Parole (Extended Supervision) Amendment Bill, Sentencing Amendment Bill (No 2)

, on behalf of theMinister of Justice: I move, That the Parole (Extended Supervision) Amendment Bill and the Sentencing Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a third time. The passage of this legislation will establish in New Zealand for the first time an active monitoring regime for high-risk child sex offenders living in the community. Child sex offenders are known to be, in many cases, compulsive repeat offenders. The bill establishes a new regime that allows extended supervision orders to be imposed on child sex offenders who are likely to continue to sexually victimise children once their sentences are finished. In order to address the issues for those who are sentenced under the old laws, this legislation has transitional, limited, retrospective provisions that may be brought forward to apply to those high-risk offenders who are still in prison and subject to release conditions at the time of the introduction of this legislation.

Extended supervision will be made available to those who are eligible for it, the high and medium to high-risk child sex offenders, for a period of up to 10 years.

I do not want to go on much more about that, except to say that this has been an interesting debate. It has been one in which there have been measured contributions, and I do appreciate the positive contributions made by Opposition MPs. It has been very interesting to note that the Opposition has voted with the Government on many occasions on this legislation. I accept that Opposition members agree with the direction of the legislation, but qualify that by saying it does not go far enough. The Government feels that in fact we have made significant advances, and that this legislation should be seen in the context of the other legislative changes this Government has made. We have made significant changes to deal with the issues in terms of these types of people. For example, we have widened the scope of preventive detention—something the previous administration left for some time. It is also interesting to note that more people are being denied parole, that the provisions are being tightened, and that we now have an amendment in this legislation that gives better facilities for the sharing of information by Government agencies, to help improve the manner in which we can deal with these people.

I am sure that Parliament will be very pleased with the legislation we have passed, and I am confident that it will be effective in protecting the people we seek to protect.

As I gaze across to the Government benches on the opposite side of the Chamber and see the crowd of members present—and I look specifically at Marian Hobbs, at Mark Peck, at the two whips of the Labour Government, at Helen Duncan, at a widely alert Parekura Horomia, at the Minister in charge of the bill, at David Parker, and at Lianne Dalziel—I pause to reflect on how they will judge the contribution they have made tonight to this significant legislation. The reality is that apart from the Minister, no one else has uttered a word of any substance, at all. A number of people have successfully taken closure motions, and the whips have apparently cast votes accurately on behalf of the Labour Party, but apart from that the Labour members have contributed nothing. I think it is a great shame that in a Chamber that should be a place of public debate, the Government members sit silently and sullenly waiting for the close of business on this legislation, when the House is in urgency on 29 June. It is instructive to note that the second reading of this legislation has followed from a Justice and Electoral Committee report presented on 14 June 2004. As I had the opportunity of saying at an earlier part in the debate, it is quite surprising that since the original bill was presented to the House for its second reading, the Government has found 17 shortfalls in this legislation, necessitating a scurry of amendments.

Mr Barker has spoken of, and properly acknowledged, the reservations that National has in support of this legislation. We have voted in favour of most of the major provisions, but we have done so with a reservation, because really all that we see of merit and intrinsic worth in this legislation is the introduction of a new, extended supervision regime that will manage high-risk child sex offenders. It would be great if we could say that the legislation had within it the mechanisms to actively—and I underscore that word—manage high-risk child sex offenders, but the history of the supervision of offenders by the agencies responsible for that task is unfortunately lamentable. That was identified very clearly for us the other day by the chairman of the New Zealand Parole Board, in the comments he made when he realised with surprise just how poor that supervision was. Parole supervision starts with a bang but very much ends with a whimper, and the consequence is, unfortunately, a hugely high rate of recidivism.

