Garrett David: Corrections Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee 
Garrett David: Corrections Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee 
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DAVID GARRETT (ACT) 
: 
 I will follow on from the Minister’s comments here and say that this legislation points to how misguided the members of the Committee can be. This bill the Corrections Amendment Bill (No 2) amends the Corrections Act which is yet another example of misconceived legislation in the same way the Sentencing Act is. In the ACT Party’s view the ideal would be to scrub both of them and start again. They are both predicated on similar notions. In the case of the Sentencing Act it is that no one should be locked up unless he or she absolutely has to be and in the case of the Corrections Act which this bill amends it is that the poor prisoners must have all their rights intact aside from their right to liberty. I thought that right included the right to vote but apparently a prisoner has to be fairly bad to lose that right. 
I noted too on looking through the bill—I am a new member and had not seen it originally—this “Religious and spiritual needs” clause clause 6. I was brought up a Catholic and I am assuming— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Oh lapsed? 
DAVID GARRETT 
: —oh well and truly lapsed I tell Mr Cosgrove—that Mr Cosgrove was too. But from memory I think that wine was only ever produced on extremely special occasions. They used to carry around some big frame thing I think but at most Communions when I was dragged along as a child we had the little piece of ice-cream cone and that was that. So the fact that there was any debate at all about introducing alcohol into prisons really demonstrates how utterly utterly naive these members of the previous Government were. They assumed that the prisoners who had miraculous conversions to Christianity absolutely needed to have Communion. Those converted prisoners could not function without it; their spiritual soul would die. Their new-found religion would wither on the vine unless it was nurtured by the blood of Christ in prison. Well what utter nonsense! That assumes that they were not going to steal it; not misappropriate it in some other way and not hoard or misuse it. It is utterly utterly absurd. 
But it all comes back to the assumption—in my view a totally ridiculous assumption—that prisoners should have the same rights as the rest of us. A person becomes a prisoner only if he or she has broken society’s norms. We talked about gang members in the last session. Gang members are outlaws—and I saw Mr Cosgrove listening with some interest I think—who have proudly said: “We’re 1 percent bro! We’re the ones who take no notice of the rest of you. You’re all just a pack of w٭٭٭٭٭٭.” Members can fill in the asterisks for themselves. But we bend over backwards to give gang members these rights. Why? It is totally absurd. These people are criminals. 
I was in Arizona a couple of years ago where there is no problem at all with saying that when people have committed offences and been convicted they automatically that day lose the right to privacy. Their faces their charges and their sentences go up on the Internet. They do not have the right to wear what they like. They do not have the right to wear the sort of haircuts they like. They do not have the right to have salt. They do not have the right to smoke. They do not have the right to have sugar in coffee. And people see that as totally sensible. But here we are still debating whether prisoners should have Communion wine and if so under what circumstances. Well how silly—how utterly silly! 
But having said all of that I tell the Committee that obviously ACT will support the bill because it is too big a task frankly at this point to rewrite the Parole Act and the Sentencing Act. We have to start somewhere so I suppose we can pass small steps. What do people say? The longest journey starts with a small step. But I believe that clause 6 which amends section 79 really does say it all about the utter naivety of the previous Government.