Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Bill

, on behalf of the Minister of Justice: I move, That the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Bill be now read a third time. This legislation is designed to allow individuals with less serious convictions who have lived for 7 years conviction-free to put their past behind them. The legislation is relatively conservative. The threshold level for less serious convictions is that the convictions never resulted in a sentence of imprisonment. That is the least arbitrary line of distinguishing convictions that should now be clean-slated. Exceptions are made for sexual offending, which is not clean-slated. The 7-year period was determined by the Justice and Electoral Committee to be a relevant period of having no further convictions, on evidence that after that period individuals are generally unlikely to reoffend. All criteria must be met before persons are eligible under the scheme.

New Zealand has been slow to adopt legislation that allows people to get on with their lives without being disadvantaged by historic convictions. The United Kingdom adopted such legislation around 30 years ago, and both Australia and Canada, the other legal jurisdictions to which New Zealand usually compares itself, have also had this legislation for many years. It is therefore disappointing that some parties in this House have remained timid, or have been politically opportunistic and continued to oppose this legislation. Such a stance is reactionary and lacks a sense of fairness and compassion, which I believe most New Zealanders have on this issue.

The Ministry of Justice estimates that as many as 500,000 New Zealanders will be affected by and gain relief from this bill. The largest category of those people who have committed some relatively minor offence in their youth are now totally law-abiding citizens. There are few people in New Zealand who could claim to have led a totally blameless life. Those who received convictions many years ago for offences such as shoplifting have often continued to be disadvantaged by having convictions on their record.

An expert on employment at the University of Waikato management school commented that the discrimination against job seekers for past offending is common. Mr Goff had a telephone call to his office last week from a man who has just returned from Australia and who received a conviction for a minor offence committed when he was young. In Australia, by law, he did not have to disclose it. In New Zealand he continues to have to do so, and this has been an obstacle to him in his search for work.

Having to disclose, or fearing that offending committed many years ago will be disclosed, has a powerful psychological effect for many people. During the Committee stage I read out a letter from a woman who 23 years ago had been convicted of a shoplifting charge. She wrote: “This has been my one and only breaking of the law, and one I regret on a daily basis. It does not go away. No one in my family has any knowledge of this record. My husband would be devastated if he knew, and more than likely, should he find out, this would put my 31-year marriage at risk.” This fear is typical of hundreds of letters Mr Goff has received on this topic. It is time we allowed people in this situation to bury their past. Convictions for minor offending should not be a life sentence.

The bill only conceals criminal records; it does not wipe them. A concealment regime was necessary to ensure that full criminal records can also be made available in special circumstances, such as during a police investigation or court proceedings, and in relation to sensitive types of employment such as the care and protection of children or jobs that involve national security. The exceptions to the scheme have been provided to ensure that the integrity of the justice system is maintained by making criminal records available for police prosecutions and determining appropriate sentences where an individual reoffends. Full records will be provided in certain circumstances to ensure the safety of children and young people in vulnerable situations, and for employment as a judge, a member of the police, a prison or probation officer, and roles involving the national security of New Zealand full records will be available.

An additional exception to clause 15 was introduced in the second Supplementary Order Paper. This will enable an individual’s complete criminal record to be considered by the New Zealand Police when determining whether he or she is a fit and proper person to obtain a firearms licence or additional licence endorsements. Some of the criticisms by Opposition members of this piece of legislation have been that it is requiring individuals to lie. It is not. It simply allows a great many ordinary and now law-abiding New Zealanders who have long suffered unnecessary anxiety about past mistakes to no longer have old and minor criminal convictions revealed. It will still be lawful to ask someone to consent to disclose his or her criminal record by the Ministry of Justice or the police, but if the person has a clean slate no convictions will be revealed.

In order to provide some safeguards to the individual, two offences are created in the legislation. It will be an offence to request or require that an individual disregard the clean slate scheme when answering questions about his or her record or authorising the release of his or her criminal record by either the Ministry of Justice or the New Zealand Police. It will also be an offence for a person with access to criminal records to unlawfully disclose an individual’s criminal record that is required to be concealed. The first Supplementary Order Paper provides an additional offence provision in relation to people who breach the prohibition on publication of an individual’s identifying details following an application to disregard a conviction, as well as making minor technical and drafting amendments.

The bill will come into force on a date to be appointed by Order in Council. Delayed commencement is necessary due to the work that must be done by the Ministry of Justice and the New Zealand Police to implement this legislation both in respect of the information technology and the day-to-date work practices. Following enactment of systems design, it will be finalised and development of information technology systems will commence. The information technology and business implementation of the legislation is expected to be completed to allow for commencement before the end of this year.

The legislation places requirements on individuals, employers, and other people who routinely ask questions about an individual’s criminal record. Prior to the commencement of the legislation the Ministry of Justice will develop a public information strategy to increase awareness of the effect of the legislation. The real significance of this legislation, however, will be for those individuals who can put behind them mistakes they have made in the past and get on with their lives. When enacted, the only challenge that people in the future will raise about the legislation will be about why we took so long in this country to join other countries in introducing it. I commend the bill to the House.

This is truly iniquitous legislation, which was poorly explained by the Minister and—in the rapid-fire statement that he read line by line and word by word without appropriate consideration of its impact. It is called the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Bill, and it will become the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Act. That is the first point that I would like to make—that the title is a misnaming of the consequences of this legislation. If it were truly a clean slate, then the convictions of the particular offender would be expunged, but that is not to be the impact of the legislation, at all. The convictions are simply to be concealed for limited purposes and will be able to spring up again.

National judges that this legislation reeks of political correctness. What an irony it is that it is the so-called centrepiece of the Government’s criminal rehabilitation strategy. If this is as good as it gets, then it certainly does not get very good at all.

This legislation provides that individuals will be eligible to have their criminal records concealed under the clean slate scheme if they have not been sentenced for offending in the past 7 years and have no criminal proceedings pending. It is certainly to be contemplated that a particular offender may have continued to offend in that 7-year period, but simply not have been caught. That is the first element. Second, the scheme does not apply if a custodial sentence has been imposed. We all know that quite major offences often are not punished by imprisonment. One can rack up a string of, perhaps, 20 burglaries or a raft of dishonesty offences without going to jail. That is clearly a weakness in the legislation if it has a planned remedial purpose. Third, there have to be no convictions for nominated sexual offences. Finally, all the fines and reparations have to be paid.

What are National’s objections to this legislation? A very simple one is that it can be quite easily subverted. That is because convictions may become disclosed in a number of ways. This legislation does not outlaw the possibility of records being maintained in private and media archives. I bet we will see a new business spring up in respect of the maintenance of criminal records, particularly for theft and dishonesty offences. This sort of information is incredibly relevant to employers, in the context of both current employment relationships and interviewing people for positions of possible trust. For example, it is hugely relevant for a law firm seeking to employ a trust accountant to know whether the proposed employee has a criminal history—convictions for dishonesty. What would the Minister have us accept? The Minister would have us accept, presumably, that that is not relevant information. He would have us accept that political correctness is sufficient justification for that material to be concealed. So one way in which this legislation can be subverted is by records maintained in private or media archives.

