Kerre Woodham: I can't see how you can justify giving prisoners massages

So, the Corrections Minister has halted a $9 million plan, as you will have heard this morning, to provide Rongoa Māori healthcare in prisons, including giving prisoners traditional massages called mirimiri, after questions were asked about the programme. Mark Mitchell said, first I heard of it. But Corrections launched a procurement process for the services in all New Zealand prisons in July, after a trial was run in a couple of prisons. Seemed to work well.  

Rongoa is traditional Māori medicine, including herbal remedies, physical therapies, and spiritual healing. The listing from correction details the plans, including rolling out karakia, mahi wairua, and mirimiri – that's the massage therapy. But Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell told Mike Hosking this morning the massage programme has been put on pause, saying it doesn't meet his expectations.  

“I was unaware that there was a programme that was delivering massages, and I agree with you. I mean, that's part of it ... Probably done with the best of intentions, because, you know, our Corrections people are outstanding. Do tens of thousands of positive actions every day in terms of rehabilitation, but this did not meet my expectations.

“My focus quite simply had been, Mike, on delivering rehabilitation that gave people real life skills or something that would enable them to actually get started again, reintegrate, make good decisions – things like getting a driver's license or getting them some sort of trade qualification. That is what I want done with taxpayers' money.” 

According to the 2004 Corrections Act, the standard of healthcare available to prisoners must be reasonably equivalent to the standard of healthcare available to the public. And Rongoa Māori is available to the public. It's delivered across primary healthcare and within community contexts across New Zealand. The number of ACC people using Rongoa Māori was 9,000 in 2024 – about 59% of them were Māori clients, 41% non-Māori. So it's a thing. It's an alternative health practice that is reasonably common within the community.  

I'm all for rehabilitation in our prisoners and giving people a chance, but wouldn't it be better to put the $9 million into literary programmes? Literacy, numeracy, for those that want to learn how to communicate, perhaps anger management courses so you don't beat the living bejesus out of some poor fool who's cut you off in the traffic. Mindfulness, perhaps, would give more bang for prisoner buck, I would have thought, learning how to control your stress or your temper. Or even marriage therapy, relationship counselling would give you more bang for your prisoner buck. Because from what I've been told from ex-cons, the reason they gave up offending was for family, for wives and kids. They just thought, no, more. I want to be on the outside and see my kids grow up. So maybe relationship counselling would give you more bang for buck than a good old mirimiri on a Sunday afternoon.   

A massage is something I book as a present to myself, as a reward to myself when I could afford it. It's not part of my ongoing healthcare. I'm sure there are aspects of Rongoa Māori that are enormously helpful, but no, I just can't see how you could possibly justify massage. That's a nice to have, not a must have. And sure it's available in the community, but it's not considered part of standard healthcare, I would have thought. It's not generally funded by primary health providers to get people back on their feet.  

There are so many things that people in our prisons need to be able to integrate into society before massage, I would have thought, but then I haven't been inside. Thank heavens. I haven't done anything really, even flicking back through the filo facts of sins of my past, I haven't done anything that could have put me inside. So I don't know. What do you need if you've served time to help you get back on your feet? What do you need if you go to prison, which you accept as collateral damage as part of the price of being in the gang? What do you need to divert you from that life to another?  

Honestly, over the many, many years I've done talk back and talked to people who've been in prison, the only thing that really does seem to work is Jesus or relationships, wanting to be with your family and wanting to see your kids grow up. wanting to be with the good person who stood by you. All the courses in the world don't seem to make a blind bit of difference. But having a purpose, either through God or through family, and the second tier would be getting a job. Having a massage every Sunday in your cell, I don't see how that's going to help. For those of you who have been there, done that, I would love to hear from you. What does work? Where should money for rehabilitation go? What programs do you think are required for those who have provided services designed to get people back on their feet, either inside prison or out? Again, given the huge menu of options we have now in terms of alternative healthcare, what works? I'm sure we wouldn't begrudge $9 million being spent on keeping people out of prison – we would get that money back in no time at all.