Crimes Amendment Bill (No 6)

I move, That the Crimes Amendment Bill (No 6) be now read a third time. I thank members of the House for their strong support for this bill. I think that, apart from opposition from one quarter to one aspect of the bill, everybody realises that this is legislation that needs to be introduced and will have a positive effect.

I will comment very briefly on what happened during the Committee stage. Judith Collins was concerned that somehow this legislation had overlooked the repeal of some legislation on home invasion. Unfortunately, Ms Collins, a relatively new member, had not seen the Supplementary Order Paper, but I can assure her that the Supplementary Order Paper covered that. However, I will comment a little bit in response to Mr Ryall’s comments on it. In 1999 he was the architect of home invasion legislation that was roundly panned by the Court of Appeal as being rushed, politically inspired, and totally inappropriate. I am proud that we now have legislation before the House that treats home invasion as an aggravating factor, that starts murder sentences at 17 years, and that does not single out home invasion as the only aggravating factor, which is what that failed Minister of Justice did in the previous legislation. This legislation is totally appropriate and has been supported widely across the country.

The second issue that came up during the Committee stage was interception warrants. Interception warrants now will be legally required in order to tap into emails or faxes. Any person who does that without the legal authority to do so will be committing a crime, so this bill largely creates a protection for privacy. But of course we allow certain law enforcement agencies to have the power to tap into emails and faxes—just as they have always had the power to tap into telephone calls—with proper safeguards for individual privacy, and with the involvement of the judiciary in allowing that to happen. It is clear to 99 percent of the country that our law enforcement agencies, which are fighting against crime and transnational crime—and they now have the additional concern of international terrorism—must have the exact same ability, where appropriate, and where a member of the judiciary has verified that it is appropriate, to tap into emails and faxes as they have always had to tap into telephone calls.

This bill updates most of the property offences in the Crimes Act, many of which have not been updated since the Act was passed in 1961. Updating is needed to have many of the property offence provisions reflect changes in technology, crime, and law enforcement since the Act was passed 40 years ago.

Central to the bill’s reforms is plugging the gaps and areas of uncertainty in the Crimes Act’s application to computer-related crime. The bill will ensure that offending involving computer technology is adequately covered.

Amendments to Parts 9A and 11A of the Crimes Act, which respectively contain interception offences and provisions relating to police interception warrants, will ensure that the interception of emails and faxes by people who are not parties to the communication is illegal. Currently, only oral communication is covered by the Crimes Act. The amendments relating to police interception warrants will help the police deal with organised crime. Currently, the police, when acting under an interception warrant, can intercept only oral communications, and cannot use any written communications, such as text messages, emails, or faxes, that are intercepted. Criminals are taking advantage of technologies that we all now take for granted, and it is clearly important that the police have the necessary powers to deal with that.

There was criticism by one party of the qualified exemptions for some State agencies from the offences relating to interception and unauthorised access to computers. The Law and Order Committee carefully considered those concerns against the necessity for the exemptions to allow effective investigations of, for example, organised crime or potential terrorist threats. The committee concluded that the safeguards provided in the bill, together with existing statutory safeguards, are adequate to ensure that personal privacy is balanced appropriately with the duty of the State to protect its citizens. I believe that the bill will strengthen privacy interests by criminalising some activity that is not currently criminal, such as the interception of non-oral private communication and accessing computers without authorisation.

A particular criticism of the bill was that the qualified exemption for law enforcement agencies from the unauthorised computer access offence gives police the power to hack into computers. It does not do that. The Crown Law Office provided a legal opinion to the select committee on the effect of those sections. In its opinion the effect is to put beyond doubt that a law enforcement agency accessing a computer system under some existing authority does not have unauthorised access. In other words, it is not committing an offence if it already has some legal basis, such as a search warrant, for accessing the computer. This measure is a matter of clarification, not a free licence for those agencies to hack into computers without legal justification.

Aside from the computer and interception offences, there are other important amendments that the bill makes to the criminal law. As well as the new computer offences, the bill contains another new offence, that of taking, obtaining, or copying trade secrets. The essence of the offence is wrongly acquiring something such as a document, plan, model, or diagram of commercial value, with the intention of obtaining financial gain. The offence of burglary is amended. The phrase “breaking and entering” is replaced with “entering without authority”, which will remove technical arguments as to what constitutes a break. Effectively, it means that burglary and unlawful entry offences are combined, and that should assist the police in their efforts against burglary. The offence of blackmail is broadened from the current offence of extortion by certain threats. The new offence will apply to any threat of disclosure. The scope of the threat has also been widened to cover a threat to cause serious damage to property or to endanger the safety of any person. The offence of obtaining by deception or causing loss by deception replaces the current offence of false pretences. It will cover a broader range of financial benefits than the current offence does, and the element of causing loss is also new. A number of new offences have also been broadened to include liability for reckless as well as intentional conduct.

