Hon SIMON POWER (Minister of Justice) Link to this
I move, That the Bail Amendment Bill be now read a third time. This Government was elected on a law and order policy that promised to put the safety of the public first. This bill is one of the steps in making that promise a reality.
Labour Party members knew they could not afford to vote against this bill, particularly because their leader has admitted publicly that Labour was beaten in the law and order debate during the election campaign. That left those members with no choice, in effect, because had they decided to oppose this bill, it would have immediately laid the platform in this subject area for the next general election.
In respect of this bill, all too often we hear about serious offences being committed by people on bail. That does not mean, of course, that bail is a failure or that it should be abandoned. There are thousands of people on bail at any one time, and only a small proportion commit serious offences. But what it does mean is that we must be vigilant about who is released on bail.
Last year, as part of a package in the Criminal Justice Reform Bill to reduce the prison population, the Labour Government restricted the courts’ ability to remand in custody people charged with criminal offending. Under those changes, defendants could be remanded in custody only if the court considered they posed a real and significant threat of absconding, interfering with witnesses or evidence, or offending whilst on bail. In addition, the courts were restricted in the way that they could take breach of bail conditions into account in bail decisions. In a change, the Labour Government inserted a provision that provided that the courts could take a breach of conditions into account only to the extent that it was relevant to the defendant’s risk. In effect, that meant the courts could no longer use remand as a sanction for non-compliance.
This Government recognises that the court is in the best position to determine a defendant’s risk and whether he or she should be bailed or remanded in custody. We will not let the courts be unduly constrained in those decisions. This bill restores the courts’ discretion to decide when a defendant’s risk is such that he or she should be remanded in custody, and to take appropriate action when a defendant is not complying with bail conditions.
Despite the lengthy debate that the House has had on this bill—and, in fact, the lead Opposition party ultimately voted with the Government, after we had tried to pry that position out of it after its third speaker took to her feet—it is one of the shortest bills that the House will see. It has one operative clause of two lines. However, those two lines are indicative of a new focus for New Zealand’s criminal justice system—one that puts public safety first. I commend this bill to the House.
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) Link to this
Before I begin my third reading speech I would be interested to know whether the Minister of Justice, who has just resumed his seat, has the evidence he referred to for some of the claims he made about the weakness of bail from the prosecution service, the Police Association, and the Law Society. I noted that he had evidence, and I would be grateful if he would lay that evidence on the Table or seek leave to table it. There has been no tabling of any evidence, and I am told that he turned to my colleague Annette King and said that he has never tabled media clippings—his evidence—in his life.
This has been a very interesting debate, for a whole series of reasons. One reason that is relevant, I suppose, to the shambolic way in which the Government has conducted itself in the last 24 hours, but not specifically connected to the bill, is the fact that the senior Opposition whip counted 12 times that the geniuses opposite tried to take a closure motion. It eventuated that Tony Ryall, the Minister of Health, who I think did a stunning job, was hauled out of his ministerial office. I am told that he cancelled all his appointments. He was asked to come to the Chamber to move the closure motion. He looked quite distraught, because I know he is a well-mannered person who does not like to be rude to people he is supposed to be meeting. He cancelled all his appointments so he could come to the Chamber and move a closure motion. That is how organised these geniuses on that side of the Chamber are.
This has been an interesting debate. It is a pity, I have to say, that in the final clause 4 debate the Opposition was cut down like a stump and could take only two calls, given that the bill has been rammed through and has had no select committee scrutiny at all. We were cut down like a stump, and allowed to take only two calls, but that is the prerogative of the Chair and we should not challenge it.
It has been an interesting debate. We will remember, of course, the nature of how it occurred. I am sure all those who were party to it in the Chamber and outside will be listening to that. This debate was interesting because a number of new National Party members told us unequivocally that once this bill is enacted there will be no bail breaches, there will be no crime. Melissa Lee’s speech is etched on my brain. She said that there will be no bail breaches, and there will be no crime. Doves will be released around New Zealand because crime, as a proposition and problem, will disappear.
What we heard throughout this debate was political puffery and propaganda. The National Party came to this House with a policy that says, as its first principle “tough on crime”. What was National’s first bill in the House? Its first bill in the House was one to try to persuade the New Zealand people, by taking away the words “real and significant” from the risk proposition in the bail legislation, that that would have a massive impact and everybody would be safer. Before the member says it, the reason we did not oppose it was that it does absolutely nothing. It does not change the status quo. That Minister made a vain attempt. He is not a bad bloke, old Simon Power—“Simple Simon”. He is not a bad guy, and he did give it his all.
I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I have been called a lot of things in my life, and I am pretty relaxed about that, but in this House I would prefer to be called Simon Power or something similar. I am happy to have the reference used by the member opposite levelled at me anywhere else, but I think this place deserves the respect of all members in an appropriate way.
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) Link to this
The Minister has taken exception; the member will withdraw.