The second possibility is that there may be inadvertent disclosure of the conviction—or perhaps the offender may consent to its being made available. The third area that will be productive of huge misunderstanding is that when individuals are at a foreign border—for example, seeking to enter the United States—and are required to fill in the appropriate form or are being questioned by the officer at the border, they must give an honest answer. If asked whether they have a criminal record, they have to say whether they do or whether they do not. The clean slate provisions will avail them nothing. Finally, of course, which the Minister very briefly touched on in his rapid-fire speech to the House, there are particular types of employment where a clean slate is revealed to show the murkiness of an offender’s past.

I sought, unsuccessfully, in the progress of the bill to tighten up some of those provisions and to seek that more exceptions be created to the regime. Let me give two examples of where I suggest there should be greater restrictions. First is the case of people who have convictions and who want to teach. Why should they not be required to disclose to the Teachers Council that they have such convictions? Surely it is relevant in the school setting to know that a person has convictions for offences—let us say, assault—that should be taken into account when considering whether that person should gain employment with the State. Here is another illustration: a person applies for employment in a position that involves the exercise of fiduciary obligations, or the handling of money or moneys’ worth. Surely, in that class of case, that conviction should be made known.

Others have said—and the Government bridles at the proposition, but it is true—that this legislation is a mandate to lie. Why should the State lend itself to that possibility? It is a mandate to lie because it is expressed on the face of the bill to be exactly that. Clause 11, “Effect of clean slate scheme on eligible individual”, states, in subclause (2): “An eligible individual may answer a question asked of him or her about his or her criminal record by stating that he or she has no criminal record.” Here it is, quite simply: when a person with a raft of criminal convictions is asked: “Do you have a criminal record?”, the State says that that person can say: “No, no, I have no criminal record.” Why should the State lend itself to this type of lie? Why should this legislation cut across the clear rules that have been established in the context of perjury and in the context of people who sign declarations under the Oaths and Declarations Act and allow people to say that they have no convictions when, in fact, they are convicted fraudsters?

I urge members of the House to reflect on this legislation when voting on its third reading. I indicate on behalf of National that not only are we implacably opposed to this legislation, but we will also review it when we come to power midway through 2005, and it may very well be scrapped. What should be done? National states in its minority report that greater use should be made of diversion. These very minor events that touch young people’s lives should not result in conviction. The way to deal with this issue is by improving the diversion process.

Diversion, of course, is a highly flexible remedy. We all know that. But I suggest there would be merit in codifying diversion. Too often, perhaps, white middle-class kids secure diversion whereas other people in different socio-economic circumstances might not. We need to look hard at diversion; without losing its flexibility, it should be formalised. I also accept that there are very limited cases where a person who has a minor conviction might suffer a penalty out of all proportion to the early, minor offending. That is why National proposes not only the formalising of diversion but also, where an injustice has been worked, the provision of a one-off ability for a person to go to court and ask a District Court judge to sit in judgment on whether a conviction in a particular case should be set aside. There should not be this clean slating, which is a Clayton’s fraud on the community, but rather, a case by case look at a particular person’s position.

I rise to strongly support the third reading of the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Bill. It is very good legislation. It is very interesting to note that policy on the hoof is contagious in Parliament at the moment. We have just heard from the National Party spokesperson on justice, who boldly told us, in 10 minutes, that the National Party is so opposed to this bill it is committed to a review once it comes to power. I am sure that right now, as the Rt Hon Wyatt Creech is finishing his invoices for that other little review we saw, he is preparing the way for a review of the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Act.

Mr Worth, of course, told us that the National Party would not have a simple scheme like this, which could make a difference to ordinary people. Oh no! There would be a scheme where one had to go before a District Court judge, in a most bureaucratic way, to achieve the very same things this bill is trying to set out to do. We have had policy on the hoof from Mr Worth. I know why Mr Worth is really opposed to this bill. It is because it does not apply in foreign ports. Of course, that is very important to Mr Worth. I have it on very good understanding that Mr Worth was a few pounds short of a camel ride in Egypt on one occasion and is wanted by the authorities in that jurisdiction. That is the reason why he thinks it is important to get a clean slate bill—so that he may continue his international travel.

I want to pay tribute to Phil Goff for this bill. Whenever we deal with criminal justice legislation, it does bring out the worst in members of Parliament, as we have a battle to see who can be the toughest and the roughest. I am sure we will hear lots of speeches, particularly from Mr Franks, who has a very gloomy disposition concerning human behaviour. I am sure we will hear a great race about how bad this bill will be. It is actually taking a very courageous step to say that Parliament, through the courts, does impose penalties on people when they offend and break the law in New Zealand. This bill says that when it is minor offending; when there is a 7-year period of no offending, when a person pays all the fines and reparation that he or she is required to do at the time the sentence is imposed, and when they have not committed a specified sexual offence—[Interruption] Specified sexual offences are in this bill in order to state that those offences, if incurred, are not covered by the bill.

In the circumstances I have just listed, people can put their lives back on track. If the whole point of our justice system is that penalties are to deter and change behaviour, then the message that Parliament is signalling in this bill is that if people do right and stop offending, we will give them a second chance. I cannot see what is wrong with that concept. I cannot see what is wrong with saying to people: “We will give you another go.” The Opposition is saying that there is a whole army of people out there who commit offences such as shoplifting, under-age drinking, possession of cannabis, and those sorts of offences, and then for 7 years do absolutely nothing and live law-abiding lives because they are hoping to trick somebody into giving them a job 7 years after those minor offences, so that they can then commit some of the most heinous crimes ever seen in our land. It is an absolutely ridiculous argument that we hear from Opposition members. They are absolutely crazy on that point, because they assume we are clean slating murder, rape, and all sorts of terrible offences. We are not doing that. We are saying that people need this chance.

I sat on the Justice and Electoral Committee. We heard the arguments. We know that the reoffending rate after 7 years of no offending is ridiculously low. We think this will be the right signal to send to people, if members of Parliament are serious about less crime. It always strikes me that the members of Parliament who say they hate crime the most are the ones who want to put in policies to make sure we have more crime. This bill is a signal to people to not lead a life of offending.

I am very pleased to support the bill. I do pay tribute to Mr Tanczos from the Greens who, of course, introduced the original member’s bill. I believe he has brought some very clear and heavy thinking to this legislation, and has tried to point to solutions as opposed to rhetoric. I also pay tribute to Mr Goff for bringing the bill through. Finally, there were three young officials—which is slightly patronising seeing that I am 26 years old—from the Ministry of Justice, Melanie Gudsell, Brian Hesketh, and Susan Roberts, who did a great job advising the select committee. It is fantastic to see young public servants with a good understanding of issues. This is good legislation, and I look forward to the rhetoric from Opposition parties opposing it.