This bill is a very important update of New Zealand’s property offences regime. It will strengthen the criminal law, and will give the police and the Serious Fraud Office more effective laws to deal with offending ranging from burglary through to organised crime. I thank members and officials who have worked on this legislation, which I believe represents an important advance in the law.

In speaking to the third reading of the Crimes Amendment Bill (No 6) and the associated amendments, I want to say that, on listening to the speech of the Minister of Justice, I think it is clear that he has lost interest in the justice portfolio. He has very big responsibilities in foreign affairs, which is his passion, and it is clear that he has lost interest in the justice portfolio. I will tell members the reason for saying that. When he was Opposition justice spokesperson, on the introduction of this bill in 1999 he railed against the Government for taking so long to bring this piece of legislation to Parliament.

💬 Hon Phil Goff: 40 years!

Oh, 40 years! It is so pathetic. It would be sad if it were not so pathetic. He railed against the previous Government for not bringing this bill forward earlier. In one of Phil Goff’s vein-popping speeches, where his forehead goes p-pump, p-pump, p-pump, and he goes all red, he said: “This Government should realise this is a priority, I’ve said to this Government time and time again that this is a priority and it should be doing something about it, and I know why it should be doing something about it—because everyone says it should.” That is what Phil Goff said, but it has taken him 4 years even to have this bill passed. He stood up in the House—it is the “Maharey principle”; it is one of the things one says when one is in Opposition and does not say when one is in Government—and said that this bill was priority legislation that would be fast-tracked by Labour. I remember that because I was sitting in that chair there when he gave one of his vein-popping speeches about how he would act. Mr Goff has lost interest in the justice portfolio. It takes him so long to do anything.

I heard his comments about the Court of Appeal—as though we should be embarrassed that the Court of Appeal thinks Parliament is taking a view on criminal offending! If he wants to quote the Court of Appeal, I will table the opinions of District Court judge after District Court judge, and High Court judge after High Court judge who have criticised his pathetic sentencing and parole legislation. High Court judge after High Court judge has criticised his bill. He can give whatever vein-popping speeches he wants to give; the fact is he is embarrassed about how long it has taken him to get this bill here. This is the guy who stood up in Parliament in 1999 and criticised the Government for taking too long. He is so embarrassed about it that he interjected that we had had 40 years to do something and had not done anything. I am not even 40, and the fact is this Minister—[Interruption] I know I have got that gravitas that may make members think I am older.

The fact is this Minister has been pathetic. It takes him so long to do anything. What about this legislation? In January 2000, Phil Goff said that he would pass legislation to remove sex discrimination in the law with regard to women dealing with children. Six months later he said he would have it passed by Christmas 2000. Then in January 2001 he said he would have it passed by Christmas 2001. Then in election year he said he would have it passed by Christmas 2002. When Mr Peter Dunne raises the issue, what does Mr Goff say? He says: “We’ve had a meeting with Mr Peter Dunne, and we agree, and we’re going to pass that legislation by Christmas.” So we have had four Christmases and he still has not passed the legislation. He takes far too long to do anything.

The fact is the Minister has lost interest in the justice portfolio, and this bill shows that. The Minister has made no substantive amendments to what was proposed when I introduced this bill 4 years ago.

💬 Stephen Franks: Except killing home invasion.

I have to say, just while we are talking about that sentencing bill, that I understand that the Minister’s officials advised him that amendments should be made to the Act, but Mr Goff is too embarrassed to bring them to the House. My understanding is that he said he could not do that, and he wanted to give it a while to settle down. So let us get real about how long it takes Mr Goff to do anything. It takes him far too long. There is urgent stuff that needs to be done. It has taken him 4 years to bring to this point a bill the serious content of which he has hardly changed; he has hardly changed any of the matters in it that are important. I remember his comrade Mr Swain standing up in front of the computer security industry at a meeting in Auckland in 1999, and saying that this was vitally important legislation, as well. He agreed with Mr Goff that it should be passed as a matter of priority. Well, if it takes the Government 4 years to pass, as a matter of priority, a bill that it has hardly changed, then that is an embarrassment.

For goodness’ sake, the Government should work more intensely with the Opposition parties, and we will tidy up foolish proposals that this Government brings in as bills. We will fix them up and we will get them passed. And they are foolish. This Government has passed a law that someone sentenced to prison for 9 years can qualify for parole in 3 years. An offender sentenced to 9 years’ imprisonment for serious sexual offending, for rape, can be out in 3 years. That is what this Government is doing to the justice system in New Zealand.