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE Link to this
I withdraw. The Hon Simon Power, who is a complex member, not a simple member, made a very, very good attempt to try to sell this as the big ground-breaking hit for the National Party on law and order. He said that this would make a change, and that after tonight all people in New Zealand would feel safer in and out of their homes. Then, as we moved through this debate, the fabric started to fray, in legislative terms. Mr Garrett made a stunning intervention. He is a member of the Sensible Sentencing Trust, a lawyer—
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE Link to this
Well, their man in Parliament, maybe. He is a lawyer and a person who advised them on this bill. He said: “In itself this”—the bill—“will do little.” Then it started to unravel. The Minister, late in the day, hours after being asked questions that he would not answer—questions like why he would not do something substantive, something real that would make people secure, like ring the Governor-General and get him to sign the Order in Council to trigger a two-thirds minimum parole—then said what the real intent of this bill was. It is to send a message. That is code for propaganda. That is code to go out to the people and say: “We’ve been tough on crime and this is what we’ve done.” I have to say that the people will see through this, because this bill changes very little.
We heard Justice Heath’s comments. As I said in the first reading, this bill is built on two malicious and false propositions—firstly, that bail is weakened, and, secondly, that this was done to somehow decrease the prison population. Well, I remind that member that the remand prisoner population has continued to grow at a rate greater than the sentence population, despite the 2007 amendment to the Bail Act. In July 2007 remands, including prisoners held in police stations, totalled 1,733 and comprised 21 percent of the total prison muster. By July 2008 remands had increased by almost 6 percent and constituted 23 percent of the total prison muster. We have advice from the Ministry of Justice that says that by September next year the change we put in place would result in a decrease of about 10 beds, and then go down to 40.
Hon Annette KingHon CLAYTON COSGROVE Link to this
That would be the impact. His own leader said at the post-Cabinet press conference that this would have an impact of about 75 beds in a muster of around 15,000. This is absolute bunkum.
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE Link to this
Over a year, of course; has the member not read his own briefing papers? This is about trying to act tough, talk tough, and be the Clint Eastwood of the National Party, which was Simon Power before the election. Then the first thing he does is nothing by taking three words out of legislation that relies on the Queen v Hines decision, which uses the words “real and significant risk”. So basically we have gone back to the status quo of risk, and there is no change.
Even Mr Garrett, a lawyer, said there is very little change, if any at all—a complete waste of this Parliament’s time. That member and other members will ask why we stood up and made speeches, and why we debated it for hours. Well, I tell members that it is our job to do so, and it is our job to show up this crew. We said we would not vote against it, because it changes nothing, but we have debated it and we have highlighted what these members have said. It is our job to hold them to account. They are in utter disarray and are disorganised—we can see that. I think Mr Brownlee has been taken off to the sideline to limber up for tomorrow or next week or whatever.
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE Link to this
Well, I could not comment on that; that would not be appropriate. He is probably doing his callisthenics or whatever. But Simon Power was in charge and the Chamber just came apart. I say to the Minister of Justice that people are not stupid. The day after this is signed, when we have bail breaches and we have people who commit offences whilst on bail, when we have people who are released on bail—when, perhaps, in our view they should not be—then we will, with great delight, revisit the Minister’s speech, Melissa Lee’s speech, and all the speeches that were put up. The member for Tauranga, whose name is—
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE Link to this
Well, I would not go as far as that, but who knows? He is a Crown prosecutor who told us he knew all about the law. He could not move a closure motion, though. That is how good he is. I do not know what sorts of arguments he has made on behalf of the Crown and in defence of the Crown in the Tauranga District Court or the High Court.
I do not think the people of New Zealand have been well served by this Government today. This bill is small in stature and small on substance. This is a political pamphlet. This is Simon Power’s first big hit as the big tough Minister of Justice. It is a one-pager with a few pages of an explanatory note on the front. He is a show pony. He has had 9 years work—3 years as spokesperson on law and order—and this is what he has come up with. I do not object to the length of the bill; I object to its lack of substance.
What our changes in Government were designed to do were to create some uniformity and some certainty. That is our job as parliamentarians. It is the judiciary’s job to interpret the law. This bill does nothing. This bill has no logic to it. This bill is propaganda—it is a political pamphlet. It is a pamphlet that tries to say National is tough on crime—well, the veil has dropped on that one. National is loose and weak on crime, and I invite the Minister, or his next delegated speakers, to tell us when they will do something substantive and activate the two-thirds parole bill.
Hon Dr RICHARD WORTH (Associate Minister of Justice) Link to this
It is always a privilege to follow the Hon Clayton Cosgrove, because he is the ultimate exemplar of nonsense and foolishness. National is committed to effective law and order policies. We do that against the background of increasing levels of violent crime in New Zealand. These issues are not easily brushed aside, and a number of Government members have spoken about particular examples where, sadly for the community in the context of bail decisions, things have gone badly wrong—badly wrong for victims, badly wrong for families, and, I would say, badly wrong for society.
