Goff Phil: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
Goff Phil: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:646;Page:15007] 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Corrections) 
: 
 I cannot let that rubbish go unaddressed. That member Simon Power has a reputation across New Zealand amongst the management and the staff of the Department of Corrections. They say to me that they do a tough job. They tell me they are at the end of the justice pipeline. They have to deal with the worst people in society and they have to work under conditions that are sometimes threatening because they deal with psychopaths and with people who have deep-rooted problems and who are a risk to their fellow people. They say: “We do a good job overall. Sometimes we make mistakes and when we do we apologise. But why is it that Mr Power continually runs us down?”. That is what the men and women who serve in the department say. Why is it that he can never find something positive to say about those hard-working individuals who work in an environment that Mr Power or any of his colleagues on the National benches would not want to spend 10 minutes in? 
I challenge Mr Power to say just one thing that is positive about the New Zealand men and women who work in this department instead of constantly denigrating them. They have had a gutsful of him. They do not trust what would happen if there were a National Government because National’s answer would be privatisation. National’s answer would be to run down the service like it did during all of its years in Government. 
Mr Power talks about an unmitigated disaster. I will tell him some of the facts of this unmitigated disaster. When Nick Smith and Tony Ryall were Ministers of Corrections and Justice respectively the level of escapes from New Zealand prisons was running at 100-plus a year. Mr Power said that the primary role of prisons was to keep New Zealanders safe. But after 8 or 9 years of a National Government the level of escapes over that period averaged over 100. What are those levels now? They are running at 20—a sixth of where they were. That is because of the investment of this Labour Government in keeping New Zealanders safe by proper staffing by proper training and by ensuring that there were actually fences around the prisons. That might sound quite astounding and people might say: “Fences around prisons? Of course there are fences around prisons.” 
Let us take the example of the prison near Mr Power’s electorate. It had a No. 6 wire fence around it—a farm fence. People from the local population used to bring drugs and they would pass them through the window to the inmates. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: No! 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: I am not joking. That is what it was like under a National Government. They did not give a damn about safety. They did not give a damn about the fact that a third of all inmates tested positive for drug use. They went into prison because they had abused drugs and alcohol but they found more drugs and alcohol in the prisons under a National Government than they had access to outside. 
When did Mr Power say in his comments that the Government had done a great job by reducing positive testing for drugs in prisons by two-thirds? Could he not find it in himself to say something to acknowledge the positive work that the men and women in the Department of Corrections have done in that regard? Mr Power could you not own up for once and say: “I’m critical of the Department of Corrections today but I acknowledge that the National Government failed completely?”. Could you not have done that? That would have given you some credibility instead of constantly criticising and never acknowledging what has happened. You talk about keeping New Zealanders safe and you talk about the Government being soft on law and order. 
Chris Tremain 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. The Minister is a very senior Minister in the Government and he keeps referring to the front-bench member as “you” which includes you Mr Chairperson in the debate. I would like you to bring him to order on that point please. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Yes I am aware of that. I know he was directing his comments at Mr Power but the member is right. Members cannot bring the Chair into the debate. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: I would not dream of it Mr Chairman. 
Mr Power could have acknowledged that because there is tougher legislation and because there are probably 1500 to 2000 additional front-line police in the community we are locking up more of the bad guys. We have a higher rate of resolution of crimes we are getting people before the courts and the Sentencing Act means that people who commit dreadful crimes face longer sentences. Once under a National Government a person served 7 years for murder. They got 7 years for murder under National in the 1970s. Those same people who commit the worst crimes are serving 30 years for murder. William Bell for example is serving 30 years because this Government had the guts that the National Government never had to do something about those who were a threat to our society. 
We have created 2300 additional beds. I do not want to keep having to lock up more and more New Zealanders. That is why a Labour Government is working at the fence at the top of the cliff in prevention and it is not just dealing with the problem after it arises. We have put a lot more people in jail because unfortunately those people offended in a way whereby that was the only option available to them. Mr Power you talk about Effective Interventions. 
Christopher Finlayson 
: You! 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: That is quite within the Standing Orders. The member has just turned up in this House; he would not know what was in the Standing Orders. The Effective Interventions programme was aimed at keeping people out of prison if they could be dealt with alternatively and could face sanctions in the community so that they could keep working and keep paying taxes but would not constitute a threat to society and therefore lose an element of their freedom. 
That means I say to Mr Power—and he should listen to this—that the current level of the prison population is exactly on track according to the 2006 forecasts. In fact we have 100 fewer people in prison today than we had this time last year. That is a good thing. Nevertheless we have created four new prisons. They are good-quality prisons. They have proper security. We have arrangements whereby people can work in those prisons rather than be idle. I think it is a great thing that more than half of our sentenced prisoners now have to work in prison. Well they do not have to; they choose to work there because they do not like idleness. They want to gain work skills and work habits and that is what we are providing. 
So let me just sum up. Mr Power says that the Department of Corrections has been a disaster. It is a disaster that sees one-sixth of the level of escapes that occurred under a National Government; one-third of the level of people abusing drugs in prison that occurred under a National Government; a doubling in the drug and alcohol units in prisons—and I pay tribute to Damien O’Connor for that achievement—new special treatment units the first of which I opened at Waikeria just 2 weeks ago to deal with the problems of those serious offenders who will be released at some point and who are a risk to the community and to lower that risk; drug and alcohol programmes that work; and sex offending programmes like Kia Marama and Te Piriti that are the best in the world and that have the lowest rate of reoffending in the world. 
Despite that track record Mr Power did not have it in him to acknowledge one good thing that the Department of Corrections staff and management in New Zealand are doing. I pay tribute to those staff members for doing a difficult job with very difficult people in a place most members in this House would not want to go near. They deserve better than the constant denigration they get from Mr Power and the National Party. They know the track record of the previous National Government which failed utterly to deal properly with incarceration in its 9 years. They can see the massive progress that this Labour-led Government has made in the last 9 years. 
Report noted.