I rise on behalf of New Zealand First this afternoon to oppose this bill. This view has been held by New Zealand First throughout all the stages of this legislation, and continues as I address members today. Concealing convictions that are labelled insignificant by this Government and the Green Party carries many associated risks to the community. Many examples of these risks have been outlined during the debate. They include the risks to the employers of teachers—as we just heard from Mr Worth—and others in positions of high responsibility, of not knowing what they previously would have known before this bill came about. The worst implication of this poorly-thought-out legislation is that it gives people legal permission to lie, as we heard from the National Party.

💬 Hon Rick Barker: It does not.

It does. People can lie to employers, lie at their own will, and the Government says that that is OK. This bill is nothing but touchy, fluffy, feel-good nonsense, and it is doing nothing more than promoting and legislating lying. We in New Zealand First thoroughly believe, unlike the supporters of this legislation, that honesty is the best policy. Hence we cannot support this bill.

I am very pleased to rise to speak on the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Bill. I am particularly pleased to speak on the bill as I did not have the opportunity to do so during either the second reading or the Committee stage. I was unable to be in the House on those days.

I take a certain amount of pride in fact that we are finally seeing some clean slate legislation pass through this Parliament after the issue being under discussion for not just years but decades, and New Zealand lagging far behind many other countries in the world in dealing with this matter. I take some pride because this bill came about, at least partly, in response to my own member’s bill, which was to address this very issue. That bill was the Clean Slate Bill, and it was pulled from the ballot in early 2001. Government members said that it was such a good idea that they would think of it themselves. So my bill languished in the select committee for some time while the Government put together its own bill to deal with the issue.

I take it as some vote of confidence that the general approach of this bill is very similar to the Clean Slate Bill, which was introduced in my name. That bill was not to try to expunge the record in a way that would not practically be possible, but to take a pragmatic and realistic approach and seek to conceal records while the conditions pertaining to the clean-slating were still in existence. It is good to see this bill finally reach the third reading stage. I am very happy to see it come through, and I expect that it will pass through the House today. That will be most gratifying.

After hearing the speech made by Mr Richard Worth, speaking on behalf of the National Party, and hearing his very strong opposition to this bill, it is interesting to go back to the first reading of my own member’s bill and to when Dr Wayne Mapp was speaking on behalf of the National Party. In that speech in this House he said he supported the principle of the bill and that the National Party would have supported my bill if it had applied only to non-custodial sentences. Because my member’s bill applied to sentences for which a person received 6 months or less in prison, the National Party could not support it. But if it had applied to non-custodial sentences only, it would have got National Party support.

If we compare that to the speech we heard today from Richard Worth and to the speech we are, I am sure, about to hear from the next National Party speaker, it is a fantastic reminder of the blatant inconsistency in the position of the National Party members. One wonders what basis they are making their policy decisions on. Clearly, their decisions are not based on principle or evidence; they are based on where they are seeking to position themselves in the great law and order debate. It is a shame that we see a party voting on that basis.

I was very disappointed that the Government was not persuaded to extend the bill to include at least some minor custodial sentences. I think it is a shame, because we see some real anomalies. If we look at sentencing history over the past few decades, we see that the offences people received small custodial sentences some 20 years ago are the same kinds of offences that people might receive diversion for today—or we see things that in fact are not offences any more. It is a shame that the Government bill does not apply to some minor custodial sentences. But never mind—as I say, the silver lining is that it highlights so well the inconsistency of the National Party position.

Because of the refusal to accept at least some of the non-custodial sentences, this is very, very conservative legislation by international terms. The Minister, Rick Barker, pointed that out. This legislation is not radical, world-shattering legislation. It is extremely conservative by international standards. Again, I think it is a shame that the Government is so timid that it is unable to take more than baby steps, really, in the right direction. Nevertheless, I commend the Government for taking those steps. We are finally seeing a Government grappling with this issue. The Minister of Justice, Phil Goff, has introduced the legislation, it is being passed, and that is a great thing.

I hope that in future years Parliament will be able to look at the legislation, see that it is working as it is intended, and extend its coverage to include some of those other sentences, as well. I was also pleased to see that, although the Government bill originally applied after 10 years, because of the work we did in the Justice and Electoral Committee—we looked at the evidence and at the reoffending rates after different periods of time—the Government has accepted that the bill should apply after 7 years. Again, that is a good thing. That was one of the provisions in my member’s bill, and I am pleased to see that it was taken up. We have a slightly less conservative bill as a result, and that is good. However, I am disappointed that it will not extend to minor custodial sentences.

Mr Barker mentioned the Waikato study that showed, with great statistical validity, the discrimination that still extends to people with minor custodial sentences in the employment situation. That is at least one of the things it is intended this bill pick up. I am still getting emails, even today, from people who are affected by the minor convictions they received 20 or 30 years ago. I have with me a whole stack of letters from people who have written to me saying that they are desperate for this legislation to pass into law so they can finally get on with their lives without having to worry about the minor convictions they received decades and decades ago. Without wanting to break confidentiality, I shall read a few words from a couple of those letters. One of them states: “I would like to thank you for introducing the Clean Slate Bill to the House. I hope that the end results of your work in this area produce a long overdue and much needed piece of legislation that promotes humanity and fair administration of justice, in recognition of rehabilitation, and promotes positive incentives to reduce reoffending in our society, a major youth issue.” Another person’s letter states that they did not offend in the first place. They got caught up, naively pleaded guilty when they were young and impressionable, and they were sentenced, while under age, to adult prison for a simple disorderly behaviour charge.

Those are just a couple of examples from the many, many letters and emails I get from people, who, even today, have to pay the penalty for some minor infringement, or for just being in the wrong place at the wrong time all those decades ago. I think we can do no more when addressing the arguments made in opposition to this legislation by the National Party and New Zealand First, and that will be coming from ACT, United Future, and the like, than go back to a speech, made in this House in the past, which I think addressed those arguments very, very succinctly and very accurately. The speaker said: “In New Zealand today a convicted offender bears an invisible version of the mark of Cain—his criminal record. Although he may be rehabilitated, reformed, or an exemplary citizen, the offender cannot escape from his ‘record prison’. He finds that a criminal record substantially decreases his alternatives in every walk of life.” He went on to say: “Parliament did not intend convictions to be a lifetime sentence. The stigma of the criminal record has long impeded the rehabilitation process and contributed to the recidivism rate. The inefficiencies of the traditional manual record keeping gave individuals some opportunity, at least, to escape their past and start again … The information revolution, and our success in being able to keep such records for ever, makes parliamentary action a necessity now. Countries with enlightened legal systems have already passed their own legislation. Every country in the Council of Europe has some kind of rehabilitation law, as have many states in America, Canada, and the United Kingdom.” He said: “An offender cannot live down his past until he can deny it. Nobody wants to encourage untruths. The Bill circumvents the problem by deeming that every question about a person’s past should not relate to any spent conviction.”—which is exactly the approach taken by this legislation and my own legislation, and it is the very thing that is being criticised by National, ACT, and United Future. He goes on to say: “Following the passage of the Bill, a person with a spent conviction will be able to say truthfully that he has no conviction, just as we in Parliament sometimes take urgency and say truthfully that it is Thursday when the outside world knows that it is really Friday. That is the only workable solution.”

