Parole (Extended Supervision) and Sentencing Amendment Bill

At this point National is supporting the Parole (Extended Supervision) and Sentencing Amendment Bill with substantial reservation. I say substantial reservation because the whole patchwork nature of this parole legislation calls for a comprehensive and careful review. National has instanced in earlier speeches tonight its real concern about the situation whereby a person charged with the rape of a child and sentenced to 9 years’ jail can, under the current penal policy of this Government, be eligible for parole after a period of 3 years.

I am glad that Minister Barker is with us tonight in Committee, because there is one issue that troubles National members greatly. In the haste to pass this legislation, changes have been made in relation to electronic monitoring that may be particularly significant. I would like to draw the Minister’s attention to new section 15A, inserted by clause 6A, which deals with electronic monitoring. New section 15A(1) states: “A condition referred to in section 15(3)(f) that requires an offender to submit to electronic monitoring may be imposed only on an offender who … (c) is or will be on parole, and electronic monitoring of the offender is necessary in order to provide the supervision required to ensure that the offender does not pose an undue risk to the community or any person or class of persons;”.

The issue that I am seeking that the Minister respond to, after consultation with his officials, is whether this change will have a wider application—given that it is an amendment to the Parole Act—to persons other than in the scope of this intended bill, which is to provide a new extended supervision regime that will actively manage high-risk child sex offenders. Electronic bracelets may be all very well, but people can commit significant society-harming offences whilst wearing electronic bracelets, and certainly members of this Committee who represent the Opposition parties would be extremely concerned if by sleight of hand an unintended consequence of this legislation is to open the floodgates to permit an even greater access to parole.

It will be obvious from what has been said to this point that National members have real concern about the parole regime. At this point we are supporting this legislation solely on the basis that there is clear merit in introducing a new extended supervision regime that will actively manage high-risk child sex offenders. In this part of the legislation, which is subject to Committee comment, it is relevant to note that the Attorney-General, whose views on the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act are often of concern to members of this House, has found that the provisions of this bill are inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.

I must say that I quite warm to the comments made by an earlier speaker who said that we should not be so much focused on legislation such as the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act but that we should be seeking to craft a “New Zealand Bill of Responsibilities”. The point he made, which is a very fair point, is that the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act is substantially concerned with the position of offenders. It is right to say that it is a hallmark of this Government that the legislation that has been passed to date regarding the penal sector is very much about the rights of offenders, and not, as I suggest it should be, about the rights of victims.

I will make just a few introductory remarks. This part of the bill has been introduced so that the Government can put in place active management of child sex offenders. I make the observation to the member who has just spoken that this is part of a complicated web. The previous legislation has made changes. For example, preventive detention is now available on a first offence, not, as it was previously, on a second offence. The age for preventive detention has been lowered. The third element is that the range of offences for which preventive detention can be imposed has been widened. The current law addresses a number of those concerns. Judges now have the option to impose preventive detention in more circumstances than they did before. So we see that, going forward, we will be incurring fewer concerns.

What this bill seeks to do, in part, is to address the inadequacy of the sentencing law, historically, where it was left undone. The second point I make in response to the member, who talked about people being eligible for parole at a third of their sentence, is that this is true but there has been eligibility for parole in many, many instances at a third of a sentence, for a long time.

💬 Richard Worth: No, it was a different regime. It wasn’t the Parole Act.

The member cannot deny it. But what has changed—and the member will not like listening to this—is that under the previous legislation an offender was automatically eligible to get out of prison after serving two-thirds of his or her sentence, regardless of the circumstances. So an offender serves two-thirds of his or her sentence, and then effectively that person is out of prison. The law has been changed now so that offenders are not entitled to automatic parole at two-thirds of a sentence. If the circumstances are such that the offender is not contrite, shows no remorse, or exhibits bad behaviour, he or she can be held in the system for the full extent of his or her sentence. [Interruption] The member says that we could, but everybody knows that there is automatic parole on serving two-thirds of a sentence.

The other point I want to make is that this is aimed at improving the management of sex offenders in the community. We are modelling this work on what has happened in other countries, such as Britain and Canada where they have seen these provisions put in place. We are looking to be able to have some effective oversight of these offenders for an extra 10 years, beyond the length of their sentence. I stress to the member that we are very concerned to ensure that people do not get the wrong impression. For example, the previous speaker made reference to section 15A, inserted by clause 6A. I say to the member that there is a Supplementary Order Paper to strike that clause out of the bill, because there was a concern that it could have the unintended consequence of letting more people out of prison, thereby weakening the legislation. This section has been drawn out because we do not want that to be the case. We do not want that to be the unintended consequence. I think the member would be very happy to see that his concern is being assuaged somewhat.

