Prisoners' and Victims' Claims Bill

I move, That the Prisoners' and Victims' Claims Bill be now read a first time. It is my intention to move that the bill be referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee for consideration, that the committee present its report on or before 4 April 2004, and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting, except during oral questions, and during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday of a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, despite Standing Orders 191 and 194(1)(b) and (c).

Most people, including myself, have a deep sense that it is wrong that serious offenders can be awarded compensation for wrongful treatment without those offenders themselves being required to pay compensation to their victims for the serious wrongs inflicted upon them. The best way of preventing compensation payments to inmates, of course, is to ensure that breaches of State obligations that give rise to them do not occur. To help achieve that outcome, Ministry of Justice officials are currently leading a review of current prisoners’ complaints mechanisms, including the Department of Corrections’ internal complaints process, prison inspectors, and external complaints mechanisms such as the Ombudsmen, so that any breaches can be dealt with at the earliest opportunity.

This bill sets out two major changes with regard to State compensation to inmates. Firstly, it provides that prisoners can be compensated only in exceptional cases and after exhausting all avenues of complaint. Secondly, if compensation is payable, the bill provides victims with the means to seek redress from the offender for the harm and suffering the offender caused them.

The bill requires that if a person in the corrections system brings a claim for a breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, the Human Rights Act, or the Privacy Act, compensation will not be available as a remedy unless the person can show to the satisfaction of the court that he or she has made reasonable use of the available complaints mechanisms and has failed to achieve effective redress, and that no other remedy or combination of remedies would be effective. These new rules will apply to all court decisions made after the bill takes effect. That includes any cases that are pending at the time of enactment. Requiring prisoners to use available complaints mechanisms is intended to ensure that complaints are brought to official notice and dealt with as quickly as possible. That will reduce any opportunity for prisoners to tolerate a breach longer than is necessary in order to claim compensation through the courts.

In the extraordinary situation where compensation is paid to a prisoner, this bill establishes a new mechanism whereby the prisoner’s victims have the opportunity and get assistance to claim redress from any payment that the offender has received. The bill does that by establishing a trust account and a special victims’ claims procedure. Any compensation paid by the Crown to an inmate, either in the form of a public law damages claim, or as the result of a claim in tort, will be paid instead to the Secretary for Justice. After deducting any legal aid charges and unpaid reparation, the secretary will place the money in a bank account, to be held in trust so that victims can claim against it. The Secretary for Justice will take reasonable steps to identify and notify victims of the offender of the fact that a sum of money is available to them. Victims will be sent an application form, and will have 6 months in which to file a claim in writing. To assist them financially, victims will be exempt from the usual financial eligibility rules for legal aid, up to a capped amount. They will also not have to pay normal filing and hearing fees. Victims, therefore, will not be disadvantaged in relation to offenders.

The procedures have been made as simple as possible, while still being consistent with natural justice requirements. Claims will be determined by a District Court judge sitting as a victims’ special claims tribunal. They will usually be determined on the papers unless there are exceptional reasons justifying a hearing. Victims will not have to re-prove the details of offenders’ crimes. The tribunal will be able to rely on the findings of fact in the criminal cases that led to the offenders’ convictions. Victims will have to provide information only about the harm or loss they have suffered—something they have already done, normally, through a victim’s impact statement. When all the claims against the offender are determined, the tribunal may make orders for damages. The Secretary for Justice will then pay money out of the trust to the victims, according to the tribunal’s order. Where there are multiple victims and there are insufficient funds to meet all victims’ awards, the available money will be paid out on a proportional basis. This new process and trust arrangement will apply to any money awarded as part of a final judgment or settlement given after the bill takes effect, even if a case is already before the courts pending final determination.

The third main feature of the bill is that it makes changes to the limitation rules that apply to victims’ claims. Although victims have always had the right to take civil claims against offenders for the loss or harm they have suffered, they generally do not do so. One of the main reasons for this is that such claims are usually futile if the offender has no assets and is in prison. By the time the offender is released, the normal limitation period of 6 years may have expired and the victim may be disadvantaged. Clearly, this puts victims at a particular disadvantage in enforcing their rights. The bill will address this by providing that, for victims’ claims against offenders, the 6-year limitation period will be suspended during all periods that the offender is in prison. Changes to the limitation rules will extend the period in which victims can pursue claims against prisoners, either before a victims’ special claims tribunal, if relevant, or in the ordinary courts. The new limitation provisions in the bill will benefit all victims of offences, whether the offence occurred before or after the bill takes effect, and irrespective of whether the offender has sought compensation, and even if the victim’s action would previously have been statute barred under the Limitation Act.

There will be those who say that this bill does not go far enough, and that compensation should never be paid to prisoners. That is a position that is not sustainable under international law, and may remove from the State the incentive not to breach standards. No comparable country—the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, the United States, or any European country—denies the right of compensation in those circumstances. This is a right acknowledged by the National Party through its entire period in Government. This flip-flop National Opposition might promise all sorts of things now, but it will never deliver on them, because when National was in power it never provided anything of this nature. Others will say that this bill goes too far. That also is incorrect. The bill takes a principled approach to compensation, consistent with New Zealand’s domestic and international human rights obligations.