This is a Government that, time and time again, says it is going to get tough on crims. What is the record? The propensity to imprison is dropping because the sentencing law requires the judges to use sentencing as the very last possible option. The judges are to give crims everything else, but they are not to send them to jail. They can be very serious offenders, but the judges should not send them to jail. That is what this Government is doing. That is what it supports.

This Government has overseen the complete collapse of the credibility of the home detention scheme. An Associate Minister of Justice stood up and praised his department for being robust in running home detention, but these are the very same people who recommended that a wife-basher go on home detention in the home of the woman he bashed. The department said that she agreed to it. Well, of course she is going to agree; for her it is a case of whether she is bashed again now or bashed later. That is what this Government does. It has overseen wife-bashers being detained in the homes of the very women they bashed. We have a woman Prime Minister. She lets that happen. She lets her Ministers stand up and say that is robust. That is not the sort of legislation or approach that we on this side of the House want to see.

This Government is not taking seriously crime in this country. We have violent crime at record levels on the basis of per head of population, and on a total basis. The Minister should be embarrassed by that. There is record crime in this country. We have more car burglary than we have had for years, and it is getting worse. We have more serious sexual crimes than we have had before, and it is getting worse. Auckland is now one of the most crime-ridden cities in the Pacific. People are leaving Auckland because they are worried about the level of crime there. What does this Government propose? Nothing, absolutely nothing! The Commissioner of Police said he needed 170 extra police in Auckland. How many did he get? He got 50, over 4 years. That is not the sort of approach we need to law and order in this country. Crime is going up. This Government has no respect for the victims.

This is a common-sense bill, from a common-sense Minister and a common-sense Government. I commend it to the House.

My question to the member who just sat down is what is the title of this bill? She does not know. It is a shocker, is it not? This Government is so keen to drive through this very important legislation, but puts up speakers who do not even know the title of the bill. All the rest of those members are so keen, so devoted, and so dedicated towards passing—

💬 Jill Pettis: She won her seat.

There goes the parrot. Who let this green parrot into the House? Can anyone hear it? She is squawking over there on the sidelines, but at least she has made a contribution. I do not know whether the Hansard writers will be able to write “Screech!”, but at least the member is in Hansard. Those Labour Party members seem to be holding a coffee session on their benches this morning. They are sitting around screeching and reading every other piece of paper except anything that has to with the legislation before the House. I watched them having a little bit of a huddle over there. I do not know whether they were organising the next knitting competition, or what. For the benefit of those members who do not know, the Labour Government is currently considering the Crimes Amendment Bill (No 6) and Supplementary Order Paper 85.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Can I remind the members on my right of Speaker’s ruling 51/5(3), which states that running commentaries are out of order. If members wish to make a speech, they can—later on. [Interruption] Members are getting close to being disorderly.

It is very disorderly. I seem to have hurt Labour members terribly this morning. If the bill were not dealing with such a serious matter, we could spend the whole morning heckling and debating with those members. But this is a serious bill, and that is why New Zealand First supports it.

We hear the Government telling everybody what a wonderful job it is doing in putting the bill through, given that it came to the House in 1999. It is interesting to look at the select committee’s report back. The bill was referred to the Justice and Law Reform Committee on 5 October 1999 and submissions closed on 3 March 2000. The hearing of evidence took 5 hours and 30 minutes, and consideration 9 hours and 7 minutes. That is 14 hours and 37 minutes of work by the select committee, but it has taken this Government 4 years to get the bill back to the House. What does that say? It says a lot about disorganisation. Regretfully, it probably says a lot about a lack of commitment to the serious issue of law and order in this country. There were 16 oral submissions and 27 written submissions, and 14-odd hours of work by the select committee, and the Government takes 4 years to get to this point.

I acknowledge the work of Mr Keith Locke. Is that not a surprise? Ron Mark would probably be described by many as right of Attila the Hun, and one who feels that Attila the Hun was a poor student, but I compliment Keith Locke. Some serious issues were canvassed in this bill, and they all pertained to privacy. I look at the types of people who operate in transnational crime, organised crime, and terrorism—drug-runners, gun-runners, and those sorts of people—and I consider them to be dangerous lowlifes. One has only to consider September 11, and everything that has happened from then on, to realise how much more focused we need to be on countering terrorism. There are those of us who will look for what might be considered very draconian legislation, in order to protect ourselves and our communities, but there is always a balance to be struck, and that balance revolves around privacy and the protection of people’s rights. Throughout the 14 hours we heard evidence on this bill, Mr Locke was always consistently concerned about—[Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Would members please be seated.