💬 Hon Tony Ryall: That’s what you call an effective Opposition.

An effective Opposition maybe, but we appreciate all the good advice we can get. Sometimes it is good, and sometimes it is not. There are those elements of it. The overall effect of this is to strengthen the control that the State has on sex offenders, beyond the time they have served their prison sentence. I am sure that all in the community would welcome that.

Nothing that the Minister has just said will alter New Zealand First’s view on this matter. We do not want sex offenders getting out of jail early. It is as simple as that. The community does not want sex offenders getting out of jail early. It does not want them out of jail after serving one-third of the sentence put up by the judge. Those people should be punished. They should stay in jail until they are at least nearing the very, very last months of a lengthy sentence, and they should be given treatment while they are in jail.

The only valid aspect of this bill, about treatment, extended supervision orders, and the like is that they should continue. They should be put in place after those people have served virtually all of their sentences, and the treatment should be for the 10 years proposed by this bill. That is where we differ. We could go along with an extended supervision order after these people have almost completed their sentence and after they have received treatment in prison.

I have appeared for some of these people. I would not want them out of jail, after what they have done. I have been in the No. 1 police cell in Auckland. I did it in the 1970s, the 1980s, and the 1990s. I have acted for some of these people, and they are despicable. To some extent they do need treatment. Lawyers start their plea in mitigation for these people by saying they need treatment. The problem with our system today is that they do not get treatment. They just come out of jail and the same old problem arises again. They should be in jail. They should serve their full sentence, and they should get treatment in jail. Only then, perhaps, they may not reoffend, but one does not hold one’s breath. When these offenders come out of jail they should always, as suggested, spend the next 10 years under supervision.

Section 15A deals with electronic bracelets, and they are an utter waste of time. What use is a bracelet? An offender can be wearing a bracelet and can be anywhere. No one knows quite where these people are, unless there is a proper satellite link and a map of the country, and the type of device that is in some police cars. What use is a bracelet? This point was raised by Ron Mark in the first reading debate, when we somewhat reluctantly agreed to let the bill go to the select committee. New Zealand First does not support this bill, we do not support this section, and we will be voting against Part 1.

In dealing with the release of offenders who are subject to automatic release, the likes of McIntosh and Ryder, I wonder whether the Minister would take a call and explain to the Committee why, in the case of sex offenders reaching their statutory release date, the Government has not sought to apply section 105 of the Criminal Justice Act, or whatever is its successor. That is the section that says the Secretary for Justice may apply to the Parole Board before an offender’s final release date, to have that offender not released. That would appear to me to be the means to meet Mr Dail Jones’ concern and the concern of all parties about not using the full power of the law to maintain such people in custody. I wonder whether the Minister would get some advice from his officials and advise the Committee on that question. Can the Minister do that? He could just bend over and ask the question, or otherwise we will just keep taking calls until he does.

💬 Hon Harry Duynhoven: It sounds to me like a threat, actually.

We are asking a question. We are wondering whether the Minister will ask the officials. Thank you; I appreciate that. It is quite a serious question, and we just want an answer.

💬 Hon Harry Duynhoven: The officials are not quite sure what the member’s about. Would the member like to explain?

Under the previous regime, when a specified number of offenders meet their statutory release date, at two-thirds of their sentence, there was a provision in the Criminal Justice Act—section 105—that allowed the Secretary for Justice to apply to have those people not enjoy an automatic release but to fulfil the rest of their term. [Interruption] That section still exists. [Interruption] Now it is section 107 of the Parole Act.

Why is that section not capable of being used more frequently for sexual offenders of this nature?

💬 Hon Harry Duynhoven: I think the member—

💬 Hon David Carter: Well, the Minister should be aware of the legislation.

I think it is a valid point because the problem with this is that many of this group are reaching their automatic release date under the previous legislation. The secretary can apply to have them do the remaining third of their sentence. Why is that provision not being used as frequently as we would like it to be used in order to maintain custody of those people before they enter the extended supervision period?

