KEY POINTS:
Death by merger. The Prime Minister did not go quite as far as imposing that sentence on the troubled Corrections Department yesterday. But her announcement of a review of the whole justice bureaucracy does not portend well for Corrections' survival as a standalone entity.
The Government has already discovered to its advantage that one method of getting a department out of the headlines is simply to abolish it.
The precedent is the former Child, Youth and Family Services. After causing the Government untold grief, it was put out of its misery and "merged" with the far bigger Ministry of Social Development last year.
That amalgamation was also driven by Labour's preference for large, cohesive ministries where the left hand knows what the right one is doing.
Labour has never liked the fragmented public service it inherited from National which saw Government departments split into separate policy and operational units.
It was ominous for Corrections yesterday that the Prime Minister should refer to the 2001 amalgamation of the Ministry of Social Policy and Work and Income which created the Ministry of Social Development. Referring to "putting Humpty together again", she said the earlier split had left Work and Income "without a brain".
National split up the old Department of Justice in 1995, creating a new Ministry of Justice, the Department for Courts and Department of Corrections. After a review, Labour merged Courts back into Justice eight years later, but left Corrections as a separate entity.
The Prime Minister has yet to determine who will undertake the latest review, what its terms of reference will be and how long it will take.
Given that she was about to head off for a week-long visit to the United States, Helen Clark's prime motivation yesterday in announcing a review was to stifle calls for an inquiry into Corrections and the Parole Board in the wake of the Graeme Burton case.
It was not just a question of silencing the Opposition in her absence. She also had to appease Labour's ally, NZ First, which has grown increasingly alarmed by the mess at Corrections.
A tough stance on law and order is a core element of the NZ First "brand". However, that party, not wishing to mount an all-out attack on Labour's handling of the Corrections portfolio, has had to sit and watch National benefit from exploiting the department's difficulties instead.
However, the Prime Minister is also acutely conscious of the potential damage to her party from Corrections' lapses.
It is no secret that she is not happy with the performance of the justice sector bureaucracy, with National noting her increasing proclivity to turn to the Law Commission for advice.
She is also worried that the outcry over the administration of parole could undermine the Government's "effective interventions" package, which is designed to halt the explosion in the number of prison inmates and avoid the Government having to build more and more jails.
While toughening up on parole eligibility, this policy requires a harder-to-sell mix of shorter jail terms for lesser offenders, greater use of home detention and creation of new community-based sentences for lesser offenders.
The Prime Minister raised some eyebrows when she hosted the launch of that package in August. It was the first indication she was taking a special interest in law and order policies.
Yesterday's announcement confirms just how deeply she has become involved in the running of the Justice and Corrections portfolios.