They are quite shocking, are they not? That is the Labour Party being called to order. Its members are so rude.

Mr Locke consistently worked hard to make sure that the legislation was as balanced as possible. I oppose some of the things he said, but this morning he brought to this House an amendment that read: “312R Ombudsman to audit.” All Mr Locke wanted was for the ombudsman to conduct an annual audit of all telecommunications interceptions carried out by the police in the previous year. Being the sort of guy who for obvious reasons would welcome police interceptions, I could not disagree with that. The people who surprised and stunned me were United Future, Jim Anderton, and Matt Robson—the paragon of virtue when it comes to human rights. Matt Robson and Jim Anderton campaign the whole of their lifetimes about protecting the rights of citizens, so how could they possibly object to the ombudsman in secret, in private, without public disclosure, doing an annual audit to ensure that the interceptions done by the police had been done lawfully? How can United Future members sit there and vote against such a simple request—a simple little mechanism to ensure that the democratic rights of people not to have their privacy invaded is in some measure audited? How can United Future vote against Mr Locke’s amendment, or how can Matt Robson? How can people on the Labour benches, who have campaigned for years on human rights and privacy issues, vote against that?

💬 Judy Turner: You voted for it.

Yes, Judy Turner. New Zealand First voted for it—so did ACT, so did National. I am appalled, but, once again, I say that it is another silver bullet in my gunbelt, because come the election, I will certainly be reminding everybody on the hustings. [Interruption]—There goes the parrot, Jill Pettis. Will someone let the parrot out of its cage? Crikey heck! I do not want to hear any more speeches from Labour Party people about protecting the rights and privacy of ordinary citizens, because there would be a word that I cannot use in this House but will use on the hustings, and we all know what that word is. Members should not preach to me about their concerns when they do not support a simple amendment like Mr Locke’s. Mr Locke did some very good work. I do not agree with everything he says, but it is important to have a voice in the House that is consistent about such issues.

I want to talk about my concerns about terrorism and drug-running, and particularly about the importance of such legislation when we are dealing with methamphetamines. This legislation is about dealing with organised crime and transnational crime, which are impacting on our shores every day. I have to agree with Tony Ryall when he says that we can measure people’s commitment to legislation and to law enforcement by their actions, not by their words. This Government’s actions in respect of tidying up the holes in the Sentencing Act and the Parole Act—for example, deferred sentencing—is appalling. It took New Zealand First to expose the shortfalls in deferred sentencing, by which a person who is sent to jail for having bashed someone is then let out on to the streets, pending a home detention application.

We now find that there are also holes—Labour calls them back-end detentions, but I do not know what the hell that means—whereby individuals have killed with a motor vehicle, raped a woman under 16, bashed people and been charged with grievous bodily harm, threatened to kill, and tried to kill two policemen, and this Government, through its Sentencing Act and Parole Act, is now letting those people out on home detention. We now find that they are going to the gym, going shopping, going to watch the Crusaders, going out to meet their friends, and participating in the community. More important, they are using their telephones to do their unlawful business, because their telephones are not monitored. This bill will hopefully give the police some teeth to monitor more closely the telephone calls of people enjoying home detention who have proven to be violent criminals, and people associated with gangs and organised crime. It is about time that this Government got off its lazy butt and started amending the Sentencing Act and the Parole Act, as we all know it needs to do.

I do not think that my speech will be longer than your pronunciation of my name.

💬 Lindsay Tisch: I like your hairstyle.

There is a gentleman over there who is giving me hand signals. Naturally, I speak in support of this bill. I congratulate the Minister and the Government on introducing long-awaited measures for dealing with property crime in terms of technology.

The Greens will be voting against this bill, because although it has many good provisions in it, at the same time it seriously undermines our civil liberties by giving the police, the Security Intelligence Service, and the Government Communications Security Bureau the right to intercept our emails and hack into our computers without our even knowing that they have been there.

In the Committee stage I put forward an amendment to give effect to a concern of the Privacy Commissioner. He could not see the need to allow the police hacking powers when they can already look at the contents of a computer while searching premises under warrant. That amendment failed. I moved other amendments in the Committee stage to try to make the interception process a little more accountable and transparent. I took up the Privacy Commissioner’s suggestion that we have a person to audit electronic interceptions, as they do in Australia in the person of the federal ombudsman. That amendment failed. I moved another amendment to get the police to report on the average duration of interceptions, as the Security Intelligence Service currently does. That amendment failed. I moved another amendment to have subjects of interceptions notified by the police when there were no longer active investigations into them and charges had not been laid. That is the sort of notification conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States. That amendment failed.