💬 Darren Hughes: Who said this?

It was the Hon Richard Prebble, when discussing his own private member’s bill to address this very question in this House some time ago. I refer Mr Stephen Franks to that speech, because if he considers the speech he is about to make he will find that all the arguments he puts up in this House have already been succinctly and forcefully dealt with by his own leader—sorry; his “former” leader— Richard Prebble.

It is quite good to be invited to comment. I remind Mr Tanczos—and I think he knows—that Richard Prebble took the opportunity during the first reading of one of these bills to explain what happened after he had adopted, and tried to pass, a bill with such passion. When the evidence came to the select committee, he found that it did not sustain his fond beliefs. In fact, his bill did not relate to a scheme like this. The convictions under this scheme are not spent; they remain in full force. They are simply concealed. Richard Prebble said he was sorry and had learnt from raising the matter. He said he was fully supportive of the concerns we expressed in this House about legislative encouragement to lie.

The scheme in this bill has nothing to do with deeming or creating spent convictions; this is simply a concealment scheme. This bill lies in its very title. It is no clean slate bill. We know there is no clean slate. It provides expressly for the convictions to remain and to be brought up again the moment there is a fresh conviction. This is a bill that has been promoted with such sickening sanctimony that it is hard to deliver a speech on it without getting tendentious—without accusing people of bad faith. I do not do that. I believe that there is good intention here, but there is certainly sickening sanctimony. This bill tells people to use false pretences for their own advantage. This bill tells them to lie when asked a straightforward question. This bill requires Government departments to lie when asked a similar question.

This bill does not make an exception even for perjury. It may be highly relevant in a court case, for example, that someone has a criminal record; but this bill does not even say that when asked to reply on oath in court that that stands outside. This bill requires and advises people, including Government departments—whether witnesses, defendants, or plaintiffs—to lie even in court. It goes further. It states that there is punishment for not lying. It states that a $20,000 fine will apply to people in Government departments who do not facilitate the lie. It may seem ludicrous, but as an illustration a priest in confession who urges someone to tell the truth, irrespective of the privilege that person can get under this bill, would be liable for a $10,000 fine.

Mr Darren Hughes accused me—and by implication the ACT party—of having a gloomy view of human nature. I tell him that the view of people who trust others is to allow them to forgive and forget, knowing there is something to forgive and forget. It is the ACT party that believes we can trust New Zealanders not to blight the lives of the 500,000 people who are now being told to lie.

The ACT party says that 90 percent of those people have gone straight and lived down their records. They are not subject to a life sentence. They have committed a misdemeanour and have been recorded as having done so. They will probably have committed more than one offence, because usually there will be some form of diversion and they will not go on one conviction, but they live these down because New Zealanders are generally forgiving and compassionate.

This bill states, with all the arrogance of the left—all the sanctimony of the people who like to tell others how to live and what to do—that: “Oh, they might not forgive. They might not be compassionate, so we will make them compassionate by lying to them. We will make sure that the question of forgiveness or compassion does not even arise, because we will make sure they don’t know.” Who has the gloomy view of human nature, Mr Hughes?

This bill is anti-morality. It says to airbrush history. That may seem funny, but in recent 20th century history, the Soviet Union, in airbrushing history, started off with all sorts of good intentions and ended up being more sinister than I care to imagine. This bill justifies, and will cause an increase in, punishment for crime. Every healthy social system relies on reputation, and concern for reputation, as the first line of sanction.

I do not know how the Māori members in this House can stand seeing yet another attack on the concept of whakamā. What Māori relied on first was a sense of shame and a concern for reputation of self and family. This bill tells people not to worry about their reputation. It says that if they offend and have not been caught for 7 years, then all is gone. This bill stops the mechanism of a normal society that allows individuals to draw distinctions between people with one or two minor misdemeanours and repeat offenders. It just will not be allowed to operate. What happens is that the community wants the ability to punish wrongdoing. If reputation damage will not do it, we are forced to have formal sanctions and punishments.

This bill is also anti-Māori in another sense. Stereotypes matter. Anti-discrimination law started very insidiously stating that where there are false stereotypes, where there is discrimination based on false assumptions, we will ban it. What the select committee foreshadowed, the logic of this bill, and the speeches made on behalf of the alleged beneficiaries, is that because there may be discrimination on the basis of a person’s record, the Government will squelch the record and suppress it.

But people do not simply lie down and take that kind of dictation by the Government. They make assumptions. For example, we can assume from the statistics on offending that the likelihood of young Māori males having an offence record is about four or five times greater than young Pākehā males. So what will this legislation do to them? It will mean that Māori will suffer even more in terms of job opportunities. It will mean that it is rational for employers to say: “I’m not allowed to find out. I can’t draw a distinction between young Māori males who have not offended and those who have. I’ll kick for touch and won’t go near them.”

That is what this kind of bill does, and members over there who sneered at our concerns about this issue with all the sanctimony they could muster, will be responsible. It will never be tracked to them, but they will be responsible for the difficulty young Māori, and, indeed, older Māori, will have in getting jobs in positions where trust is required.

Those members claimed that the bill assisted rehabilitation. There is no evidence of that whatsoever. There is evidence that there is sensible discrimination against people with prior offences. The select committee allowed officials to pull the wool over its eyes by allowing them to introduce evidence that 15 years after one conviction only 50 percent had reoffended. In other words, the stereotype of prior offending being a good guide is a justified stereotype.

Members should think about it for a moment. That was just one prior offence. If we wanted the prediction rate for three or five prior offences, we would probably find that it went up a great deal more. Yet in the rhetoric they kept saying: “One little mistake many years ago.” This bill does not exclude the person who has had nine or 15 previous mistakes. This bill states that no matter what one has done, no matter if one has committed murder in Australia, if one has kept out of the records in New Zealand for 7 years, whether by evading conviction or generally going straight, one should have the benefit of the doubt. That is not giving people a second chance. That is giving people a second, fifth, tenth, and up to twentieth chance. We know that the average person who starts a custodial sentence in this country has had nine previous convictions.

This bill is a very poor piece of drafting, and ACT will do all in its power to repeal it as soon as it has an opportunity. This bill is an instruction to lie. It is State complicity in lying, and it undermines all notions of morality. It goes against freedom of speech. We had a pathetic opinion from our useless Attorney-General, who told us that the bill was justified by its good intentions. There has been no examination of the mechanisms, no examination of the figures that lie behind, and no examination of whether any putative increase in rehabilitation rates, or even recidivism rates, would be matched by a much greater increase in primary offending. When people are given the impression that the State does not care about offending, and are being told by law that they do not need to worry about their reputations, we can expect more offending, because the social sanctions are being undermined.