I have spoken in the course of the debate about the particular clauses that cause a degree of concern to National, and I have also noted that this legislation is amongst that where the Attorney-General has given a certificate that it infringes the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act—not only in one respect but in two. When I last looked at that issue, which was about half a year ago, I found that no fewer than 19 statutes had been passed in the term of the present Government—and presumably the number is much higher than that now—where the Government had pushed on recklessly in the face of determinations by the Attorney-General that there had been breaches, of various degrees of egregiousness, in respect of the civil rights legislation. That is a great pity.

It is also right to say that the select committee that sat in judgment on this legislation did something to improve it. But it still remains the case that the whole regime of parole has become overly sophisticated, complex, and beset with qualifications, elaborations, and ambiguities. With the open-weave legislation style that has been adopted, an opportunity is provided for the courts to actively intervene and gloss up the gaps in the legislation that seem to require the interpretative aid.

I will just conclude by saying that it has proved possible, in the context of looking at the problems that child sex offenders cause to the community, to identify the factors that increase the risk of sexual recidivism against children. The key factors seem to be, first, the age of onset of the offending. It seems to be the case that the younger the offender, the greater the risk is of reoffending, particularly for those people who are under the age of 25. Second, it seems clear that those who offend against boys rather than girls pose a greater risk of reoffending, although I was interested to see on television this evening that increasing consideration is being given to dealing with the problem of those female offenders who have lurked for a substantial period undetected in the community. The third aspect is whether the victim is a stranger or a relative, for it seems to be the case that there is a greater likelihood of reoffending where the victims are strangers. Then there are the issues of previous offending history, and finally, to the extent that therapy is available, of whether the particular offender has embarked on a course of therapy and completed it, or has failed in that process.

This legislation is about to go to the further step of obtaining the Royal assent, yet National judges it to be not without blotches. Certainly, in the context of the policy National plans to announce on 4 July this year in connection with law and order, a lot of this material will not sit well with that policy. We can confidently expect, when National comes to power in May 2005, that legislation of this type will significantly come under the blowtorch and is likely to be substantially changed.

I wish to speak in the third reading of the Parole (Extended Supervision) Amendment Bill and the Sentencing Amendment Bill (No 2). The National Opposition spokesperson on justice has commented on the excellent contribution of the Minister, who has represented the Government’s position very well tonight, and I would like to fully endorse that. The Minister has represented the Government’s position on behalf of us all. I am fully supportive of these two bills. I reject the assertion of the National Opposition spokesperson that this legislation in fact offends against the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. Ongoing monitoring actually protects against further offending and against there being further victims of sexual offences. The Justice and Electoral Committee report acknowledged that some people do not regard that as a punishment, but as a sensible protection on both sides of the equation. I just want to place on record that I am one of those. I do not regard such monitoring as a punishment. I regard it as a sensible protection and a sensible course of action for this House to follow, and I endorse the legislation.

On behalf of New Zealand First and as the Opposition spokesperson on justice for New Zealand First, I wish to remind the House that New Zealand First reaffirms its opposition to the Parole Act of 2002 and the Sentencing Act of 2002. That was our policy then and it continues to be our policy now. I see tonight the National Party are cuddling up to the Labour Government on this particular legislation, and at this hour of the night that must be quite a cuddle! When the National Party supports the Labour Government, it tends to be described as cuddling up to the Labour Government, and we do not support cuddling up to the Labour Government in the second reading and following.

As soon as we had a close look at our policy—the two new members; Edwin Perry and myself—we realised where New Zealand First stood on the matter, and we have constantly opposed this legislation in the House tonight. We take the view that this legislation should be repealed now. The National Party comes up with some sort of policy that perhaps sometime after 2005 something might happen to this legislation, but we want to see all of it go now. That is our policy. We do not accept any amendments to it at all; it should all go.

This legislation allows high-risk sexual offenders more freedom and to be able to get out into the community more. That is what will happen under the Parole Board’s view of these matters. Once it sees high-risk sexual offenders being allowed to go out into the community, it will grant more parole.