I rise for the ACT party on the Committee stage of the Parole (Extended Supervision) and Sentencing Amendment Bill. We are discussing Part 1, which is the part that creates the new regime for child sex offenders. Of course they are now the lepers of the criminal community. This provision allows them to be supervised, after their release, for up to 10 years. This is a very sensible set of provisions, and it should be extended across all offenders and not just for 10 years. If every offender served his or her court-given sentence, so that we had truth in sentencing, the offender should then be subject to a period of supervision of the kind contemplated by this bill, but only for sex offenders.

Why this provision is only for sex offenders has not been explained by the Minister. It is a sensible precaution against further offending. Sex offenders, according to the Justice and Electoral Committee’s report and the figures we were given by officials, are less prone to reoffending than most other offenders. The officials would have told the Minister that a typical serious or high-risk offender is likely to reoffend, and cost the community up to $500,000, in the 5 years following release on serving a sentence for other crimes. Many of the offences they might have decided to prevent by electronic monitoring or any other kind of supervision will be at least as bad, from a victim’s perspective, as they are for the victims of child sex offenders. I have no doubt whatsoever that the families of murder victims would be very happy to see the sorts of people who commit murder, rape, robbery, or the sort of thuggery that leaves people injured for life, under some kind of supervision at the end of their sentence that is as effective as is contemplated for child sex offenders. So my first comment is that, although this provision may be sensible, the limitations on it are very telling.

I also want to mention the amendments I have put forward in Supplementary Order Paper 228 that would fill a gap. There are repeated references to the rights of victims in the Parole Act, but no one seems to know what they are. Minister Goff tells us that the rights of victims are the rights to get information. Well, I have seen the reports that accompany a parole application. The reports that come from the Parole Board have a single page that states the offender has attended a course of X and completed it, or did not complete it; the offender has been in prison for such and such a period, and that is it. The victims thought that they might at least get some sort of comment from the prison authorities or from a prison officer about the behaviour of the offender, whether he or she is showing remorse, the psychological assessment, the predictions, and what the predictions might be based on, as to his or her reoffending risk. But no, they get nothing of that.

Well, we do have a benefit in this bill. At least now for child sex offenders, new ground has been broken and the Parole Board is allowed to provide the victim with more information if it chooses. The board is allowed to provide victims essentially with whatever it thinks is relevant, subject to a right to withhold things that may unduly breach privacy or the effectiveness of the conditions. I have suggested that this is the opportunity to define what are the interests of victims. My Supplementary Order Paper that I mentioned lists those interests. They are not novel; they are precisely what the Minister has said is the object of sentencing. They are to make sure that parole does not undermine the denunciation that the public can expect, and does not undermine accountability. That is the cute word used by the anointed leaders in the justice area to mean, I think, paying the price—what would more honestly be called retribution, or even utu, if people were ready to acknowledge what is really happening.

My amendment does not break new ground, in the sense that it records the expectation of victims that sentences should deter. I do not remember the number of victims whom I have represented or drafted submissions for—I think it is three. I have been to the Parole Board with two victims. I must have had at least 10 victims tell me that the key thing they really want is to know that the offender cannot do it again, and that other offenders will know that it will not be worth doing. In their own words they are saying that they do not want the deterrent purposes of sentencing to be undermined by parole. So my Supplementary Order Paper suggests that this bill has the definition, which should have been there right at the beginning, that it is the right of victims to have the Parole Board give due weight—the term used in the Parole Act—to their interests. They need reassurance that, so far as sentences may deter, and as we all know there is a great argument about that, the sentence is adequate to cause the offender and potential offenders to feel that it is not worth committing or commissioning similar offences against the victim or others. That is one amendment I will vote for, and it is, in fact, Marc Alexander’s definition. It is a very fine definition, and I will be very happy to vote for it.

The way in which I have phrased it in my Supplementary Order Paper is as a reassurance that the sentence actually served will still deter the offender or others from committing the same or a similar offence. We are both aiming at the same thing—filling a gap in the Parole Act, which means that “the victims’ rights to be considered by the Parole Board” is an absolute charade.

I have also suggested in my Supplementary Order Paper that we show some genuine respect for Māori concepts of justice. I do not believe they are any different from the concepts of justice that are known all over the world and that every culture upholds—that is, there is a levelling of the scales; there is something in the sentence that tells the victims and their families that justice means equality so that victims are not left feeling that the crime has damaged them and left the offender better off. And many offenders feel that. They see offenders getting something as simple as free dental treatment and free education, which the victim has to pay for. They see them getting tenderly cared for, as it appears to them, and getting counselling, and the victims are left without it. This Government has given $3 million to look after victims and about $500 million to look after the criminogenic needs of offenders. All that my Supplementary Order Paper asks is that the Parole Board takes into account, and gives due weight to, a victim’s expectation that there is a levelling of the scales and that justice is served. Mr. Benson-Pope can bray at us about this. This is what almost every New Zealander would think was the elementary minimum requirement of the justice system. It is only the anointed in the criminal justice establishment who could even be surprised at it.

