Garrett David: Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill — In Committee 
Garrett David: Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:663;Page:10914] 
DAVID GARRETT (ACT) 
: 
 As a relatively new member I am not sure whether it is my place to do this but I have learnt in my time here that if one is being serious and is not making political points—which Mr Cosgrove denies he is doing—then the proper way to put forward amendments like Mr Cosgrove’s amendment is to consult with other parties well in advance so that they have the opportunity to discuss proposed amendments— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. To be helpful it may assist the member to know that there have been many many precedents in this House and in this current Parliament in fact when whole pieces of legislation have been laid on the Table and no one has seen those— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: That is not a point of order. 
DAVID GARRETT 
: Today is caucus day for all parties. If Mr Cosgrove had called me even this morning or yesterday but more particularly last week and said that Labour members had identified the things they did not like about the bill and that could be improved and asked us how about it I say I would have taken those amendments to my caucus. We would have discussed them at some length. We would have got some information and advice. But here we are today with those amendments plonked on the Table with no notice at all so—sadly—it quite clearly is simply an attempt at point-scoring. 
I will go on to the matter of rehabilitation which was raised by members opposite. I put on record that our party regards—and in particular I regard—the desirability of rehabilitation as a no-brainer. I ask how one can possibly argue against rehabilitation on any number of grounds: compassion for both victims and the criminal; fairness; public safety; and if we want to get down to it money. Who would want to have more people in jail at 90 grand a year than we have to have in jail? It is an absolute no-brainer. The problem then becomes how we achieve that. Criminologists are a wee bit like psychologists. They inhabit different schools of thought. There is the “nothing works” school of criminology and the “things work” school of criminology but even the “things work” school acknowledges that we need to spend a ginormous amount of money to rehabilitate a relatively small number of criminals. 
Sadly one thing that both schools agree on is that rehabilitation is most effective when the person wants to be rehabilitated. Unlike Mr Cosgrove I have not been to 40 prisons or whatever he said it was in question time today but I have been to half a dozen in my time here and in every single one I have seen literacy and numeracy programmes. I have seen training. In some I have seen industries. I was particularly impressed with a drug therapy group at Arohata Woman’s Prison and I am corresponding with a couple of prisoners from that group about this very bill. So it is not true to say that there are no attempts at rehabilitation. We could do better; indeed I think that we should. 
I started to mention my experience just this morning of listening to Judge Peggy Hora. I did not ask her but I think she would classify herself as being on the liberal—with a small “l”—end of the California judiciary. She was at the forefront of the establishment of drug courts in that state which putting it very shortly and simply substitute treatment programmes for prison sentences. As she said in her lecture—it was very good; I did not notice any of the Labour members there—when she first sat on the bench she gave sentences of X and told drug offenders to go away and sin no more once they got out. Then they came back so she doubled the sentence and asked what part of “do not do it” they did not understand. Then they came back and she tripled it and she realised that it was getting nowhere. She did some research and did some study and she decided that drug treatment was the way to go. That makes plenty of sense—plenty of sense. 
But one of the problems with rehabilitation efforts in New Zealand prisons at present as Mr Cosgrove will be well aware is that there is absolutely no certainty of sentence length. Because of the Sentencing Act 2002 no sentence handed down by a New Zealand judge aside from a minimal non-parole period for murder means what it says. Someone who is sentenced to 4 years’ imprisonment might be there for 1½ years for 2½ years or for 4 years. There is no certainty and for that reason a lot of prisoners are not eligible for treatment programmes. This bill in a perverse kind of way will change that. At second-strike stage the prisoner and the jail will know exactly how long the prisoner will be there and by definition it will be a fairly lengthy time. 
I have done a bit of research on what happens in Singapore. I am afraid that what I have managed to turn up is relatively scanty but I think that this is a rough description of what they do there. They have a “three strikes” type regime. As I have said before in other speeches it is not an American baseball idea; it is actually an idea that is used all over the world. The Singapore programme works like this. When the person comes in he or she is assessed fully on physical health psychological health numeracy and literacy and education levels. The authorities to the best of their ability try to fix up what is wrong with that person. They train him or her for probably not a profession but a useful trade—let us say it is as a panel beater. When the person is released there is aftercare and the person gets a job. There is follow-up in much the same way as there is in our parole system. If the person offends again he or she comes back for by definition a more lengthy sentence and for special treatment. 
That is not 25 strokes of the rotan; it is effectively the authorities having another look at that person to see what they missed last time. Let us say for example that the authorities had overlooked a psychological problem and they decided that the person would be better off as a mechanic rather than as a panel beater. They train the person for that and he or she is there for 6 7 8 or 10 years so there is plenty of time. That person gets work experience and comes out. But a person who comes back for a third time goes into a concrete cage and stays there. That is it. Society says that it has put all of these resources into such people it has trained them for not one but two useful occupations it has told them what the consequences of their continuing to act in this way will be and that is it. I would be a little surprised if many members on the other side of the Chamber would disagree with that. That is not what we have here yet but certainly speaking for myself I would be supportive of having that kind of initiative here. 
As I said there is considerable support across the Chamber for rehabilitation. It is motherhood and apple pie—not “mom and apple pie” as Mr Hipkins corrected me the other day. But the problem is to actually achieve it. That is the problem we face. Sadly we now have a generation of violent thugs who do not learn and will not learn. William Bell and Graeme Burton are not unique and we need to do something about those people. We need to try to get some consensus on how we go about stopping the next generation. It will not be easy and there is no consensus on it at the moment. We have views on how to stop it. Labour has completely different views. There is no consensus. Each side can cite experts statistics studies and individuals to support its argument but there is absolutely no consensus. While we try to work one out we need to keep the community safe from repeat violent offenders. That is what this bill is primarily about and sadly we need to think about rehabilitation second.