There was an interesting comment from the Minister. He said that more people are being denied parole. That is right; he said more people are being denied parole today. That is because today, under the Labour Government’s legislation, more people can apply for parole. If one can apply for parole after one-third of a sentence rather than two-thirds, it is mathematically certain that more people will apply for parole, and more people will be denied parole. So there is no point in the Minister saying that more people are being denied parole today than before; it is only because more people can apply for it under this Labour Government legislation, which New Zealand First does not support—as the Rt Hon Winston Peters made clear when the party opposed both the Parole Act and the Sentencing Act in May 2002.

We do not support a system that allows high-risk sex offenders, for example, to be let out about one-third of the way through their sentences. We say that they should stay in prison until the end of their sentences; and then only if they have shown remorse, with perhaps some degree of rehabilitation, then for them there should be the type of extended supervision mentioned in this legislation, after the completion of their sentences. It is a good idea, but only after those people complete their sentences.

Various amendments were put forward during the Committee stage of this legislation by the ACT party, and I think New Zealand First supported every one of them. We supported every ACT amendment on this issue, because only ACT and New Zealand First have remained consistent with their voting in May 2002 and have continued to oppose the Sentencing Act and the Parole Act. Many other amendments were put, including one put forward by the National Party, and New Zealand First supported with an open mind the National Party amendment to add a new clause 37A. The clause said: “Under no circumstances will an offender be regarded as suitable for home detention if they have committed a violent offence or sexual offence.” Well, that is totally consistent with our policy, and I am glad the National Party is picking up New Zealand First policy, but it does that all the time, does it not? So we are not at all surprised to see our policy being mirrored in National Party policy yet again.

There was a referendum in New Zealand not too long ago, in which 92 percent of New Zealanders wanted tougher legislation. They did not really get it in the Parole Act and the Sentencing Act in 2002, and that is why we opposed that legislation. It is interesting that only recently in this House, 0.3 percent of people in New Zealand society—homosexuals and lesbians—wanted a form of legislation, and this minority Labour Government has given it to them. That shows where the priorities of this minority Labour Government are. It will not support tougher legislation, as New Zealand First would do on sentencing and parole, but it will support very, very readily the 0.3 percent of the community who want a certain type of lifestyle—a type of lifestyle that is not lived by 99.7 percent of our society.

That shows up this Labour Party for what it is. It has no heart for tough legislation. This legislation is totally out of order, in the sense that those people should be made to continue their sentences. The minority Labour Government, if it had wanted to adopt that policy, could have brought in legislation to that effect, just as it has brought in legislation for homosexuals and lesbians. It has failed to do so, and that shows the weakness of the Government on law and order matters.

Green Party members are next and they wish to have two speakers with 5 minutes each. The bell will be at 4 minutes.

Like Mr Worth, I would like to refer to some of the contributions of previous speakers. It has been instructive and interesting to hear members across the Chamber talk about the different and very serious issues that this legislation raises. We could characterise the contributions from the National Party, New Zealand First, and ACT as basically saying that the legislation does not go far enough, that it is weak legislation, and it is just showing the Government’s soft-on-crime credentials. As is usually the case, that has been done without offering any real solutions as to how those things should be fixed.

I say that, but it is not quite fair, because New Zealand First and ACT did offer some solutions—unworkable solutions, rhetorical devices, meaningless and impractical—but they did offer solutions, unlike the National Party members, who criticised but had nothing to say about how they would address this serious problem and, given that the legislation does not go far enough, what they would do to make it go further. Of course, National does not need to express a policy, because it will leave that to ACT and New Zealand First, which are desperate to get in on the tough-on-crime rhetoric for the last week that they can claim that prize. Come Sunday, all their policies will be stolen by Dr Brash! Mr Worth has told us exactly what will happen. He said that it would be on 4 July—a good date, in deference to their American idol.

💬 Darren Hughes: Without reservation!

That is right. So Mr Brash will be stealing the policies of ACT and New Zealand First on Sunday in order to have another attempt at pushing the emotional buttons of the New Zealand electorate to get a quick rush in the polls. It will be interesting to see whether that works for the National Party.