It was very interesting that when this debate first started, Labour was equivocal about what its position was on this legislation. As events unfolded, it became absolutely clear that Labour actually supports this change. I was interested in what Mr Cosgrove said when he spoke about how he saw the job of the Opposition. He said to us—and this will be recorded in Hansard—that it is “our job to fight it for hours”. I would say that that is simply not the task of an Opposition that actually favours the legislation that is before this House. It is right to say, in the context of parliamentary time, that we have seen substantial time wasted in speeches that are often characterised by misunderstanding and repetition. I think that is a tragedy.
I would like, for a moment, to come back to what the purpose of this legislation is. Like it or not, for the Government, the gains that will flow from this legislation are significant. Like it or not for the Opposition, bail will be harder to get.
Hon Dr RICHARD WORTH Link to this
Bail will be harder to get.
I would like to talk about just two aspects of this bill, and I reflect with interest that comments have been made by Opposition members that this is a short bill. It may be a short bill, but it will have significant impact. Why will it have that impact? There are two reasons for that. It will produce an outcome whereby bail will be harder to get, with the consequence that there will be additional protections for the community in respect of those who offend in the community whilst on bail. We know the statistics; they are referred to in the explanatory note of the bill.
The other aspect that I think is quite significant is that the bill will deal with a circumstance whereby a large number of defendants fail to appear in court. [Interruption] The consequences of that, as Mr Cosgrove should know from his previous experience, are huge delays and congestion in the system. The numbers of those defendants who fail to appear in court when called are actually quite significant. Convictions for breach of bail—failing to appear—increased by 76 percent between 1997 and 2006, and it will be an outcome of the legislation that those denied bail, of course, will be there on the appointed day to meet their desserts.
The reality is that delays in the court system are a hugely significant factor. Many will know that justice delayed is justice denied, and the injustice that is done is an injustice to the victims, to the system—in terms of congestion—and, in some respects, to those who are facing trial and have the consequence of having to wait and wait for their day in court for the opportunity of either vindicating themselves or being found guilty of the offences with which they are charged. So we have been treated to a time-wasting exercise. Maybe the Opposition justifies it in the context of seeking to show its mettle. Has it done that? Not at all.
MOANA MACKEY“Sir” Dr Richard Worth OBE made a speech that was about three times longer than that of the Minister in charge of the Bail Amendment Bill. I think he is trying to prove his mettle. That was a front-bench bid from the member up at the back of the Chamber there. Now the Minister in charge of the bill assures me it is simply a matter of words per minute, and he just speaks faster than “Sir” Dr Richard Worth.
We have been giving the Minister a bit of stick about the lack of substance in this bill. The only thing in the House tonight that has had less substance than this bill was that speech from “Sir” Dr Richard Worth—
—OBE, pardon me. I say to the member who has just resumed his seat that I am happy to stand here and just respond to his interjections if that is what he wants, but if the member is complaining about the level of scrutiny that this Opposition shows towards legislation in the House, then maybe he should have sent this bill to a select committee. If this Government continues to do what it has done under urgency, which is to ram bills through that do not need to be passed urgently—there is no rush to get this bill through—and if it wants to do that by denying the people of New Zealand the right to have bills properly put before a select committee and for the people of New Zealand to come and speak at the select committee to bills, and if it is going to table bills in the House at 15 minutes to midnight on the night before they are being discussed, then the Government can expect that we will provide the scrutiny in this House that has been denied to the people of New Zealand. The power is in the hands of the Government in that respect, because if it follows due process and allows bills to be properly scrutinised, then the process through the House will be quicker.
It is nice to have finally made it to the third reading of this bill. I thought we would never get a closure motion passed to close the last debate on the final part of the bill. It is nice to finally be here, and I acknowledge the stamina of the Minister who was in the chair, the Hon Simon Power, during the Committee stage of this bill. I saw his head drop to his hands every time another closure motion was denied, and we are happy to be here with the Minister to debate this third reading.
In the Speech from the Throne and during the election campaign, we were promised 100 days of action. It is clear that the only reason we are here in urgency, passing bills that do not need to be passed, and with no public scrutiny and no respect for process, is that if we were not doing that, the National members would have nothing to do in this House. Their 100 days of action would be shown up as the farce that it is. We have seen here tonight the very first law and order bill. During the campaign National told us it would get tough on crime. That was one of its primary campaign planks. So what is the first legislation from this “tough on crime” law and order National Government that we see in this House? It is a bill that does practically nothing, that will not make a single person safer, and that largely maintains the status quo.