My amendment also puts in other changes to make sure that parole conditions, or release conditions, do not conflict with what the judge said when he sentenced an offender. It should go without saying. But we know that the parole system was set up, in fact, to undermine sentencing. The parole system was deliberately set up so that the court could go through its motions.

I want to make a couple of simple observations. When I look at my Supplementary Order Paper 226 and at clause 4 and compare it with Stephen Frank’s Supplementary Order Paper amendment to clause 4, they have the same intent and feeling. They could almost have been written by the same person. The concerns that are echoed—

💬 Stephen Franks: And 92 percent of New Zealanders say it too.

Yes, 92 percent of them. Those amendments go to the heart of the problem—that is, we have a problem with our sentencing laws and we have a problem with our parole laws. These amendments are trying to do the same thing, but we are coming at it from slightly different angles. We are trying to respect the rights of victims, in terms of what the bill is trying to address. We are trying to ensure that the interests of victims and, in a de facto sort of way, the interests of the law-abiding citizens of this country, are being heard and dealt with in a fair and reasonable manner. It seems to me that when we value the interests and rights of people in this country, at some point we have to make the decision that the rights and interests of law-abiding citizens supersede those of offenders. If we have to balance the scales of justice, then they must nudge in favour of victims and the law abiding, against the interests of offenders. Because they do not always go together. They often contradict each other. In terms of sentencing and in terms of this bill, this is such a case.

One of the things I would like to see done in clause 4 is to put forward the rights of victims, to give them a sense of satisfaction that justice is being done to the offender in terms of denunciation of the crime, and there is precious little here of that happening. Time and time again, when we are looking at sentences and looking at parole, the overriding consideration seems to be whether the offender, if let out, will pose a risk. That is a concern, and it is part and parcel of what parole provisions should be, if we are to have a parole system, but it should not ever be at the expense of the sentence. Because the sentence is the time at which we give satisfaction to the victim. It is society’s way of saying to the victim: “We have measured the offence against you; this is the legitimate punishment that we impose.” Why suddenly do offenders get a break? Why do they get a discount at some later point? It is as if to say to the victim: “We erred on the side of the offender. We erred on the side of the offender in making the legitimate decision to say what the sentence was at the time of sentencing and we are now going to retract the impact that the crime had on you.” That approach cannot be justified.

We know that 92 percent of the population argued against that approach. This Government has not listened. If the Government wants to impose the failed experiment of parole, the failed experiment of sentencing, on the law-abiding citizens of this country, then it is on its head; it is on its conscience. The responsibility for future victims of crimes committed by offenders let out far too early will rest upon this Government.

My Supplementary Order Paper amends clause 10 by substituting new subsection (b) of section 107A—“(b) provides that an extended supervision order may last for as long as the offender is capable of committing further offences with no time limitations;”. My rationale for doing that is simply that it should have been addressed with the sentencing. These individuals should never be allowed out of incarceration again. But they will be. The least we can do is then to go back and impose a supervision regime to ensure the greatest chance that they will not commit an offence again. I look forward to support for that amendment from other parties in the House.

I turn to Supplementary Order Paper 228 in the name of Stephen Franks. The amendments essentially want the same changes as mine, and who would disagree? An amendment to clause 4, “Interpretation”, inserts a new definition “rights of victims”. The definition includes—satisfaction that the sentence actually served will show denunciation; reassurance that justice has been done; reassurance that the sentence actually serviced will deter the offender. These are all things we cannot possibly disagree with. The intent is that the judgment falls in favour of the victim, and against the offender. The offender had his or her chance. The offender made a conscious decision to cause an offence against an innocent, law-abiding citizen. It is now in the interests of justice to place the interests of the innocent, the victim, ahead of those of the offender.

I note Stephen Franks’ amendment to insert new clause 8A, to direct that home detention will not negate or undermine the purposes of the sentence for the offender. Again, how could one disagree? The point is obvious. This is a matter of saying that the sentence is supposed to deal with society’s punishment of the offender. Over and above that, home detention and other such provisions—supervision, and so on—are about maintaining the ability to ensure that the public is not disadvantaged or put at risk. They are two separate things, and one should not be at the expense of the other.

