections regime and that's being created. One of the other things that came out of the select committee process—but the select committee wasn't able to reach agreement on it—is the appropriateness of police cells being treated as corrections facilities and the officials advised that that would not be appropriate. We know that police cells are not usually deemed appropriate for long-term detention. Some of the reasons for that are the lack of exercise facilities the size of the cells and the fact that cell-sharing among many prisoners is often used so they breach a range of rights and welfare issues of prisoners. The Minister has also rightly indicated that he would introduce a Supplementary Order Paper to mitigate against that. In fact he's indicated that because we are now operating within a much broader review of our system to bring down the prison populations that use of police cells is in fact not going to be necessary. So the Government's commitment to reducing the prison population acknowledging that evidence shows that the prison system isn't in fact particularly effective in keeping anyone safe has resulted in this reduction of our prison population. An evidence-based approach has resulted in a lessened need for us to use police cells which breach different and other rights and make our prison system less effective and less safe. So I also will welcome that change at the committee stage. I do commend the bill to the House.