In this third reading I now want to concentrate on the dangers of allowing intelligence services to intercept our emails or hack into our computers. The debate over the failure of the United States to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is a good case study. Members will remember how the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, got up in the UN Security Council and provided information from alleged intelligence intercepts about how the Iraqis had weapons of mass destruction. There were all these intelligence photographs of mobile laboratories, and intelligence information about the link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, and the British had their own forged documents from the State of Niger about supposed components for an Iraqi nuclear capacity being smuggled into Iraq. All the allegations turned out to be barefaced lies, but for a while many people believed Powell, Bush, and Blair.

One of the fundamental problems with the United States and British intelligence agencies is that they are serving political masters and political agendas. Because those agencies operate without any real public accountability, it is hard to stop the intelligence from them being distorted to serve political agendas. We saw that in the Nixon White House, and we see it in the Bush White House today. Under Nixon and earlier Presidents, all sorts of dissenters from Martin Luther King to anti-war leaders were spied on by intelligence agencies, so I do not think that we should give the New Zealand intelligence agencies such intrusive powers as exist in the bill in a light manner. We might say that our intelligence services are not like those in the United States, and nor would our politicians misuse intelligence in that way. Even if we hold that we currently have a better bunch of politicians, laws have to be written to constrain the most manipulative, anti-democratic governments that we might get in the future. In that respect, New Zealanders sometimes refer back to the Muldoon Government.

But there is a second important factor, and that is that our intelligence services are closely linked with those of the United States. The main interception facility of our Government Communications Security Bureau is the Waihopai satellite communications interception station near Blenheim. It pulls down millions of phone, email, and fax communications going through to international communications satellites located over the Pacific equator. The main destination for the information collected from Waihopai, and from similar stations in Australia, Canada, Britain, and the United States, is the US National Security Agency headquarters, and it will often be used for purposes that most New Zealanders would not like—if they knew of them. Occasionally, we get a glimpse of that misuse, such as during an incident a few months back when a section head of the US National Security Agency, Frank Koza, issued a memo to his security people asking them to “mount a surge” of interceptions against wavering nations on the UN Security Council to work out what he called their “dependencies”. I presume that meant how those nations could most effectively be bribed.

The other problem is that our intelligence services rely to a large extent on information provided by US and British intelligence services. That is certainly true in Bush’s so-called war against terrorism, which is resulting in many innocent parties getting caught up, and certainly in ethnic and religious groups being targeted and harassed. I want to show how that US influence on our intelligence services takes place here in New Zealand with an example from our Sri Lankan Tamil community. This community was very worried last year about the Terrorism Suppression Act, and organised big public meetings against it. Their fear is based on the fact that the American Government has designated the Tamil Tigers, the main organisation of Tamils in Sri Lanka, a terrorist organisation. Of course there has been a tragic civil war in Sri Lanka, with both sides guilty of inexcusable military actions against civilians, which we would all condemn. However, Amnesty International reports show clearly that the Sri Lankan Government is responsible for the great majority of the atrocities committed against civilians, yet the Sri Lankan Government was not designated a terrorist organisation by the American Government—only the Tamil Tigers were.

That bias is unfortunate, because a successful peace process between the Government and the Tamil Tigers is now under way in Sri Lanka. The Bush administration has seriously undermined that peace process by, for example, denying Tamil Tiger representatives the right to attend an international donors conference held in the United States in the aftermath of the civil war. That created a big hiccup in the peace process. Thankfully, the New Zealand Government has not followed the British and Australian example in imitating the United States and designating the Tamil Tigers a terrorist organisation—an act that could criminalise much of the Tamil community in New Zealand, because they overwhelmingly support the Tamil Tigers as the main force in what they see as their national struggle back home.

But the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service is still implementing the United States submissions and agendas against the Tamil community here, despite the fact that this community is the most law-abiding one could find. Last Friday, a Security Intelligence Service officer visited an organiser of a big public meeting supporting the peace process in Sri Lanka, which was to be held the next day, and asked all sorts of intrusive questions about Tamil organisations. I attended and spoke at that meeting, alongside a Minister of this Government and another MP. It is inexcusable that this sort of intervention is taking place, with the Security Intelligence Service harassing a community in our country on a US-inspired agenda.

I have another example that shows why we should be against giving these intrusive powers to the Security Intelligence Service and having such a link-up with foreign intelligence agencies. An asylum seeker in Paremoremo prison is currently trying to win an appeal to the Refugee Status Appeals Authority, but the Security Intelligence Service has put into effect a security risk certificate that means that even if he wins in the legal sense, he will still be deported. The service is basing its case on secret intelligence information—presumably, information from foreign intelligence agencies, be they in America, France, or Algeria, which are very biased against the political organisation he is from. He was an elected MP in Algeria back in 1990. Again, it is a case of the Security Intelligence Service implementing a political agenda from overseas.