In Stephen Franks’ explanatory note of his Supplementary Order Paper he states that the purpose of these amendments is to empower and direct the Parole Board to take account of the judge’s reason for sentencing. In a nutshell he says it, and who could disagree? The judge is in the best possible position to be able to determine the impact of the crime on the victim and to determine the sentence. Why is it that a third of the way into a sentence the Parole Board, in its great wisdom, can turn round and decide to let the offender out of prison? The board does not have the judge’s wisdom; it was not there at the time of the sentencing, but it can decide to reduce a sentence by up to two-thirds.

The Hon Tony Ryall made a very good point. The offenders who are coming up, who will come under this supervision regime, and about whom we are trying to push this bill through, have the possibility of serving an extra third of their sentence because they come under the previous sentencing provisions. Why on earth are we not enacting that proposal? Why is it that the full measure of the sentence has not been visited upon the offender? If we are so eager to turn back the clock and use a bit of retrospectivity, then why not simply just extend the sentence? Because United Future would back it, I am sure National would back it, I know ACT would back it, and 92 percent of the population in the 1999 referendum showed they would back it.

I move, That the question be now put.

I wonder whether I could draw the Minister’s attention to new section 107H in clause 10 of the reported-back bill, “Conditions of extended supervision order”. I think this provision gets to the heart of my concerns about this bill. Everybody wants us to have some sort of regime in place for the small group of highly dangerous sex offenders who have come to the end of their sentence. The officials have assured me that they use section 107 of the Parole Act on these people to try to ensure that they serve their whole sentence. So everyone wants a regime for when these people come to the end of their sentence.

I would like the Minister in the chair, the Hon Rick Barker, to take another call and talk a little about the actual nature of the monitoring. Minister Goff said that these people will be subject to 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week monitoring. This bill provides that the parole authorities, in exercising an extended supervision order, can impose special conditions, and those special conditions can include the person living as if he or she were on home detention for a year. Then we get into the ongoing monitoring by the probation service. New section 107I(1A) states that an offender is subject to a special condition that “… may include a requirement that the offender submit to being accompanied and monitored, for up to 24 hours a day, by an individual who has been approved, by a person authorised by the chief executive, to undertake person-to-person monitoring;”. The concern here is that if the Minister is saying he will give 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week monitoring, why, then, is this a discretionary provision of an extended supervision order? The provision states that if an offender is subject to a special condition referred to in subsection (1)(b), the condition may include the requirement for 24/7 in-person supervision.

The Minister in the chair has talked about how there would be 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week in-person supervision. The use of the word “may” suggests that not everyone will be subject to that level of supervision. I wonder whether the Minister would take a call to explain why that condition is discretionary to the board, rather than a requirement that a person is subject to that 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week monitoring he talked about. He said in the Chamber that eligible offenders would be subject to that monitoring. We all thought that that would be in person—the sort of monitoring that Barry Allan Ryder had for the first part of his sentence before it got too expensive and the authorities cut it back—but it became clear that the Minister was talking only about home detention. If the Government is prepared to put in this provision, why is it discretionary, and why is it not mandatory that anyone on an extended supervision order have that 24/7 supervision in person, which would provide a level of security and safety to the community that traditional home detention would not?

The problem is that after the 12-month period of home detention conditions for these people we are back to the hopeless level of parole supervision by the probation service. We heard about quarterly contacts, and I do not think that is as good as it could be. This bill is better than nothing, but surely the Government could do better on this. I wonder whether the Minister could explain why the provision for the 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week in-person supervision is discretionary, when the Government is saying that there is this very small cohort that needs to be dealt with firmly by this legislation.

I move, That the question be now put.

This morning we passed legislation that allowed for a national register of dogs that are dangerous and might bite people repeatedly. The Minister of Justice this year said that he would support through this Parliament a national register of sex offenders, yet we have seen this Government do whatever it can to knock that legislation, kick it into touch, and get this legislation in instead.

This legislation will not do anything to protect people from sex offenders. I have just been reading the latest research to come out of Canada. It took 14 years for Canada to introduce a sex offender register, and it was done after an 11-year-old boy was abducted, raped, had his throat slit, and was then left to bleed to death in the woods. This crime was done by one Joseph Fredericks, who was released on parole on mandatory supervision—the same sort of supervision that is being created with this legislation. It was after people saw that the mandatory supervision had failed that Canada decided to go ahead and bring in a sex offender register.