💬 Darren Hughes: But it’s never the same the morning after.

That is right. Who knows what sort of headache they will wake up with? This is serious legislation. At the heart of the debate is a real question about whether extending supervision is double jeopardy and whether it is punishment. The Justice and Electoral Committee talked a lot about the issue. Lianne Dalziel spoke very strongly at the committee and made her point just now in the debate on the third reading. Her opinion is that it is not punishment. I think that that is a semantic device to get around the problem. I do not see how we can say that adding restrictions to a person against his or her will is not a punishment of some form. The question is whether that punishment is justified, and I have already indicated to the House this evening that I think it is justified in light of the serious risk and the serious consequences we are talking about when it comes to child sex offenders.

Unfortunately the Committee did not support my Supplementary Order Paper that proposed a sunset clause. One of the things we have to remember is that this legislation was an attempt to patch up and fix up a legacy of National Government inactivity during its last term in Government. Many of the people sentenced today under the Sentencing Act 2002—the kinds of people we are talking about—are likely to get preventive detention, which would allow restrictions and supervision to be put on them for the rest of their lives. That did not happen under the old regime. One of the principal things about this bill is that it is an attempt to create a situation to catch those people who were sentenced to a finite sentence under the old regime. They have been in prison because they are too high a risk to let out, and, because they have reached the end of their sentence, no supervisional restrictions can be put on them. It is unfortunate that that sunset clause did not get picked up.

I do support the legislation, but let us not forget that it is a patch-up. The real issue is about how we increase justice and how we reduce crime. It is not about sentencing. It is about justice. What we need is a package of solutions that will reduce crime in this country. That means we have to start focusing on early intervention and crime prevention, and start moving away from an adversarial system that is concerned only with technical questions of guilt and innocence. We have to take restorative justice and Māori justice processes more seriously. We have to look at prison reform. We should look at the Roper report, which was written in 1989 and has a lot to teach us today, and we should look at reintegration.

As members will gather from my colleague’s speech, the Green Party is not directly opposed to all these issues, even though we are dividing our vote. We just weigh the considerations a bit differently. We have to seriously weigh up the question, when Parliament brings in measures that are intrusive of privacy, of whether the benefit outweighs the cost to the community as a whole. Privacy is continually under challenge on two counts. There is a long-standing desire of State agencies—not just in New Zealand but also in other countries—to get greater surveillance powers. Unfortunately the speed of technological change and the efficiency of modern surveillance technology, with satellites, global positioning systems, and computers, make surveillance so much easier to do. But when one is bringing in an intrusive surveillance measure, one has to judge it according to recognised privacy criteria. Tim McBride, on behalf of the Auckland Council for Civil Liberties, in his submission referred to the four-part test of the former Canadian Privacy Commissioner in 2002. He said that any new measure must meet the following requirements. It must be demonstrably necessary, in order to meet some specific need; it must be demonstrably likely to be effective in achieving its intended purpose; the intrusion of privacy must be proportional to the societal benefit to be derived; and it must be demonstrable that no other, less privacy-intrusive measure, would suffice to achieve the same purpose.

Those who have promoted the electronic monitoring surveillance system have not justified it. It is not just about child sex offenders, because, now that the Minister’s amendment has passed, it is even worse. It applies to all parolees and, as amended, it does not even need to meet the test of undue risk to the community on behalf of the parolee. It can apply more generally. If the special conditions are that the parolee should not go to a certain place or places at any particular time, then that can be subject to the electronic monitoring by the global positioning system to test that the parolee is meeting that condition.

That is a very general power. If we allow that to go through without any particular argument as to why we need it and without looking at the real balance, we do not have any real defence against its extension beyond parolees to people on bail for all offences. It becomes an easy technology to use, and we start to go down a very bad track.