We have other cases. I get complaints from Muslim people in New Zealand that mosques are being visited by the Security Intelligence Service, and they feel intimidated by that. They say they do not want to put their heads up too much, and do not want to involve themselves in New Zealand politics too much.

I am pleased to support the Crimes Amendment Bill (No 6). I was really interested to hear the Hon Tony Ryall raging about how long it has taken for the bill to come to the House. We are facing issues about world security, and powers of interception, and the bill has provisions about computer technology and new techniques that we needed to consider for inclusion. It is absolutely timely that the bill has come before the House today, and I am pleased to support it.

I am glad to have the opportunity to speak in this third reading, the final debate on the Crimes Amendment Bill (No 6), which was introduced by the then National Government in 1999. It was introduced as No. 6 out of, I understand, 10 or 11 bills on criminal matters introduced that year by the National Minister, the Hon Tony Ryall, and the bill reflects that. We only just removed from this bill, about half an hour ago, the provisions that reflected the great debate in 1999 on home invasion. So sitting here in front of us today we have had a whole series of amendments, required to take out references to home invasion from parts of the Crimes Act, where they have been sitting for a number of years.

Mr Goff began his speech commending himself for finally getting this bill through, by gloating over the removal of the home invasion provisions. What were his reasons? According to him, people all over the country had criticised them. What were their criticisms? They were that they had been politically inspired. He told us proudly that the Court of Appeal had criticised the home invasion provisions, and criticised Parliament for putting them in. I think that that says a lot about the agenda this Government has been running in the area of crime.

It says an awful lot that he should think the people of New Zealand will be glad to hear that about politicians who responded to the concern about serious violent crime, which has more than quadrupled in the time I have been a lawyer—that people should think it was wrong for politicians to respond to that and to pass a law that had such widespread public demand. For the Minister to think that anyone outside the tight little circles and cabals of politically correct feminists and other academics that he moves in will be glad to hear that we have responded to the—

💬 Hon Paul Swain: What’s this? As opposed to your 3.2 percent?

Minister Swain has arrived. That is handy, because we will have a few comments about Minister Swain later as well. We will be commenting on the enormous amount of action that he has involved himself in, in his corrections portfolio, and the answers he has been able to give to the concerns of people who are quite rightly asking why he is letting out convicted paedophiles, rapists, and robbers into their communities, hiding them in their communities without any warning or without even letting people know, when they ask, who is coming to live next door. Mr Swain watches the news, and he buries his head in the newspaper, but he will not be burying his head in the newspaper deep enough when people finally get to the bottom of what his department has been doing to hide criminals amongst innocent people.

But let me get back to the speech from Mr Goff. He told us in withering tones that the Court of Appeal had complained that the home invasion law was political. Of course it is political. What does he want—a court that stands above the requirement of representative democracy? Does he like law being made by judges who cannot be removed by the people when they are sick of a lack of response to legitimate concern about where crime and justice have got to in this country? Is it a recipe for good law, to respond to those who despise democracy and who regard the word “political” as the ultimate insult? That is the sense of what we got from Mr Goff’s speech welcoming his own inaction for 4 years on the Crimes Amendment Bill (No 6).

What does this bill do? As we heard from the Labour member who interjected earlier, this bill does not address anything that was not raised by a Government 4 years ago. It does bring up to date a few provisions that can now reflect the most current forms of computer crime, but if we were to wait until we knew all about computer crime, before passing legislation, it would never be passed. Computer crime will evolve. It was quite proper to bring this law in. It should have been passed 4 years ago, and it should have annual attention, if necessary, to bring it up to date, instead of the Government using as a justification for it having done nothing for 4 years the fact that computer crime is fast moving.

The bill delaying of the bill was criticised. But the delay was justified by Mrs Steve Chadwick on the grounds that it deals with very serious topics. Just so, Mrs Chadwick—the entire area of property crime is updated in this bill. I can only surmise that the Government actually put it aside from a resurgence of that old ideological hostility to property. Government members look at the bills on the plate that they inherit when they become the Government, go through the list, and say: “Here is one that is all to do with property; let’s drop it.” It has probably taken the Ministers 3 or 4 years to realise that burglary and property crimes are among the best indicators of the likelihood of other forms of offending, that in fact we get a better prediction of the risk of violence from offenders by looking at their burglary record, than by looking at their violence or sex-crime record, strangely enough.