No, that is right. And we say again to the Minister that if he is serious about being tough on crime, he should pick up the phone. I am sure that he can call the Governor-General at home. It is a bit late, but I am sure he would take the call—[ Interruption] OK, maybe he would not. But, to be fair, we did raise this issue during work hours, when the Minister could have picked up the phone and said to the Governor-General that a bill had been passed by the former Government about parole—
—the two-thirds of a sentence minimum parole provisions—and the Minister could have picked up the phone. He could have done that while he was in the chair; he could have sent a text message. He would have shown himself to be tough on crime in the first 100 days, right there.
Hon Dr Richard Worth Link to this
I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. There has already been comment about drawing the Governor-General into these debates. I think it was you who gave an earlier ruling on that. It is completely inappropriate; it is outlawed by the Standing Orders. Why does the member persist in trifling with us?
Hon Dr Michael Cullen Link to this
The Governor-General is not being brought into the debate by the member saying that the Minister has the power to get an Order in Council, which, of course, involves the Governor-General in the process of issuing it. That does not presume any views that the Governor-General may have about the merits of that Order in Council. It is simply a process issue that is being discussed.
Hon Dr Richard Worth Link to this
That is a completely inaccurate representation of what the member was saying. The member was offering a proposition that the Minister should call the Governor-General and somehow seek to influence him in favour of, or against, this bill. That is completely wrong.
Hon Dr Michael Cullen Link to this
The member was not saying that at all. She was speaking slightly loosely about the process involved in issuing an Order in Council. The fact is the Minister recommends to the Governor-General. That is the exact form. Probably the Minister who has just spoken has not actually had one yet. Sooner or later, he will have one—no doubt by 2010 or so. If the Minister recommends an Order in Council be issued, the Governor-General agrees to that and does so. Surprisingly enough, since 1707 it has been the normal behaviour of the Sovereign to agree to what is recommended by Parliament or the executive, and that is done. That does not mean that the Governor-General is brought into the debate. When referring to the process of issuing an Order in Council, the member is quite correct. One could be issued to bring in the provisions for parole after serving two-thirds of a sentence.
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) Link to this
Members, Standing Order 114 rules against disrespectful references to the Governor-General being made in debate. I also spoke earlier about trying to speculate on what the Governor-General’s attitudes might be. Again, that is not in order.
Hon Darren Hughes Link to this
I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. During the point of order that was being made by my colleague, the Hon Dr “Sir” Richard Worth OBE, MP interjected on my colleague. I think that is a very unhelpful way to perform and behave in the House this evening, and you might want to call him to order in respect of that.
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) Link to this
I did note that there was a brief interjection. I was about to object to it, but I let it slide in the hope that we could get to the end of these points of order, and we could then address the issue that is before us: the Bail Amendment Bill.
I thank the honourable member for raising that point. I think it was a very good use of time for us to learn about the origin of that particular point of order. I thank the member, the Hon Dr “Sir” Richard Worth OBE, for raising that. I believe it was a good use of the House’s time to learn about that.
As I was saying, during the election campaign the people of New Zealand and the then Labour Government were subjected to constant cries of how National would get tough on crime. As I said, we waited with bated breath to see the first law and order bill introduced into this House in the 100 days of turbocharged action of this new National Government, because this is the bill that essentially sets the law and order tone of this National Government for the next 3 years. This is the bill upon which it launched its “tough on crime” platform. What does it do? It largely maintains the status quo, as the Minister has admitted.
We will not vote against something that maintains the status quo that we put in place—that would be ridiculous. But I say to members that the rhetoric we heard on the campaign trail is not matched by the reality of this legislation, because not one New Zealander will be safer as a result of this legislation passing into law. We on this side of the House feel that it is our role as the Opposition to hold the Government to account for the promises it made to the electorate during the election campaign. Paula Bennett thinks she should not have to live up to the promises she made. In fact, Paula Bennett made a speech in the House on the previous bill that was so full of clichés that it showed only that she must be related to David Bennett, because their speeches were pretty much exactly the same. Either that or David Bennett gave her—
OK, I withdraw and apologise.
But we must look at the context within which this bill came in. Of course, it was the Labour Government that strengthened and toughened our bail laws. It was also the Labour Government that strengthened and toughened our Parole Act and our Sentencing Act. We acknowledged that the sentence needs to fit the crime, and that often the victims of crime did feel that they were not treated well in the justice system. In the 9 years of the National Government, for example, someone could get a sentence of preventive detention only on the second offence. It was as though the first one was free. It would have been bad enough to get preventive detention if it had been for the second offence, but people got it only if they had been convicted twice. So one of the first things Labour did was to make sure that the sentence of preventive detention was available on the first sentence, so that if that was appropriate it could be applied then.
So we had a National Government for 9 years that did nothing but talk big. It was loud in Opposition, but it was quiet in Government. Then we had a Labour Government for 9 years that strengthened the bail laws, the Parole Act, and sentencing laws, and that brought in the Victims’ Rights Act and strengthened victims’ rights. And now we have moved again to a National Government that has promised us it will be tough on crime. What evidence do we get of that? What is the first legislation we get? It is a bill that will not help any more people to avoid becoming victims.
