A kneejerk lottery

It is not unusual for a bill to be criticised by MPs. But when a Government bill is described by the Government’s own select committee chair as a “lottery” for victims and he suggests principles, not emotion, were needed “to guide us through this mess”, you know the bill is a mess.

And then you even have the former Associate Justice Minister criticising the bill, and you know for sure it is a kneejerk Phil Goff special, rather than a rational solution.

My solution is not to pass a bill which provides an incentive for prison guards to bash up prisoners (especially as they do it so often anyway) but to reform the prison service so they do not keep breaking the law. A good start to that would be to allow the excellent privately managed prison to not be legislated out of existence.