This bill is very defective. Hardened criminals will be able to rip off employers with impunity, and United Future opposes it. I shall give an example of a case I came across in my experience as a lawyer. Sam, a troubled teenager, finds himself involved in dishonesty offences and appears before the Youth Court. At 15 he leaves school and gets a job as a service station attendant. Because he has been before only the Youth Court, a police check shows no record of any convictions. Things in the service station start to go missing. At first they are small things—namely, parts for Sam’s car. Then suddenly money starts to disappear from the till. Sam’s boss becomes suspicious, but after 6 or 9 months a camera catches Sam red-handed and he is sacked. He goes smugly, knowing that he got away with it. He has simply lost his job. He does not have a record for offending, because the police were not called.

Sam gets a job with a carrying company moving home contents. Suddenly, $500 goes missing. Nobody knows where it has gone, and because the owner cannot prove where it was, the carrying company is let off the hook. Sam has taken that money. He starts to take other things and gets away with it. Eventually he takes a DVD player. His boss realises that, in effect, Sam is the culprit, and threatens to sack him. At that stage Sam has become quite streetwise. He gets a lawyer. The lawyer states that under the Employment Relations Act the employer did not give a warning, and has no evidence of the offending, so cannot sack Sam.

The employer goes to the police, who say that Sam will have to be put on leave with pay during an investigation and they are not sure how long that will take. The employer wants to get rid of Sam and decides to do a deal with the solicitor. Sam tenders his resignation in return for a reference and a confidentiality agreement. He gets a job at a home appliance store, which checks and finds that Sam has no record. However, before very long, things go missing from the home appliance store. The police are called, Sam is taken into custody, and because it is his first offence he gets diversion and no criminal record.

He gets a job with a department store. Again he has no record and he is hired. Once again things start to go missing and after a while the police are called. Sam is convicted, and sentenced to community service. He now has a record. He decides to go to Australia. It is a bit hard to get a job in New Zealand now, because he has a record of dishonesty offences. He gets into more trouble in Australia. He starts to get into theft and burglary, and goes to prison for 18 months, 3 years, 5 years, and spends 7 years inside. Sam comes out of prison and returns to New Zealand. He applies for a job as storeman with an import company. It checks his records. He has forged references stating that he worked in Perth for fictitious companies. The employer does not feel it can afford the toll calls and expense trying to chase up those references, goes for a police check, and finds there is no record of any convictions. Why not? The clean slate bill! Sam has been out of New Zealand and has had no convictions in New Zealand for the last 7 years. Therefore, he is entitled to have his previous convictions clean-slated. He gets a clean bill of health.

The police in New Zealand know all about Sam. They were alerted by the Australians that he was coming back, but the Privacy Act means that the police cannot disclose that knowledge, and nothing will appear on Sam’s record. Sam has no convictions. In fact, in New Zealand, as far as this bill is concerned, Sam has never had a conviction. So the warning signs that came from his earlier offending will be non-existent. Sam gets the job.

United Future is sympathetic to what this bill is trying to achieve but fails to do. People who have been penalised for a single offence in their early years, carry that stigma for the rest of their lives and receive a penalty that is out of all proportion to the offence they have committed. To have a lifelong criminal record can be very unfair on people. One or two misdemeanours in a person’s youth should not haunt him or her for the rest of his or her life. The period of 7 years, in terms of non-offending, is a fair reflection of the fact that a person may have rehabilitated.

💬 Stephen Franks: So lying is OK, as long as it is in small amounts?

Lying is not right, no. The bill should be restricted to genuine cases. As an alternative that would work, United Future has proposed that people could apply to have their record expunged. It is unlikely that someone like Sam would be brazen enough to apply to have his record struck out. We would also suggest that the police, having knowledge of Sam’s convictions in Australia, should have an ability to object to Sam’s record being expunged, and no doubt in that situation they would.

We would want to see the sharing of information between Australia and New Zealand in particular, with regard to offending. The police should be able to annotate files with details of convictions obtained in overseas jurisdictions, but there is no protection like that in the bill. Employers who are seeking details of criminal records cannot get the full picture, and where there has been persistent offending beyond this period, they should certainly be able to get the full picture.

This bill is one-sided. It claims that people have “no convictions”, when they have them. As much as the Government likes to say it, clause 11(2), and it is worth repeating, could not be clearer: “An eligible individual may answer a question asked of him or her about his or her criminal record by stating that he or she has no criminal record.” Is that not a blatant lie? The legislation could not be clearer in stating that people who have a criminal record can state that they have no criminal record. How can the Government possibly claim that this is not a statutory sanction to lie? It is disingenuous to claim that.

Under the scheme proposed by United Future, on application a person could have his or her conviction or convictions expunged. In that way there would be no conviction. Indeed, the member’s bill put forward by Mr Tanczos took the approach of saying that an employer asking this question must phrase it in a way that stated that it was subject to the clean slate legislation. That would have been a preferable way to go about it.

This bill is anti-employer—in so far as it makes employers very vulnerable to dishonest potential employees, and offers no additional protections. In fact, a person who misuses the legislation does not attract any penalty for doing so. But the bill does provide for $10,000 to $20,000 fines for employers who disregard these provisions. However, people with a criminal record do not commit an offence or face any monetary penalty if they misuse the legislation in stating that effectively they have no conviction, whereas they do.

People are expecting a quick implementation, and I note the Minister’s opening comments that the legislation will be implemented by the end of the year. But I say: “Don’t hold your breath!”. Complex computer software is necessary before the legislation can be implemented. I understand that in the latest report the advisers say that it is “still a long way off”. Because of the complexity required, it will be years before the legislation is implemented. United Future’s proposal would have been to have a manual application system. That could have been immediately implemented with no new computer software, and would have provided the checks and balances that this sort of scheme needs.

This scheme has no checks and balances. It may protect those who are carrying convictions well beyond what is a fair period, but it is also going to provide protection for the Sams of this world and for other people who will simply use it as a device to further rip off employers. This bill is another misguided response by this Government to a legitimate problem. It does not help the people it needs to help, and it tries to do that in a way that is dishonest. That will only exacerbate the problems that employers have in getting honest employees.

I am disappointed in the attitude of parties that are not going to support the bill, because it iswell-thought-out and has received a number of very well-considered submissions. I am surprised at the Opposition’s uncompromising and hard-hearted attitude, which also lacks compassion. It reminds me of the saying: “There but for the grace of God go I.” At some stage in our lives we all thought we were 10 feet high and bulletproof, and some of us got away with things that others got caught out on.

💬 Brian Connell: Give us an example.

Yes, I will but—

💬 Brian Connell: Come on.