Amy AdamsAccording to that member yes, it will. That will be interesting to see. I would like to know from the member—and I am sure she can take a call in this debate—how much money her Government has budgeted for this bill, if it will result in a lot more people being held on remand. Does she know that? No, I did not think so. I suspect that she may want to read a little more about this bill before she interjects.
As I said in my previous speech, this bill and this Government never speak about the things we need to do in order to make sure that young people who are on the path to crime get off that path. The former Labour-led Government put much resourcing into ensuring that our most vulnerable families were not living in poverty. We lifted 130,000 children out of poverty. Yesterday we saw a taxation bill that kicks those families in the guts again and raises taxes on some of our most vulnerable families, in order to pour money into the pockets of the chief executive of Telecom. How will that solve crime down the road? We saw a 90-day bill that will see people lose their jobs, having been fired for absolutely no reason at a time when we should be protecting those people. Where will the children who are growing up in those households be in 15 or 16 years’ time, as this new National Government reverts to form and plunges them back into poverty? I will tell members where they will be. They will be there with another National Government saying that a bill like this one will solve crime, whilst doing nothing to address the actual causes of crime.
METIRIA TUREI (Green) Link to this
In my contributions during the Committee stage of the debate, one of the things I was interested in was the cost of the policy given the complete lack of information about its necessity and its effect. We have no information at all about whether the bill is needed, or the impact it will have, because the bill did not go through the select committee process. We have not had reports from officials and we have not had assessments from those at the coalface doing this work—those from the courts, those involved with prisoner rehabilitation, those involved with victims’ rights organisations, those involved with the police, corrections, or with remand. No one who actually has to do the work that this bill will require, and no one who will be affected, whether it be the prisoners or the victims, by this bill has had a chance to have any kind of say, or make any analysis of the bill. That means we are passing legislation with a huge lacuna of information, and that makes us highly irresponsible. The passage of this bill is fiscally and legislatively irresponsible and a disgrace. I am sure taxpayers around the country will be horrified to discover that this legislation will cost about $45 million a year to implement, with no information, no oversight, and no scrutiny.
The cost of this legislation is very interesting, because it does beg the question of where the Minister and the ministry expect to get the money from. Earlier on, the Prime Minister said very clearly that there would be no money for Ministers to spend. Where is the $45 million going to come from? It will have to come from somewhere within the ministry. That is what the Prime Minister has said that Ministers have to do. What else might that money be used for, or where else might it be coming from? What we do know, of course, is that the most effective means of preventing reoffending is keeping people out of jail and providing them with rehabilitation services when they are in jail; and afterwards, when they are out in the community, community support and community transition from other kinds of sentences back out into the community.
Those services are run by community organisations—by churches; by organisations and programmes like the Sycamore Tree Programme, for example, which does an exceptional job; by restorative justice organisations; and by the Prisoners Aid and Rehabilitation Society, which is a fantastic organisation of people directly impacted. This community sector is absolutely desperate for funds to run the programmes for prisoners and their families, for offenders and their families, for offenders and victims, to make sure that offenders do not reoffend, and they are, by and large, very effective programmes. These are the community programmes that work. These are the community programmes that keep our communities safe, because they deal with the actual issues that lead to reoffending, such as drug and alcohol addiction, and systemic lifelong physical, psychological, and sexual abuse.
These community programmes provide education and find means for prisoners and their families—offenders and their families—to re-educate themselves so that they have skills that they can take out to the workforce. Support for offenders trying to get work, support for victims to deal with the impacts of the crimes on their lives and to confront either their own offenders through a restorative justice programme or other offenders to understand what is going on, is provided through programmes like the Sycamore Tree. They are desperate for funds.
Where might the money to pay for this $45 million useless project come from? It may well come from the Ministry of Justice support that goes to those programmes. Why would that be? It is because this Government completely fails, utterly and dismally, to understand that to work, to protect our communities, to keep them safer, we need to stop reoffending. That is where the resources need to go. This bail legislation will make no difference whatsoever to the safety of our communities. The National Government and the Minister need to take responsibility for that failure should there be any reoccurrence of the kinds of cases and the kinds of issues that have been described during the debate.
The other question it raises for me is that if there is going to have to be an increase in remand beds, then this policy begins to lay the groundwork for the privatisation of prisons and private sector engagement in the building and management of our prisons. We have had this fight in this Chamber before. My colleague Nandor Tanczos led the charge to oppose the privatisation of prisons, and we were very pleased when Labour Government legislation was put forward that would prevent the privatisation of prisons. I was involved with Nandor Tanczos: we visited prisons to talk about remand issues. I went to Auckland Remand Prison, a privately owned prison at the time. It was a lovely prison, if there is such a thing. It was very flash. It had fabulous services and all these wonderful things. It was obviously a loss leader. There is absolutely no way that Australasian Correctional Management could possibly have provided those kinds of services for the money it was getting contracted to do it for. It was clearly a flagship institution to try to encourage people to think that private prisons were fantastic so that they could get more contracts and run the miserable, violent, terrible prisons that they are known for running around the world in Australia, South America, and other countries.