The Minister who tried to justify the delay in pushing this bill along had a complete own goal in getting Mrs Chadwick to get up and commend the Government for having delayed getting it right, when property crime should have been amongst the Government’s highest priorities. If Government members really want to tackle violent crime, they should go first to the precursor crimes, the crimes that accustom young people to thinking that the law does not mean what it says—the crimes that accustom young people to feeling that penalties do not mean anything, the crimes that accustom young people to feeling that other people’s space and other people’s castles are their own.

I also want to have a quick look at just what this law does in relation to the other priorities this Government has had. We now have a maximum sentence of 7 years for reckless damage to a computer, 5 years for taking trade secrets, and 2 years for hacking. Let us compare that with some of the other offences. Changing it would have caused too much uproar, I guess, but without changing it we have blackmail at 14 years. Blackmail can be simply disclosing something about a person to cause him or her to act in accordance with the will of the person making the threat. What is wrong with saying: “You’ve been lying to me and unless you resign I will have to report you to the police. Go, and don’t come back.”? Why should that justify a 14-year sentence when reckless damage gets only 7 years, or taking a trade secret—it could be the genetic code to kiwifruit—gets only 5 years?

The bill actually maintains a lie. It states that these maximum sentences are 7 years, when the public and the court know that 7 years actually converts to 2 years, 4 months, unless a non-parole period is set. Five years converts to 1 year, 8 months, unless a non-parole period is set. Two years automatically converts to 1 year, and there is nothing the court can do about that. Anything under 2 years means 1 year, or half the period of the sentence, and the court has no power to set a non-parole period. So the Crimes Amendment Bill (No 6) is fraudulent and deceptive on its face.

If the Minister had been truly wanting to deal with priorities in crime, he would have been dealing with the series of promises he has made in relation to the Sentencing Act and the Parole Act, to deal with what he likes to call loopholes and unintended gaps that are actually a reflection of the Government’s deliberate policy to treat criminals as victims of the class struggle and as unhappy products of a cruel upbringing and not responsible for their actions. He would have whipped through the bill that had been done by National. It would not have sat for 4 years. The Government would not have put the Prostitution Reform Bill in a higher place, or the Local Government Reform Bill, which set up racial constituencies for local authorities, in a higher place. Of course the Government would think that that had far higher priority than a bill to amend crime. I am glad to be able to support this bill to a conclusion; I am just sorry that it has taken so long.

Why let the facts get in the way of a good story, right? That is the best thing that can be said about that speech.

💬 Hon Paul Swain: What about 3.2 percent?

Or 3.2 percent and things like that. This bill is intended to modernise and update penalties for property offences. I notice that the leader and the deputy leader of the Opposition—who is colloquially known as “Mr Bouncer”—were sitting in the back row of the Chamber worrying about their own property offences that are going on at this particular point in time. I hope the numbers stack up for them, because not many other people in this House will. I support the bill.

I am pleased to take a call on the third reading of the bill. I address my remarks to the general background and the environment in which the bill was introduced. I do want to comment on the Hon Phil Goff, the Minister of Justice. I think we should be very grateful indeed that he found time to come to the House, in between flying between international destinations, to introduce the third reading. I just do not know how the Minister does it. He so busy in his foreign affairs portfolio: holding hands with foreign leaders, with Yasser Arafat. My goodness, is that not such a wonderful thing for him! It just underscores his burning ambition to be the leader. I guess he thinks that making more visits and holding more hands will eventually get him there.

He is absolutely mistaken, is he not! Because he is not even allowed to run his own portfolio. Instead, it is done by that person whom we shall not name, but we know who she is. She has her nose and her hands in every portfolio, and she certainly has her hands in this one. The Minister of Justice, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, is reduced to making trips all over the world, looking busy, holding hands with foreign dignitaries, pretending he is—

💬 Hon Tony Ryall: Who with?

Who? One might think that, maybe, he would go and hold Bush’s hand, maybe he would go and hold Tony Blair’s hand. But, no, he went and held the hand of Yasser Arafat. My goodness, did not our country’s reputation soar when he did that! As I say, I am amazed that he has the time to come into the House and attend to the unimportant justice portfolio. That is the way he treats the issue of crime and the real concerns of New Zealanders. As I say, he has this other big job to do—being seen on all the international stages, because he has a burning desire to be the leader. No doubt, having made his speech, he is now on his way to some other foreign destination, to find some other hand to hold.

💬 Lindsay Tisch: Pyongyang.

We will see. We await the photographs in the papers and the image on television—on CNN. We wait in anticipation to see whose hand he will hold next. We really do need our reputation enhanced some more!