All right, I will. I have never ever disclosed this in my life, but I will. I once pinched a lipstick, when I was about 14, from the DIC. Then, as I was crossing the bridge on my way home, I thought: “How am I going to hide this from my mother?”. Wearing lipstick is fairly obvious! So I threw it in the river. I have never ever said this before, but I am prepared to say it today. I was lucky—nobody caught me out.

💬 Craig McNair: Did you get diversion?

Yes, I did get diverted—or my mother would have done that when I got home; she would have very quickly diverted me from going down that path. But I was fairly typical, I think, of young girls of my age at the time. So I can say: “There but for the grace of God go I.”

What disappoints me about the attitude of the parties opposite that are not supporting this bill is that if they had been alive in Victorian England they probably would have felt great joy in sending people to the new colony of Australia as convicts, if they had stolen a loaf of bread to feed their children. Sometimes when people think they are 10 feet high and bulletproof they do things that are quite out of character, and never go on to do anything wrong ever again.

I am sad that this bill is not being supported more universally. I believe that even conservative New Zealanders, whom I suspect some members opposite who are not supporting this bill think they are currying favour with, support the principle of giving a bloke, or a woman, a fair go if they have led a clean life for the last 7 years. Unlike some members opposite, I visit clubs and organisations where a lot of conservative people have a beer at the leaners on a Friday night, and the vast majority of those who fit the conservative mould think that although someone might have done something stupid 10 years ago we should give that person a break. I think it is surprising that some members opposite do not trust the more than 500,000 people in New Zealand who are currently affected by this bill. Those people are having to live a lie, because society’s attitude in the current climate forces them to lie—like the cases read out in the House, where people have led blameless lives for 40 years, and more in some instances, but are forced to lie because they are ashamed of having done something trivial, silly, stupid, and unplanned when they were, mostly, much younger. I am sorry some members opposite cannot find it in their hearts to exercise forgiveness.

I think a sense of power and control lurks behind that attitude. It is quite hard to give that away, when one has held it for many years. Some people who have power and control over somebody, by saying the person has to declare that he or she did something wrong many years ago, want to hang on to the power and control they can exert over someone. I am saying to members opposite that they are wrong in that respect.

This bill is very, very conservative, because special exclusions that are actually sensible have been put in place. This is not just saying that if one has lived a blameless life for 7 years, then everything else will be wiped—because there are special specified offences where there will not be any entitlement to the clean slate system, at all.

I conclude, as I began, by saying that I am sorry some people opposite cannot find it in their hearts to forgive and forget and to exercise a bit of compassion. I ask those who are not supporting this bill what they achieve in adopting that attitude. I ask what they are getting out of this personally. I suspect that the answer is “nothing”. I suspect that it is a matter of hanging on to those last vestiges of power and control, and I am sorry they feel that way.

What an outstanding speech from the member opposite! If only I meant that. What an amazing declaration of her past offending! The proposition that she was typical of people of her age and time—that they could engage in offending and it was OK—I simply do not accept. What does this PC nonsense called the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Bill set out to do? [Interruption] Jill Pettis just had an opportunity to take a call, and we already know what she thinks, so the less we hear from her, the better.

I looked at clause 3, “Overview”: “(1) This Act establishes a clean slate scheme to limit the effect of an individual’s convictions …”. Clause 3(2)(a) provides: “he or she is deemed to have no criminal record for the purposes of any question asked of him or her about his or her criminal record;”. In other words, such people are being told and encouraged to lie. Clause 3(2)(b) provides: “he or she has the right to have his or her criminal record concealed by government departments and law enforcement agencies that hold or have access to his or her criminal record.” In other words, this Parliament is being asked to engage in a giant deception so that people with criminal records can have their past offending covered up. It is a giant fraud being perpetrated on the people of this country by this Government. It is simply not true. We in the National Party simply do not accept it. Why should law-abiding citizens now be lumped into the same category as lawbreakers?

What signals is the Government sending? Where is the incentive to go straight? This is the message: it is OK to break the law, provided that one engages in only minor offending, only little crimes. That is the message. No wonder the young kids of this country are confused about what is right and wrong: this Government continues to blur the lines. No wonder youth offending is now at record highs. Why? Because this Government is soft on crime, and if ever one wanted a better example of it, it is this legislation. This legislation says to our kids that it is OK to break the law. It is OK; there is no consequence for them from breaking the law. There is no consequence, provided that it is only minor offending.

Who asked the victims? Who asked the victims to categorise what minor offending is? Is it OK to burgle a house? Did anyone go and ask the victims that? I bet not. Mark my words, this will lead to a flood of serious criminal offending, and just because this Government had a feel-good moment. It is just like parenting: if one does not assert what is right and wrong, children do not understand what is expected of them. The same will now happen with our young people, whom this law is, supposedly, deemed to be assisting. I tell members of this House and the people of this country that they should strap themselves in for a flood of criminal offending of a proportion never before seen in this country before.

Mr Worth, my esteemed colleague, talked about how this bill will apply to immigration. He used the example of an immigration officer overseas asking someone about his or her criminal record. That person is meant to tell the truth, but that immigration officer can have absolutely no confidence that the person is doing so, because the officer cannot get records from New Zealand that would satisfy him or her that what he or she has been told is correct. The officer will simply lose confidence in New Zealand citizens and in our judiciary. What will happen is that he or she will become risk-averse, and law-abiding members of the New Zealand public will be held up unnecessarily when travelling.

The next issue I want to raise is employers. Employers who hire employees on the basis of trust will have no available records to show whether a potential employee is an erstwhile law-abiding citizen or otherwise. I have a real, live example—which Jill Pettis might be interested in hearing about. When I worked for the Westpac Banking Corporation, one of the responsibilities I had was security. A former senior detective, the head of security, reported to me. He came to me one day with a sob story that I bought. A young Polynesian lad who had been taken on at one of the branches had been caught putting his hand in the till and taking $20. The head of security said to me: “Brian, this guy has got to go, because we have absolutely no trust that he won’t perpetrate a worse type of offence.” I said to him: “That’s too tough. That’s unreasonable. Give the guy a break. For goodness’ sake, he only took $20.” As much as he tried to convince me, I thought I knew better. I was a bit like Darren Hughes at the time—young, green, thought I knew it all, and impressionable—and I just could not listen to those who knew better. I ruled that the guy could stay employed at Westpac, and do members know what happened?

💬 Lindsay Tisch: No. What happened?

Six months later, the head of security came to me with the guy’s record. He did not say: “I told you so, Brian.”, but what he did say was that this guy—the same guy—had just taken the bank for $10,000. If I had listened to him at the time, I would not have been in the position of having to eat humble pie. If we listened to what Darren Hughes and Jill Pettis are saying, we would agree to this bill, because we would not be concerned about someone taking $20 out of a till. If it is in one’s blood, it is in one’s blood. If one is going to be dishonest, one is going to be dishonest. It does not make any difference whether the offending was 5 minutes, 5 years, 7 years, or 10 years ago: if a pattern of dishonesty is established, then it will continue.