These companies that run private prisons are known not only for the abuse that goes on within the prisons between inmates, but also for the abuse between inmates and corrections staff, and the abuse of staff by the institutions themselves. Their services are dismal; the rehabilitation is ridiculous and non-existent. These private prisons have an international record of the most appalling impacts and results. Yet at the time, there was a huge outcry from the National Party about the elimination of private prisons, because its whole ideology is around the increase in privatisation of public services.
Not only are we concerned about the privatisation of prisons, but also we are concerned about the practical implementation of having private companies making a profit off the imprisoning of our own people—and particularly the imprisonment of Māori, for whom those rates are very high. The principle is that it is the role of the State to engage in that level of punishment, and the role of the State to be part of that justice and legal process. For the community to then contract out those responsibilities to the private sector is a wholesale relegation of that social contact between the State and the community. So in principle it is absolutely appalling, and in practice it causes huge discrimination, huge abuse of offenders and, actually, of the staff, as is known.
Towards the end of my first reading speech I talked about the social impacts of legislation, and about the comment that Simon Power had made that corrections policy is failed social policy. I reiterate that again, because I think that was a very wise statement, and it is absolutely true. Like Moana Mackey, I too am terribly concerned about the social policy that the National Government is putting through in urgency. That includes the tax cuts for some, with tax increases for the poor in order to pad out the wallets of the wealthy; the 90-day, fire-at-will legislation, which will mean that young people and vulnerable workers, in particular, will have a great deal of difficulty getting and keeping employment; and also the coming education legislation, which the House will soon be debating. This not only contains an increase in truancy fines for the most vulnerable and poorest families, who could not afford to pay the existing fines and certainly will not be able to afford to pay the $3,000 worth of fines, but also the move to league tables for primary schools, which is a move towards the privatisation of the education system.
This bail legislation, like the other legislation that is going through under urgency, signals the Government’s absolutely clear path towards the privatisation of public assets and public services. It is a disgrace. It will cause greater reoffending, it will cause communities to be less safe than they would otherwise have been, and it is a dismal, disgraceful waste of taxpayers’ money. Thank you.
JOHN BOSCAWEN (ACT) Link to this
I have been listening with interest to the comments from the Labour Opposition this afternoon. I have a number of comments in response to the issues they have raised, but before I make them I need to turn my initial comments to the Green Party member Metiria Turei. I think the House has just been subject to a huge amount of rubbish. The honourable member talked about the social contract. Well, I say that the social contract Parliament and the Government of this country has with the people of New Zealand is to keep them safe. The member talked about the former private remand prison at Mount Eden. I ask the member how many escapes were made from that prison. She talked on the one hand about the superb services, the good quality of the prison, and the way the inmates were treated, and then she turned around and tried to draw a comparison with prisons in South America. The social contract that the Government of this country has with the people of New Zealand is to keep them safe and to protect them from crime. I see Mr Cullen is looking. I do not believe that the members on that side of the House have actually understood why they lost this election, but one of the key issues was law and order. One of the key issues in the election was law and order, and the fact that the people of New Zealand want to be kept safe.
But before I go back to that issue again, I will comment also on Metiria Turei’s comments on the tax bill. The tax bill that has just been passed under urgency makes a significant reduction in the top marginal tax rate. I have said that it is not enough, but it is the start—it is the start of a tax system that will reward people who want to work hard, get on, have a higher income, provide for their families, and provide a higher standard of living. It will stop the great exodus of people going from this country to Australia. Similarly, the changes to the employment legislation are all designed to encourage employers to take on staff, with the confidence that they can do so, and to create wealth and improve the productivity of this country.
Let me come back to you, Mr Cosgrove; let me come back to you. As I say, I do not think that you have understood—
So you are frightened of me, Mr Cosgrove? I am not surprised. You should be, because—[ Interruption]
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) Link to this
I am not the object of the debate. Please keep the conversation in the third person; do not bring the Chair into the debate.
I apologise, Mr Assistant Speaker. I was referring my comments to Mr Cosgrove. Mr Cosgrove trivialises the very fundamental issue of law and order. He talked about there being no crime in the country. He trivialised the speech that Melissa Lee made.
Yes he did. He talked about there being no crime in New Zealand. He said that the white doves would be free to be released, that there would be no crime, and that all would be good and well in this country. The member shows how he “trivilises” this issue.
He trivialised it. Moana Mackey rose to say that this bill does practically nothing, and then she went on to say that my colleague says that in itself this bill will do little. [ Interruption] That is what she said. David Quarrack has quite rightly said that in itself, this bill will do little.