In the United States the community is trusted also to be involved in community supervision of sex offenders. Americans have access to registers through CD-ROMs and computers. Parents are trusted to do everything they can to keep their children safe.

In this country, parents are not trusted to do that. This could be the safest country in the world; it would not be hard. We are an island where it is easy to protect our borders. We could protect the people within our borders. We could do it right by passing legislation that sends a message to repeat, high-risk, dangerous offenders that they will not get away with their crimes.

When I did my sex offender registry, I was contacted by a repeat sex offender in Canada who has written several articles on his rehabilitation, and he admitted that the thing that finally rehabilitated him was the sex offender registry. He realised it was a law that worked and that he lived in fear of, and he was terrified of breaking it because he never wanted to go back to jail again. He could not trust himself to be released. It was not until Ontario introduced a sex offender registry called Christopher’s Law (Sex Offender Registry), 2000 that that man was able to get on with his life. When he was interviewed for a job, he could tell people about his past and that he was a serious sex offender, because he knew he would never get away with it. His exact words were: “Only a public registry will work.” He said it was a law that made him go straight and not reoffend.

My colleague Stephen Franks has done an excellent minority report in which he states that we go into the dangerous area of double jeopardy, and we do not need to do that. It is just because of our stupid privacy legislation and conventions, which put the so-called rights of the offenders ahead of the rights of victims, that we have to pass laws that breach all conventions of justice. We would not need to do that if we just got tough on crime and kept our word about supporting legislation going through Parliament and supporting each other. I said I would support the Minister’s legislation, because he said he would support mine, and the legislation would go through together. Instead, this Government is keener to pass a law for a national registry of dogs than a national registry of sex offenders. The Government thinks it is funny, but I do not think it is very funny at all.

Several years ago, when Peter Liddell was released on parole, I went on the Holmes show. The Parole Board thought that he would not reoffend. Peter Liddell ruined the lives of children, and drove them to suicide and parents to despair. What happened? The Parole Board deemed him ready to be released, and last week he was back in jail.

I move, That the question be now put.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Are we doing all the Minister’s amendments as one vote?

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): We are doing all the Minister’s amendments as one vote.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. The ACT party would be happy to vote for one of those amendments, but if they are all put together, we cannot express that. One of them deletes section 15A(1) in clause 6A, which is something we are quite prepared to vote for.

I seek leave to vote separately on two amendments on Supplementary Order Paper 230. One is to clause 6A, to delete new section 15A(1), and the other is to clause 20.

I further seek leave, because we have an issue with that seeking of leave. We want the amendment to clause 6A voted on separately, but we would also like the rest of the amendments on Supplementary Order Paper 230 voted on separately from the amendments on Supplementary Order Paper 223.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): We will deal with the first seeking of leave. Is there any objection to the leave sought by the Hon Tony Ryall? There appears to be none.

Our voting will differ, depending on which Supplementary Order Paper we are dealing with. If we are voting separately on the amendment to clause 6A on Supplementary Order Paper 230, does that mean we will do the rest of the amendments on that Supplementary Order Paper as a block?

💬 Hon Rick Barker: Yes.

Then will we do Mr Barker’s amendment as a separate vote, and deal with the amendments on Supplementary Order Paper 223 as a separate vote? Is that correct?

At the moment, as I understand it, we have essentially a vote for all the amendments except the two that have been identified as Mr Ryall’s. So at this stage, there would be three votes.

Could the Chair please just clarify which three votes are we are having now?

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): They are clause 6A and clause 20. So there will be votes on those two. At the moment we will be voting on clause 6A, clause 20, and the remaining amendments by the Minister. Is that all?

💬 Nandor Tanczos: In that case, I seek leave to also treat the amendments on Supplementary Order Paper 223 as a separate vote from the remainder of the amendments on Supplementary Order Paper 230, after taking account of the leave sought by Mr Ryall.

So do we want Supplementary Order Paper 223 as a separate vote? That is OK.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): Is that all clear now?

Clause 20 is in Part 2, I am reliably advised.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): What does Mr Ryall think of that?

💬 Hon Tony Ryall: That is OK. Then we will have it later.

So we have the amendment to clause 6A, the amendments on Supplementary Order Paper 223, and then a vote on the rest of the amendments on Supplementary Order Paper 230. Is that it? Right.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 230 in the name of the Hon Phil Goff to clause 6A be agreed to.