Why will the Government not let employers have all the facts at their disposal, and make decisions according to the merits of each case? I believe that most employers are reasonable people. They would sit down and examine the situation, and if someone could convince them that his or her offending was an aberration, or that it was a Jill Pettis type of crime—

💬 Judith Collins: What was that?

She admitted she had flogged a lipstick. OK, it was an aberration—we can accept that. Most employers would say: “Yeah, OK, I will give you the benefit of the doubt.” But when employers do not know, and when people sitting in front of them have been told that lying is State sanctioned, that it is OK not to tell the truth, employers will become risk-averse.

Another example that bothers me is that of drink-drivers. Under this legislation, 40 percent of drink-drivers will have their slates cleaned. I do not know the name of that scumbag on television last night—the guy who had killed three of his friends. He had driven drunk God knows how many times—

💬 Judith Collins: Ten times.

Ten times. He has ten convictions, and he keeps doing it. Potentially, this legislation would give that guy carte blanche.

💬 Darren Hughes: He wouldn’t be eligible.

I ask Mr Hughes how many people have to die before this Government stops putting in place legislation that the majority of people in this country simply do not want.

What about drug abuse? The police say that those who engage in drug taking are involved in something like 80 percent of all crime in this country. Under this legislation, it is being suggested that people who use drugs should not have to front up with that fact. Well, I tell members that that is an outrage. It is an absolute outrage, and the good people of this country simply will not stand for it.

I say to members opposite that they have to toughen up. They think they are doing the right thing, but I have told them and shown them by way of example that this law is inherently wrong. When people are disposed to dishonesty, then no amount of law changing or bending will change that. The Government should let people in society have the facts put in front of them, should let people sit down as adults and make coherent, cogent decisions; then people can live with the consequences of their actions. But to suggest to the people of New Zealand that it is OK to lie is certainly not acceptable, and the National Party just will not put up with it.

I am very happy to contribute to the debate on the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Bill. It will bring New Zealand up to date with a lot of other countries similar to ourselves, like Canada and the United Kingdom, and with states in Australia, like Western Australia, the Northern Territory, Queensland, and New South Wales, which have acknowledged the need to remove from records after 7 years some of the minor, non-custodial offences that people have committed. It is estimated that up to half a million New Zealanders are affected by having some minor offence committed in their past on their record, and they would gain some relief as a result of this bill being passed.

My colleague Jill Pettis covered some examples of why it is necessary for us to consider this move. It is only fair that some people who committed an offence when they were very young—some as young as 10 or 12 years of age, or in their teenage years—and have a conviction for a minor offence, should have that conviction removed from their record after many years, if they have not offended again. I think it is a compassionate move to acknowledge that people who have paid for an offence, who have paid the penalty, should be forgiven for that offence, and have it wiped from their record. I think it should be forgotten because those people have become good citizens and have not reoffended.

I do not think that some of the criticism from the other side of the House in relation to the Government being soft on crime stands up to scrutiny, given that this type of legislation has already been implemented quite successfully in so many other countries with legislation comparable to the sort that we expect in this country.

The reality is the bill is fairly conservative in the conditions it sets. The qualifying threshold of non-custodial sentences is high. Most countries with clean slate legislation include convictions with penalties of up to 6 months’ jail. Exclusions have been put in place. The non-custodial threshold means that no serious or recidivist offender will be eligible. The threshold is a clear line of eligibility that is easily understood. The 7-year qualifying period is based on statistical evidence that shows that people with minor convictions who have not reoffended after 7 years are no more likely to reoffend than those without convictions. This is clearly a common-sense approach to this issue.

I have had people come to my electorate office who had committed an offence many years ago, and who, because of that, suffer discrimination when it comes to employment and other issues in their lives. They feel it is only fair that, after so many years, the conviction should be removed from their record. I believe that the Minister of Justice, the Hon Phil Goff, has received many letters from the community—even some from grandmothers who have said that, after 40-odd years, some minor offences are still on their record. There was one instance of a grandmother who offended when she was 15, and although she offended as a minor, she feels branded as a criminal today. That is the compassion we are talking about. We need to consider the reality that such people are good, law-abiding citizens today, and something that happened many years ago should be removed from their record.

💬 Murray Smith: It doesn’t remove it.

Well, the points have been made. We know that, for various reasons, the police would hold on to records in certain cases, so I agree with the member’s interjection in that regard. I think the important thing, in particular, is that where an offence is not considered serious enough to warrant a jail term, that situation warrants the record of people who committed such an offence being made a clean slate. I think this legislation meets that, and the fact that other countries have adopted such legislation verifies and justifies this bill being introduced at this time.

It is with pleasure that I rise to speak against this bill. I was heartened to hear the chief Government whip confess to the House that as a 14-year-old girl she stole a lipstick. I did not know that Labour women were interested in a bit of lipstick. I was very heartened by that, and I say to her: “Good on you.” I see that a lot of the Labour ranks are laughing, too. Good on her for confessing that.

Such a confession is one of the things that we in the House are about. We are very pro people telling the truth, confessing, and being absolved of their sins—to take a slightly United Future view of the world. In the minority report that the National members of the Justice and Electoral Committee put together, we said: “There is a case for legislation to contain provision for true ‘clean slate’ applications to be made to the Court in individual cases and not on the blanket basis of concealment of convictions which is the essence of the present bill.” National says that because, as the Hon Taito Phillip Field just mentioned, there are some individual cases of such distress that we see a need for that. But National does not think that the open slather nature of the bill addresses that situation.

The bill does not create a clean slate—again, that is a deceptive title. This is actually a “concealment of records” bill, and that is what it should be called. Anybody with an ounce of decency and compassion who looked at some of the silly instances such as the one Jill Pettis confessed to us this afternoon would say that, clearly, that was not a situation that should necessarily rule her out of employment in later life—probably her more recent employment with the Labour Party would do that! So National is saying there is a need for compassion, but there is no need for stupidity and lying, which is what this bill is all about. Clause 11 provides that it is just fine—it is OK—to lie and say that one has no convictions or criminal record. It states quite clearly: “An eligible individual may answer a question asked of him or her about his or her criminal record by stating that he or she has no criminal record.” That is a big, fat lie, and that is what this bill is all about. It is all about gilding the lily, and saying something that is not really true.

We have heard about people who commit indiscretions—in fact, crimes—at various stages of their life, and, in particular, in their youth. Those are the people to whom this bill has been touted as applying. It is to do with the youthful stupidity that occasionally affects people overtaken by their hormones. The fact is this bill says nothing about youthful crimes; it applies to any crime other than sexual crimes or those that cause custodial sentences to be imposed. It can apply to cases of dishonesty by people in their 40s—not just to a 15-year-old stealing a lipstick from a chemist shop. It can apply to someone stealing money out of someone else’s trust account, or to somebody else simply stealing a car—anything for which a custodial sentence would not be applied.