People have said in this debate that New Zealand is now at the cutting edge of this type of surveillance system. We are a test case for its international application. I do not think, given that we are moving bit by bit towards a surveillance state in terms of ID card systems that are coming in one way or another, and greater electronic interception systems, that we should go down an extra surveillance path without a very good reason.

There are other ways of going about the problem for the particular group that is discussed in this legislation—sex offenders. SAFE, in its submission, stated that there is a lot we can do to deal with the problem of recidivism in high-risk offenders by the agencies working together.

To move to a surveillance state does not make us safer, because it only leads to a more anxious, less-empowered populace who feel a sense of antagonism towards the State if they are under surveillance, and that leads to insecurity and to more crime. It does not lead to a better society and, of course, despite what Lianne Dalziel states, these provisions offend the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. Margaret Wilson said so in her very strong criticism of this legislation. She said very clearly that it offends section 26(2) of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. It also offends section 21 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and there is absolutely no reason why Parliament should go ahead against Margaret Wilson on this issue and against all the other people who made submissions.

I rise for United Future to speak on the third readings of these bills, and I have to preface what I want to say by making the observation that I was quite interested to hear Dail Jones from New Zealand First come out as the super crime-fighter talking tough and saying the word “tough” so often that we got the impression that he was trying to make himself believe his sense of toughness. It almost seems to me that he wants to go the full hog and to try to outdo the toughness of everybody else. He is going to institute a policy of mandatory life sentence and pray for reincarnation so that he could re-imprison the infant when reborn again, to show just how tough he and New Zealand First really are. Of course they are not very tough at all.

💬 Stephen Franks: They’re wimps.

That is exactly right—they are absolute wimps. They are not in favour of crucifixion, they are not in favour of flogging, and they are not afraid of eating at Bellamy’s. What I would like to say though, getting a bit more serious, is that we should have a look at the victimisation survey. In 2001, there were 70,000 sex offences, not including rape, in this country. That is a very high rate of crime in New Zealand, and despite the rhetoric of the behavioural apologists, the recidivism rate for sex offenders shoots up to 70 percent if we take a 22-year study and have a look at what they do. They may not reoffend quite so quickly in the early years, but in 22 years it shoots up to 70 percent, and that compares with an 86 percent recidivism rate for all offences.

So it is a very high recidivism rate, and the damage done by sex offenders is enormous. It destroys young children if that is whom they prey upon—it destroys families and rips them apart. The hardest thing for most families to cope with is to see the destructive force of those sexual predators on their children. It is absolutely heartbreaking. These are the most vulnerable members of our society and they are preyed upon by a number of these sex offenders. Of course they prey on others, besides children, but particularly in regard to vulnerable children it seems all the more poignant that we do not have legislation in place to deal effectively with them.

I have three major concerns—first of all, the recognition that the sentences were too lenient in the first place, and that has not really been addressed by this legislation; it is a patch-up job. Secondly, the recognition that our parole provisions are a joke: 86 percent of individuals are back in prison within 5 years, most of them let out through the parole provisions after one-third of their sentence. It is pathetic. Thirdly, the culture that the rights of the offender are, when in conflict with the rights of the victim, often given primary importance, has got to change. At some point we have to make a value judgment and say that victims’ rights and the rights of the law-abiding should supersede that of offenders. This should be made a standard practice.

At some point we must recognise that the good guys—the victims and the law-abiding—have rights that supersede those of the offenders. We cannot say that often enough. A sentence must give full consideration in retribution to the interests of the victim. It should not be circumvented, shortened, or given a discount. That is exactly what parole does—it revisits the sentence and says it was too much. What has changed? What amelioration has there been in the impact of the crime on the victim? Absolutely none! Yet we are giving a discount. That has got to change. I do hope the Parole Board is listening to this debate and that the probation service is taking note of the concerns raised in the debate and is taking them on board, because they will be held to account for this, as will the Government.

