It's a bold suggestion by Labour MP Kelvin Davis and he'll get kicked from one end of the country to the other for it but it's worth hearing him out on this, I think.

If Labour wins the election, Davis says he wants to covert one of the country's 18 prisons, into a prison for Maori.

The minute I say that, I know the public response.

This is race-based justice, many will say. Is it? No, it's not.

Maori would still serve their time. They would still be held accountable for their crimes. They will be treated in exactly the same way by our justice and corrections systems... It's just the approach you take to rehabilitating Maori once they're inside jail will change.

It will be a prison for Maori, run by Maori and based on Maori values.

Right now, Maori make up 15 percent of our population, but account for 52 percent of our prison population. The rate of recidivism is high. Extremely high.

The United Nations has been highly critical of our prison situation. It says the Government needs to take steps reduce the over-representation of Maori in prisons.

What Davis is suggesting could be one of those steps.

What you can't argue, what no-one can argue, is that the system isn't working for Maori at the moment.

They make up 15 percent of our population, but 52 percent of our prison population.

Davis is suggesting we convert one of our 18 prisons -- just one -- to a Maori prison. He says Northland's Ngawha Prison would be ideal.

What you need to consider is what is the worst thing that could happen?

It might not work?

In which case you go back to the status quo.

But what if the recidivism rate drops? What if you break down the gang culture that thrives in our prisons? What if it worked? What if it helped rehabilitate, refocus and reconnect men who we'd classify now as career criminals? How might it help to stop that high rate of reoffending if you used targeted programmes that focussed on domestic violence, on alcohol and drug abuse, on violent crime in general, on sexual offending? And what if people who were running these programmes were Maori?

Look at the good, for example, that former All Black Norm Hewitt has done. His was a life that was heading for a violent end. Now he's a success story. He turned his life around. He's just one example that pops to mind, but you need men like Norm Hewitt to lead other men to change.

Before we jump to judgement on this, I think we should let Kelvin Davis state his case on this issue. He's a respected and hard-working MP. He's the MP for Te Tai Tokerau -- he's at the coalface on this issue.

And remember -- to do nothing, means nothing will change.