I think that under this legislation the police, in their prosecutorial role, would be far stronger in asking for custodial sentences. The police will know that, without a custodial sentence, in 7 years’ time, as long as people do not get caught again, they will have a clean slate.

I heard comments from the Government benches regarding people who have not committed an offence for 7 years. That is just twaddle. It is about people not being caught in 7 years, and not being caught is significantly different from not having committed an offence. There are many people who have committed offences—certainly, on the road—but never been caught and convicted for them. The point is that someone does not only need to be caught; he or she has to be convicted. That is why this is so ridiculous. We lawyers all know that many people who are found not guilty would with the benefit of hindsight, and with the jury knowing what their previous convictions were, have been found guilty. The reality is that this is a “soft on crime” bill from the Government.

The Government says it is appealing to the elderly and the people who feel they cannot travel. This bill will not help people who are trying to get visas for other countries, because it does not extend to that, yet the name of the bill will make them feel that it does. It will make them feel that they can honestly fill out a statutory declaration saying that they have no criminal convictions, but when that other country does some checking or finds out the truth, those people will, in fact, be guilty of an offence in that country. Yet another lie will have been perpetrated. Those people will say that that is not fair, as the Government had told them they could do so.

One of the concerns I have is for employers. It is very concerning that this bill has a penalty of up to $10,000 for disclosing someone’s criminal record 7 years after the event. As a former employer, if I am phoned up about a former employee and asked to give a verbal reference, and if that person had stolen money, had acted otherwise dishonestly, or had been convicted of some criminal offence that I was aware of, I should be able to say that I would not employ that person unless I was sure that he or she had overcome this particular issue. I think that any employer needs to be able to know whether there are previous convictions.

The Government went through its last term making employment law even harder for employers. It is very difficult to end the employment of an employee—even for just cause. The penalties on employers are extremely high. When we consider that most employers in this country employ five people or fewer, we see that there is a huge onus on them to get these things right. What will happen is they will start using profiling based on the age of the person and on his or her race and gender. We will find that prejudice is used against the most vulnerable people in this country, because so many employers will say that they cannot rely on any declaration, on anything given in writing to say that someone has no criminal record, or on anything that the prospective employee says about this matter. Instead, employers will take one look at that person—a point made very well by the ACT speaker—and decide that that person could be dishonest. That will be very, very unfair for the most vulnerable people in our society—the people whom we really do want to get off the 330,000-strong list of beneficiaries and back into the workforce.

How will Australia see this? There are already many Australians who view New Zealanders as a pack of criminals who go to their country to commit crimes and live off the welfare system.

💬 Darren Hughes: Australia has a regime. Do your research.

That silly little member says that Australia already has such a regime. It has for Australians, but not for New Zealanders. What Australia in fact does is often have a prejudiced view of New Zealanders who go to live in various parts of Australia and do a bit of OE. Some never come back. I think Australians will view this very, very dimly because they think there is a different standard for their home-grown people than for immigrants—just like people here think there should be a different standard for home-grown people as opposed to immigrants. I believe that this is a situation that Australia could well use to look at its open access for New Zealanders. I would be very interested to see whether in the next few years such a situation does occur—wrongly for everyone else, but there is a lot of pressure in Australia and on Australian politicians to stop the free access for New Zealanders. I think this bill would be a prime example of an instance of legislation that could be used to do that.

In conclusion, this is a bill that has very nice intentions. It is, however, a very stupid bill brought about by a Government desperate for any votes at all.

First of all, the National Party should sack its research unit. The member faithfully read the research unit’s notes—

💬 Darren Hughes: Word for word.

It was word for word, and she did a good job of that, so let us thank the research unit for at least giving her something to say.

The one point she made was the effect this legislation would have on our relationship with Australia. She should have done her homework, but she did not. What she would know if she had done her homework is that this scheme has been in Australia for some time, and in Canada, and in the United Kingdom, and in some of the states in the United States. We have lagged behind, and it is about time we did something about it.

In one of the speeches made by an Opposition member earlier—I think his name was Mr Connell—he said something like: “If people have offended once, it is in their blood and they will always offend.” When I was in Australia recently, I popped into the prison in Melbourne where they hanged Ned Kelly. There they have death masks, because people used to believe that if a person’s eyes were a little close together, he or she had certain criminal traits. They took the death masks to prove the theory. Under that particular regime, Mr Tisch and I would have been in serious trouble and targeted as likely recidivist offenders. What a load of poppycock that is!

Perhaps Murray McCully wrote the letter. We know that when he writes the lines, the mouths open and the words come out. Sometimes, as we have found, people then run a mile from what they have said—as Simon Power had to do over his “anywhere, anytime” speech.

💬 Darren Hughes: He wants a clean slate.

He does want a clean slate, and he wants one right now, because he is totally embarrassed about that. For one so young, who has progressed so quickly, he has come down with an incredible thud.

The other thing I have noticed about this legislation is that people have not let the facts get in the way of the debate. That is OK—I used to be in Opposition and know how Opposition parties work. I know the rhetoric they wish to perpetrate, and that sometimes they start to believe it. One of the first things we should learn in this place is not to believe the rhetoric. I do not know how many members in this House—and the Hon Ken Shirley would probably know if he were to research Hansard—have had their speeches quoted back to them some time later and asked: “Does the member remember making this particular statement?”. The question normally refers back 15 years when something occurred for which they were responsible in a former life, perhaps as a Minister. I say to people that we should not, for a moment, believe the rhetoric expounded by Opposition research notes, Murray McCully’s notes, or anybody’s notes.

This legislation applies only to those persons convicted of offences for which there is no custodial sentence, and who have not reoffended. [Interruption] I hear people chirping in the background: “Or who have not been caught or convicted.” But one of the things we know about people who have records is that if they offend again, by and large they get caught, because the police are well aware of those who are likely to reoffend and they watch them.

Members on the opposite side of the House should take an opportunity to go out with the local constabulary from time to time. In the times that I have been out with the raid squad at night, when it was doing the pubs, the clubs, and the rounds dealing with some of these youngsters who get a little liquored up from time to time, I have found that the police go out of their way to ensure that people do not actually have to be arrested. It is only those who are incredibly silly who end up getting arrested and convicted.

There could be as many as 500,000 New Zealanders who will benefit from this particular law—all of those who have offended once in their lifetimes, perhaps, and who sincerely regret it to this day. This is a good bill and it should be passed. The ACT people could give Richard Prebble a going-away present by voting for this legislation, because he was the first member to raise the issue in the House so many years ago now—in fact, in 1983. It would be a very good departure present for him. I say to the deputy leader of the ACT party, who is a little bit behind in the poll at the moment, that to support Richard Prebble on this legislation at this point would be a good thing to do.