One thing I would like to highlight is that according to the Attorney-General the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act was a cause of concern. Well, again, we are talking about the wrong thing. Whose rights? The rights of the victim must take supreme position over those of the offender. Quite frankly, when an offender has already made the choice to offend and has been incarcerated and dealt with, the offender has made a choice and that offender’s rights are of lesser concern. The real villains of the piece—the music behind the sad operatic tourniquet on the bleeding stump of what passes for our criminal justice system—are the Sentencing Act and the Parole Act, of 2002. They are the clowns that maintain the circus of our justice parody, and until they are dealt with, until they are dragged back into this House and dealt with properly, until the provisions of the parole system have been duly altered to reflect the 92 percent who wanted tougher and more justifiable sentencing, we cannot proceed down the path of giving true justice to the people of this county.

United Future will support this bill because it is better than not supporting it. We have to support it because it would be on our conscience not to support it and to allow predators out of prison to prey on unsuspecting, innocent victims. But it is the Parole and Sentencing Acts that must be brought to trial for their culpability in allowing this farce to continue.

It is interesting that when the United Future spokesman was summarising he managed to characterise the Parole Act and the Sentencing Act as villains to be dragged back into this House to be dealt with. Of course, it is very hard for United Future members to look in the mirror or to look at the people they sit amongst and admit that those Acts passed by this Government would not be operating if United Future had used its vote to bring the Government down. United Future has propped up this Government, and, in the end, it cannot wash its hands of the fact that this Government has maintained an attitude that is completely at odds with United Future’s values on almost every issue that United Future says it holds dear.

However, I am in a curious position on this legislation. I support Margaret Wilson’s views entirely. I support what Margaret Wilson said about this legislation because she was right. This legislation trashes an ancient and very valuable principle—the principle against double jeopardy. It is explicitly retrospective, and quite unnecessarily so. I am sorry that people seem to feel there is a sort of macho credit in asserting that retrospectivity does not rank when it is weighed against the interests of victims. That is not a necessary balance.

It was perfectly in order for Margaret Wilson to have written what she did and for the solution to be very obvious—and the solution does not ignore victims’ interests. Victims’ interests would have been just as well—in fact, probably better—secured simply by dumping the foolish privacy provisions that restrict or discourage the police, and every other authority who has knowledge about these sex offenders, from warning people who could be vulnerable.

It would be very simple for the authorities to tell the communities in which these people settle exactly what they have done—simply to advise the communities of the proceedings in open court, the conclusions of the court, and the sentence that has been served, and to warn people to keep an eye out. The community does not need to rely on the agencies and the Government officials who believe they know best and that they should be the only ones allowed this information.

There was a solution that would have been perfectly consistent with Margaret Wilson’s warnings about the grave breach of established principle and with the interests of prospective victims. If the 44 people for whom the worst form of retrospectivity is reserved in this legislation had been named and had their photos published, the entire community would have made sure they were kept out of temptation’s way. That disclosure would have been completely consistent with longstanding principles of justice. If the courts remained transparent, we would not be pressured to impose fresh sentences of supervision after the men serve their time. We would not be creating that dangerous precedent of going back and, effectively, resentencing.

There is no getting around the fact that this is a new law to confine people for what they may be thinking of doing, not for what they have done. It has been a proud boast of our law for centuries that it punishes people for what it is proven they have done, not for what some authority or expert theorises they might want to do. We have to remember that despite the grave figures for reoffending by sex offenders, even the best predictions about the worst of those offenders are right less than 50 percent of the time. In other words, we will confine offenders on suspicion that they may reoffend, and we know that at least 50 percent of them will not do so.

There are far better ways of dealing with this, and the first is to have decent sentences. The second would be to trust New Zealanders and communities. When these people go out into communities, their neighbours should know what they have done. Everyone should be keeping an eye open for them. When they get into a position of temptation they should be harried out of it by vigilant police. There are not so many of them that that is an unreasonable burden. If the community knew, they would ring the police as soon as they were suspicious. ACT would substantially increase the sentences for what those offenders do, and there should be supervision at the end of every new sentence, but that would not override our ancient principles.

