Editorial: Critics of Maori prison unit need to look at the numbers

Defending the decision not to have dedicated Maori seats on the proposed Auckland Council, Local Government Minister Rodney Hide quoted instructions from Prime Minister John Key: Maori were not to be made "strangers in their own land".

It would be hard to come up with a more patronising piece of doublespeak - the Minister knows better than Maori what Maori want. It also pandered, while cleverly not expressing it outright, to public unease that Maori were asking for "special treatment" - something that would give them an advantage over pakeha.

If that fallacy had loosened its grip in the past couple of decades, it reappeared with a vengeance this week in public reaction to the proposal by Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples for a separate, "healing-based" unit for Maori prisoners. Opponents have railed against an intolerable form of privilege and thundered that there can only be one standard of justice for all, regardless of ethnicity.

Such reactions ignore the fact that the justice system is not serving the needs of everyone equally. Maori constitute 14 per cent of the population and more than 50 per cent of the prison muster. No one is more conscious of the appalling statistics than Maori and Sharples' proposal gives voice to Maori concerns.

Sharples was given the portfolios of Maori Affairs and Associate Corrections (it was in that latter capacity that he floated this suggestion) for a reason: his idea, which unites the twin portfolio responsibilities in a particularly creative way, is inspired.

It is dispiriting to hear the word "apartheid" bandied about in such circumstances. That word applied to a particularly loathsome kind of institutionalised racial oppression written into law in a specific time and place. Under the guise of separate development, it deliberately maintained one racial group as an underclass. Tackling the appalling Maori imprisonment rate cannot reasonably be seen as oppressive towards non-Maori.

Those who seek to depict it as an easy ride for which an inmate qualifies simply by virtue of his skin colour are being at least mischievous, if not reactionary.

In a sense that its critics fail to acknowledge, the proposal, if enacted, would constitute a real privilege. Sharples is proposing a 60-bed unit; the Maori prison muster this week was nudging 4200. And ethnicity is far from the only criterion of eligibility.

Prisoners would have to earn their way in by good behaviour and by demonstrating a commitment to learning Maori language and tikanga. Most significantly, the alternative would be available only to prisoners nearing the end of their sentence, as part of a managed transition into life outside. It is hard to see what can be exceptionable about that.

What's most refreshing is the major coalition partner's response to a proposal that is hardly classical National policy. Corrections Minister Judith Collins has indicated that she is "very keen" if it can be shown to work. Even Act's David Garrett, an uberconservative in matters of penal policy, has given a slightly sneering endorsement.

It will not make a huge impact but it is a first step in the right direction towards making Maori slightly less strangers in their own land.