Having said all that, I want to say that National supports the bill. It covers issues of absolute importance to New Zealand and to New Zealanders. I was quite amazed at Steve Chadwick, the member for Rotorua, thinking that she had to stand up and try to find an excuse as to why the bill has taken 4 years to wend its way through the process. She babbled on about advances in computer technology and that we had to wait and see what those were, so that the law could be drafted accordingly. What a load of crock! What a load of hogwash, quite frankly.

The Minister made excuses about why the bill has taken 4 years to reach this stage, but the public should be aware that the bill we will pass into law today is no great advance on the bill that was already there, which was introduced by my eminent colleague the Hon Tony Ryall, who was a very good Minister of Justice when we were in power. He reacted very swiftly to issues. He was on top of his job, and gave the justice portfolio the due focus that it requires. The provisions contained in the bill today were introduced by Tony Ryall 4 years ago. The Minister came down to the House and made some lame excuse for why it has taken so long.

He was followed up by the member for Rotorua, Steve Chadwick, making some more lame excuses as to why it has taken so long, but it will not wash. They might think they can use those excuses in this forum, but those sorts of excuses do not wash, out in the real land where New Zealanders live.

The whole thing is symbolised in a Dominion Post byline from earlier this year that states: “Hacking bill gets dusted off”. It has been sitting there for 4 years gathering dust. Phil Goff comes down to the Chamber and pretends he had a good reason for it sitting around, but he did not.

I also comment on something I find to be a real anomaly with the Government. It talks the talk but does not walk the walk. It is interesting, is it not, that a number of women in the Labour Government are prepared to stand up and support the Minister, and pretend that he is doing a great job in that area, yet they do that against a background of this Government allowing paedophiles and rapists out into the community to rape, abuse, and violate women and children. Those women just sit there and let it happen. That is an indictment on the women in the Government, who sit there and let that happen. They yell out across the Chamber and try to make negative aspersions about us when we were in Government, yet they sit there in 2003 and let these awful, awful people back out on to the street.

There is also the issue around the cervical-screening proposals. Not a lot has been done on that. This Government has a significant number of women who sit there and pretend that they are walking the talk. They are not. It is a scandal when they come down to the Chamber to support a Minister of Justice who is not addressing that area in any comprehensive way, at all, and who, probably, cannot address it, because he is so busy travelling overseas. In any event, if he cannot address the issue, they should be advocating on behalf of women and children in this country. But do we hear them doing that? No. The most that we see them do is to come down the House, rise to their feet, and say: “I support this bill. It is a good bill.”, and sit down. In the meantime, paedophiles and rapists are out in the community, doing what they do best, because raping, abusing, and violating women and children is all they know. The women in the Government should be ashamed of themselves.

The environment in which we live requires that we address those matters seriously, in a considered way, and in a timely fashion. The passage of this bill into law today does not have any of those features. But the substance of it is serious, and that is why the National Party supports it.

That was a tragic speech, and I do not use the word lightly, from a tragic party that sat there for 9 long years and did very little—I am being generous by saying very little—did nothing to address the causes of crime in this country. In fact, its legislation increased the incidence of crime. There are those of us on this side of the House who make the connection between social policy and what happens in the criminal world. I remind that member that she stuck her hand up for the introduction of market rents for the poorest group in society in this country. That was punishing the poor for being poor. That member has had the privilege of leading a very privileged life. That member has never had to grub around, looking for bread to put on her table—

Hon Georgina te Heuheu: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That is an aspersion against me and my family, of whom the speaker has no knowledge whatsoever. I ask you to ask her to withdraw and apologise.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The member has taken offence at a personal reflection, under Standing Order 117. The member will now stand, withdraw, and apologise.

I will withdraw and apologise. Every person in this House is privileged. I am a privileged member of society. As a child, I led a privileged life, because I have a wonderful mother. That is a privilege. If that member does not think that that is a privilege, I pity her judgment on the important things in life. I might have lived on the poor side of town in a State house, but I am still very privileged, because I had a strong and resourceful mother. That is privilege.

💬 Lindsay Tisch: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. We are straying very much off the bill and the debate is getting personal. We support this bill, and I would have thought that the Government member would be saying something to support her own Government bill and to stay on the topic so it can be expedited.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you very much. Can the member come to the point, please.

The first few comments are always in rebuttal, just as the previous member strayed from the topic and spoke about Mr Goff shaking hands with Mr Arafat. I do not know what that has to do with the Crimes Amendment Bill (No 6). I say that I am proud of what this Government has done to address the causes of crime in this country. New Zealand is one of the few countries that does not have legislation about computer offences, with particular reference to this type of legislation. This Government is addressing the inadequacies of the previous Government, and I am proud to support this bill.