Hon Clayton Cosgrove Link to this
I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I want to be of assistance, because I know that every member has the right to be addressed in the appropriate way. I think that Mr Boscawen was referring to Mr Garrett, not Mr Barrett. I do not think we have a Mr Barrett in the House, and I think that the member should show some respect to his colleague.
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) Link to this
That is not a proper point of order. I call the member to continue his speech.
Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. If members are concerned that this bill does practically nothing, then let me just talk to them about some of the other bills that will come before the House on this issue. Let me talk about the three strikes bill. The ACT Party came to Parliament on a promise to introduce the three strikes bill. Members of the Opposition will have an opportunity to vote for that bill and to refer it to a select committee; members will have the chance to vote for that bill, refer it back to the House, and pass it into law.
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) Link to this
I cannot smile; please keep me out of the debate. Focus on the point.
I apologise. Let me explain to the member how that bill will operate. On the first conviction, criminals on serious and violent offences will be convicted and sentenced, and will serve the full length of the term that the judge sentences them for. So on their first conviction for a serious and violent offence, offenders will have to serve the full length of their sentences. On the second conviction for a serious and violent offence, they will have to serve the maximum sentence. So if the maximum for grievous bodily harm is 14 years, then that is exactly what they will serve.
The point that Mr Garrett was trying to make, which has been misrepresented by the Opposition, is that if criminals have two strikes they will in the first instance already have served the time set down by the judge for the first strike, so they will serve the maximum time provided under the law for the second serious violent conviction. Then on the third conviction they will serve 25 years to life. So if members on the other side of the House are concerned that this bill does practically nothing, if that is their concern, then I can tell them that the ACT Party came into this Parliament to fulfil its social contract with the people of New Zealand, to keep the people of New Zealand safe, and to punish those who commit serious violent crimes.
I say to Mr Cosgrove and Mr Cullen—
—I apologise; the Hon Dr Cullen—that they and their colleagues will have the opportunity to refer ACT’s three strikes bill to a select committee. I welcome those members’ support, and the support of the National members on that committee, to hear the submissions of the public of New Zealand, and then to refer the bill back and pass it into law.
Well, hopefully there will be a repeal of the emissions trading scheme. There will be future tax bills. [ Interruption] That is right. I am pleased the member is clapping, because the Hon Jim Anderton was having a crack at the National Government earlier this week, and at the fact that there was no reference to research and development in the Speech from the Throne. Those members forget that the Labour Government passed emissions trading legislation that will introduce severe taxes for the rural sector in this country.
I am very pleased to hear the interjections. I wish they would come just one at a time, because then I could actually hear them and respond to them. It is actually a bit hard to hear.
Well, I am happy to talk about the ACT policy on education if members wish, because we certainly believe that parents in this country should be addressing—
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) Link to this
The member should be addressing the Bail Amendment Bill.
I am sorry, Mr Assistant Speaker, I did not hear those comments. I am happy to sit down, because the point I am trying to make is that the Labour Opposition is saying that this bill will do practically nothing. If members think this bill will do practically nothing, they will have the opportunity to vote for the ACT “Three Strikes and You are Out Bill” early in the New Year. I can assure them that that bill will do something, and that members of the ACT Party are committed to this Government fulfilling its social contract with the people of New Zealand. Thank you.
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) Link to this
For the edification of the House, I remind members that we are on the third reading of the Bail Amendment Bill. The Government’s agenda for some time in the future is not part of that discussion—interesting though it was to members.
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Labour) Link to this
I will take, I hope, a relatively brief call. This must be an awful day for Government members. Today they have found out that practically none of their backbenchers can move a closure motion correctly, so the crusade for literacy starts there. They cannot even read: “I move that the question be now put.” I saw them: they had it in front of them, and they could not even read it.
Then Government members found out that their coalition partners give fruit cake a bad name. That speech really was a worry. Anybody who knows my background will know that I have been a rather staunch critic of Marxism as an intellectual theory, but Marx had the insight that lots of groups have what is called false consciousness—they tend to argue what is actually against their own intrinsic interests. I say to Mr Boscawen that a large amount of the choice seafront property in New Zealand is owned by the supporters of the ACT Party, so ACT had better be right on global warming, because if it has got it wrong, it will be a classic case of false consciousness. ACT is about to drown its own supporters progressively over the coming generations.
Coming back to the Bail Amendment Bill, I say that during the election campaign Mr Power flew around the country like some kind of superhero. He was “Justice Man”, with a big “J” on his chest and great wads of cotton wool stuffed elsewhere on his body, and he was going to deliver justice to the country. He was going to clamp down on crime. He was going to wipe out everything that everybody hated about crime. He laboured mightily in the vineyard, and he brought forth—well, it is flattery to call it a mouse. It is actually a little, tiny bill that is not new, as he said in his first reading speech of roughly 200 words, I think it was at most. It is an old bill. It is what the Labour Government legislated for previously. It is not even a new idea; it is an old idea with a Labour stamp on it, and it will not do anything of any significance at all. As a kind of law and order man, he is now going around the country like Wyatt Earp with no horse and no guns, and it will not be a good way to go, I can tell Mr Power, in that particular contest.
