Cosgrove Clayton: Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Cosgrove Clayton: Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 24 November 2009. Volume:659;Page:8189. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 This started off as a pretty mundane sort of debate with Labour supporting the Corrections (Use of Court Cells) Amendment Bill because there needs to be some flexibility in the use of court cells. But as the debate moved forward a number of legitimate questions were raised about how this five-clause bill would be implemented. The Green members raised questions my colleagues in Labour raised questions and the Maori Party’s Associate Minister of Corrections himself the Hon Dr Pita Sharples raised questions on his own bill. We will get to that in a minute. 
The Minister of Corrections did not take a call in the Committee stage never sat in the chair never answered any questions and now has not taken a call in the third reading. The Associate Minister of Corrections was presumably not allowed to sit in the chair to have questions put to him. Rather he bizarrely raised questions on his own bill. Nor was he presumably allowed to read at least his third reading speech as Associate Minister of Corrections. One has to ask why. 
As I said in the Committee stage a number of possibilities present themselves. Dr Sharples says that he and the Maori Party support the bill—presumably Mr Harawira does wherever he is. We think so but we do not know. But the most bizarre thing to come out of this debate is something I have not seen in my 10 years in this place and that was an Associate Minister raising questions on and expressing dissatisfaction or concerns about a bill before the House. The question is: why? Either he did not raise those concerns with his Minister or his Cabinet colleagues or he did raise them and they were completely dismissed or he did not have his eye on the ball or he was not shown the respect that an Associate Minister should be shown by his Cabinet colleagues and by the Minister herself. One or a multitude of those possibilities have to be true because otherwise why would an Associate Minister of Corrections come down to the Chamber and lament and raise concerns and risks about the implementation of a bill that he is partly responsible for? What is the answer to that? I hope we might have a call from him. Sandra Goudie is over there giving him the benefit of her vast experience and knowledge on those matters feeding him lines. I think Dr Sharples is not a bad bloke so I advise him not to take any advice from Sandra Goudie at all. 
Legitimate questions have been raised about this bill. There will be extraordinarily large costs dealing with the logistics of transportation food security for staff and security for the community especially in relation to transportation. As Mita Ririnui a former Associate Minister of Corrections pointed out it is a 3-hour drive from Whakatane to the nearest prison. None of those issues have been addressed and I thought they would be addressed. This bill in its essence takes away the right of a community to object. We support that because we have to house these prisoners somewhere but I would have thought that the Government or the Associate Minister especially would use its time in the House to at least address the basic logistical issues of implementation that we and others have raised to give those communities a level of comfort especially around the issue of security. 
So I just express quite a bit of amazement that the Associate Minister of Corrections has presumably been treated so shabbily by his Minister and his Cabinet colleagues. I cannot see how that sort of treatment being meted out could be considered mana-enhancing according to National and the Maori Party’s coalition relationship. Maybe things are starting to fall apart on the back of the emissions trading scheme Hone’s comments and other things. I would have thought that the Associate Minister would at least phone Judith Collins—maybe he has. Maybe between the Committee stage and the third reading he has phoned Judith Collins and said that he has some concerns about this; maybe he asked her to at least listen to those concerns before they tick off the bill. Obviously that has not happened. That says a large amount and it tells us and the community a lot about the management style and culture inside this Government. 
This is a five-clause bill on a piece of A3 paper bolstered hugely on a website by a regulatory impact statement that was not even included with the bill because the bill was so rushed. As the Green member and others have pointed out—and I am sure communities will be interested in this—the so-called maximum period of time that we can house a prisoner in a court cell according to a regulatory impact statement that is on a website but not printed with the legislation is 96 hours. So the question then is: is it by regulation or Government fiat that those hours and those days can be increased? Maybe the Associate Minister of Corrections might be involved in these future discussions but I would not bank on it. 
I am told by reliable sources whom I trust and who work in the Department of Corrections that as we speak some 800 beds are available and free to house prisoners in. I believe those sources because they are in the front line. I will not name them for obvious reasons: Judith Collins may administer the political version of the crusher. But if that is the case the question is: why is this bill being rushed through? Why has it taken until there are 8 parliamentary days to go in the year for the Minister to ante up throw a bill on the Table and say that we need to do this? It could have had correct parliamentary scrutiny through a select committee. 
Carmel Sepuloni 
: They must need it before Christmas. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Well that is interesting. That is the contradiction. Is it required before Christmas? We do not have the prison forecast on this side of the House. If 800 prison beds are indeed—and I believe my sources—available today then why is the bill being rushed through? Why could it not have been given the parliamentary scrutiny of a select committee? It is a five-clause bill. Ms Goudie reared up and said we were being repetitive. Well we are. We are raising legitimate concerns that are not rocket science. How will we feed people? How will we make sure prison officers are secure? How will we make sure the community is secure? How long will these folk be incarcerated in a court cell? Where will the money come from to transport them the 3 hours my colleague Mita Ririnui talked about between the Whakatane District Court and the closest prison? Where will the staff come from to do this? What will be cut out of the baseline? 
I must give Georgina te Heuheu credit. Even though corrections is not her portfolio—it is Pita Sharples’ portfolio—she attempted to actually answer some of those questions. Given that it is not her portfolio I extend some goodwill because she made as decent a fist of it as she could. She was not aided or abetted by the Minister of Corrections and she was not aided or abetted by the Associate Minister who sat through the whole debate. 
This bill is flying through the House and it will go through with our support for practical reasons of security but none of the issues raised by members across this House have been addressed. They are not political issues; they ask how we will transport people how they will be secured how prison officers will be looked after and what logistical arrangements will be put in place for prison officers. They are not political issues; they are practical issues of implementation. None of those issues has really been addressed. 
I will talk for a moment in conclusion about the nature of this debate. In the earlier speeches in the first reading debate members got up and said a couple of things. They said it was a disgrace that we have so many people in prison. They were the same members from the same political party—the National Party—who trumpeted the fact before the election that the then Labour Government was not locking enough people up and that the Government had done nothing when it had built four prisons. They were the same people who went to the country at the last election with a party manifesto that said that if they implemented every law and order policy they had they anticipated a doubling of the prison population. Then they say that they did not know about this problem. Judith Collins says she did not know about this even though she was planning pre-election for a doubling of the prison population and even though the day she took up the warrant the limousine the salary and the flat she got a briefing to incoming Minister giving her the prison forecast which everybody knew anyway. Most journalists knew—for the last few years anyway—because the forecasts were made public. But she says she did not know. 
Those members try to say of course that the Labour Government did nothing to incarcerate prisoners. Well I invite them to go into the four prisons we built. We did not drop containers from the sky or off the boat; we built four prisons. We selectively double-bunked where we needed to with the agreement of staff and with resources provided; we did not just cobble together a deal and bully some staff then end up with staff taking us to court and the department being at war with itself. We did not then rush down to the House with 8 parliamentary days left this year because we did not have a plan and then try to rush through a five-clause bill. We did have a plan. So I say to the Minister and to the National Party that it would be helpful if they answered some questions.