This is an attempt by the Government—and, it seems, by every other party in this House, other than New Zealand First, which is voting for this legislation—to preserve the discredited Privacy Act. I say to Mr Alexander that the 10 or 15-year-old theory that privacy stands ahead of every victim is what is being protected here, not the victim. This legislation is to protect the Privacy Commissioner and those absurd privacy codes. It asserts retrospectivity by Mr Goff as if it were a badge of honour. He should know that it is a badge of shame for any Minister of Justice. For once I will say that I honour Margaret Wilson for being so uncompromising in her comments on this legislation. She was right. If only she had insisted in Cabinet on a solution that then fitted with her conclusions.

This legislation also omits the other changes that should have been made in the Parole Act and the Sentencing Act. This legislation makes some absolutely ludicrous changes. The Supplementary Order Paper I put forward was a solution that would have helped Mr Goff politically. When he faces Don Brash’s speech on Sunday he will wish he had accepted the advice of the Parole Board, which he appears to want to keep. There is no place for parole, but he wants it. He would wish that he had accepted at least the urging of the ACT party over last month that the Parole Board be allowed to consider the purposes of sentencing.

Deterrence, denunciation, and accountability are all of legitimate interest to victims. They are all legitimate interests for the Parole Board to take into account. Instead, the board is very carefully confined to one role and one role only—to unpick the sentences given by the courts. According to the anointed that surround the Minister of Justice, the courts cannot be trusted. They may actually sentence people to a term of imprisonment that delivers some sense of balance. They may even give a retributive sentence. The Minister could not stand that idea, so his Parole Act made sure that the Parole Board deliberates in secret to unpick the decisions of open courts, and is allowed to take into account only what Mr Goff calls protection of the public. Protection is only one of the four recognised purposes of sentencing. He would have done well to accept my amendments that would enable the Parole Board to look at the other purposes.

The legislation also provides for the courts now to have more simplified grounds for setting a non-parole period. In my opinion, the non-parole period will now be seen by judges—were that regime to last—as the important part of their sentencing. Judges know that the non-parole period is now regarded by the public as the real sentence. The courts now have a near open sesame to set the real sentence through non-parole periods.

As I read the new criteria, section 86 of the Sentencing Act is now no longer confined to extraordinary or unusual cases. Judges will now be able to use it to set a sentence they want, with one qualification: this legislation does not allow them to go past the two-thirds of a sentence parole threshold. All that has done is restore the position for the courts to where the National Party had left it automatically for violent offenders. Parole was not available for serious violent offenders before two-thirds of a sentence had been served under the National Party’s much maligned legislation. It was rightly maligned. It did not allow truth in sentencing. However, we have a Minister of Justice who stands up in this House almost every day when questioned about parole and brays about having got rid of automatic release. He has now given the courts the power to stop early release, but stopped it at what was automatic for the National Party. That is so cynical, and it will be amusing to watch him wriggle and struggle over the next week or two to persuade people of the toughness of a policy that was anything but.

The Government may not like to hear that it voted against disallowing home detention for violent and sexual offenders. It had the opportunity tonight to fix up a glaring omission—one that it is questioned on time and again in the House—and the Minister tried to say it is all right. The Government had the opportunity tonight to vote to stop that, and it failed. All the Opposition parties, with the exception of the Government’s little helpers, the Green Party, voted in support of that proposal. Why did the Government not do that?

I want to make this very brief point. On Sunday there will be a revolution in our criminal justice system. The public will get a real choice. This Government will be left hapless and helpless, because it introduced parole eligibility at one-third of the sentence. The Government stands condemned for that and will be forever. That is why Mr Goff is ridiculed up and down the country. The legislation may be a small and modest improvement—that is why National is supporting it—but the philosophy of the two bills is ultimately bankrupt, and it will be changed.

Debate interrupted.