We are told, even in the notes prepared for us by officials, that this bill will have very little effect. Very few people will be affected by this bill, at all. If it keeps one serious violent offender from committing another violent offence, then that is obviously an advantage of the bill, but that will depend on the judges getting it right. As I said before, there is a matter of difficult judgment. People have the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty. The default position is that people have bail unless there is good reason for them not to have bail, and that must be the position. Otherwise, the presumption of innocence has no meaning because it means that any of us are liable, in effect, to serve a period in prison even if we are totally innocent of the charges that have been brought against us.
This bill is all the Government can do in this first great burst of the 100 days in order to address law and order issues. That is not what people were led to expect during the election campaign.
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN Link to this
Well, I ask Mr Power whether what is coming is what Mr Boscawen suggested—something that says people have to serve the full sentence. Mr Boscawen clearly does not understand how judges work. If a judge is faced with the position where whatever sentence he or she gives is the full sentence that must be served, then the average full sentence will drop for any given set of offences. That is precisely what judges will do, because they will take into account the fact that the full sentence must be served and there is no possibility of parole. It also means that prisoners will be less well prepared for release into the community and, when finally released, they will be more likely to reoffend. So that measure is very unlikely to protect the community better against violent offences.
This is a classic case of the idea that if a party puts together enough bumper stickers it can make a car, but it does not actually work that way—not even for a non-turbocharged car.
Jacqui DeanHon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN Link to this
I am glad Jacqui Dean interrupted, because one of the things I have not understood is why she is not the Minister of Finance. As the only member opposite who knows how to get money without borrowing it from overseas, she is precisely the person we need to be Minister of Finance at the moment, when the Government is in great need of money without having to borrow it. But, of course, she does not actually have a clue how to do that.
Let me say to Mr Power that this is a trivial bill. It is a bill that will not achieve its stated effects. It will not reduce crime. It will not protect the public from violence. It may lead to some marginal increase in costs and—as Ms Turei quite rightly said—if that happens, given the cap on spending, that money will have to come from somewhere else and it may well come from the provision of rehabilitation programmes. At the end of the day, we will support the bill because actually it does nothing, but what a waste of time it is to pretend that this is the great measure, under urgency in the first week of Parliament, to deal with law and order issues.
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) Link to this
It is good to be able to take a call and make a few points in respect of the Bail Amendment Bill. It is good to know too that the Labour Opposition is supporting the Government in respect of this provision, a provision that is no silver bullet, in spite of what the Opposition says we have cracked it up to be. We know that there is no particular legislation that will do an absolute job on absolutely everything; everybody knows that. We are not under any illusions in that respect, in spite of the hopes and dreams of those who come into this House as we all did.
What is a bit of a shame to look at, though, is the way the Labour Party Opposition is prepared to take the mickey out of anybody who comes here with some sort of experience to bring to the table, or some sort of energy or willingness to express desires in where the law might be able to take them.
It is interesting to hear the former member for Ōtaki expressing a bit of humour and taking the mickey in that particular way. At least he does it with a little bit of class. He has some youthful enthusiasm—as I understand it, he has been shaving for 10 years, and he cut himself on both occasions. It is a totally different scenario for the soon to be former member for Waimakariri, who wants to take a slap every time he turns. When he speaks like he does, turning one way to the other, it is as if he has the agitator from one of those old washing machines stuck in his nether regions, because that is the way he does it time and time again.
The fact is that this legislation is just a little bit of common sense, which brings something to the debate around reoffending and the opportunity to reoffend. It is one small step that we can take. If those members are prepared to go out and back legislation, which they say does nothing, we look forward to them backing the legislation that we intend to bring before this House in respect of gangs and in respect of recovering DNA from every person who is arrested for an imprisonable offence. We look forward to hearing those members backing us on legislation that, for instance, will put 12 and 13-year-olds before the Youth Court and allow them to access the programmes and extend the sentences that that court will be able to impose upon those young offenders to make some real intervention and to provide some of the real rehabilitation that the Green member lamented the absence of.
We look forward to hearing the Labour Party back us on legislation that will give longer sentences to those accused of crimes against children, who are the most vulnerable within our society. No doubt there will be references to other cases that have been to the absolute shame of New Zealand society. We look forward to the Labour Party backing Government initiatives to remove the options of parole for the worst repeat violent offenders. If the Labour Party is prepared to back this legislation purely on the basis that the politics of not supporting it would only damn it within the headlines and over every bar leaner in the country, then we look forward to the Labour Opposition backing the serious legislation that will soon come before the House that will deal significantly to repeat offenders.
A party vote was called for on the question,
That the Bail Amendment Bill be now read a third time.
Ayes 106
Noes 7
Bill read a third time.