I believe that the review of the complaints procedures that is taking place now, and this bill, will quite properly restrict the circumstances that may give rise to compensation payments to inmates. Where payments have to be made, the bill maximises the prospect that victims will be the ultimate beneficiaries. That is as it should be and I make no apology for that. I commend this bill to the House.

The question is—

💬 Hon Phil Goff: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. When I started my speech I inadvertently said “before 4 April 2004”. Of course, that should be “before 4 April 2005”. I ask whether that can be corrected.

💬 Hon Tony Ryall: Was that by leave?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): No, it was not by leave.

💬 Hon Tony Ryall: Well, you had actually started to put the question.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): In any case, I would have accepted that correction because it was a simple mistake.

💬 Simon Power: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Unless I am mistaken—and I stand to be corrected—the Minister had resumed his seat at the point that the chief Government whip arrived at his desk to advise him that a second mistake in a row had been made in respect of referral dates. My understanding of the Standing Orders is that at that point—the point that the Minister resumed his seat—his speech had terminated. The fact that the Minister had resumed his seat and his speech had terminated meant that the date he mentioned in his opening remarks on the first reading stood. Now, by leave he can seek to amend that, but the Minister had resumed his seat and his speech had terminated. I seek your ruling on that point.

💬 Rodney Hide: The point is that it was a simple mistake, and I am sure everyone would appreciate that. The date could not possibly be 2004. But there is a bigger issue, and it is this. Once a Minister on his feet mentions a date and sits down, his speech is over. In fact, Tony Ryall had been called.

💬 Hon Phil Goff: No, he had not been called.

💬 Rodney Hide: Well, Mr Assistant Speaker had begun to put the question. At what point is it allowable for a Minister to come back later and say: “Point of order, I got the date wrong.”? You could imagine, Mr Assistant Speaker, that we could have had half a debate—in fact we could have had an entire debate. The idea that a Minister can mention a date in his speech, then correct it some time after his speech, seems to me to be getting into very treacherous waters. I would like you to consider just where the cut-off point is for correcting a mistake like that.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): I thank the member for raising that. I do not have any difficulty with it. I heard the Minister say “2004” in the early part of his speech. I took it as a mistake. The intention was clear, and in any case his speech was not finished. He still had time to go—albeit he had sat down.

💬 Hon Tony Ryall: But you had started to put the question.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): Yes, I had. But I accept the correction. If it is not accepted now, it would be accepted as a matter of course when the Minister next speaks after the debate has finished. It would be accepted as a matter of course. The intention is clear. We are not playing games here.

💬 Simon Power: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I will not test your ruling, as that would be very unwise, but could I just ask you to rule on this matter. If a member resumes his seat, regardless of whether time is left to run, has that speech terminated or has it not?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): I am told that is a hypothetical situation. I think we have taken it as far as we can. It is a hypothetical situation, and—

💬 Simon Power: Can we get a ruling?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): I rule on actual cases only.

💬 Simon Power: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. As I said, I accept your ruling in respect of the circumstances surrounding Mr Goff’s error, and the House is in your hands to allow that correction. But, actually, we are not dealing with a hypothetical situation. We are dealing with a very real situation where the Minister resumed his seat after his speech—and, again, I am not contesting the date issue; you have ruled on that. This is not a hypothetical situation. When the Hon Phil Goff resumed his seat, was his speech terminated or was it not? That is the ruling I am asking for.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): I will need to come back to the House on that point. I am quite prepared to do that because there is a grey area there. But at that moment Mr Goff still had the floor. That is my view at the moment, because no other member had been called. But we will clear that up in due course.

That was a speech made by the Minister of Justice—maybe for just a few days more—who was done like a dinner on Morning Report this morning by the Leader of the Opposition. Dr Brash exposed Phil Goff for what he actually is—a Minister who is prepared to mislead the public about the effect of this bill so much that a reporter exposed him. It is a shame that the Minister refuses to listen to what I am saying. That Minister was done like a dinner on Morning Report by Don Brash. He was exposed as the worst sort of politician we have in this Parliament. He is one who is prepared to go on radio and mislead the public. Sean Plunket, who is no friend of the National Party, exposed Mr Goff for misleading every New Zealander who was listening to that programme. Mr Goff was exposed as trying to sound credible in promoting the indefensible.

Morning Report showed one of two things this morning: either Minister Goff does not know what is in his bill, or he is prepared to mislead the public because he is ashamed of what is in his bill. I will say why the Minister made the mistake of saying April 2004 when talking about the referral motion: because, in fact, it was in April 2004 that he found out compensation would be paid to prisoners. In April this year Mr Goff found out that compensation would be paid to prisoners. Do members know what Mr “Get Tough” Goff did? He did nothing. What he did was to continue with his bill that would have legalised some sexual activity between 12-year-olds. Mr Goff carried on with his bill to decriminalise some sexual activity between 12-year-olds, when he could have been blocking, stopping, and wiping payments to criminals. He thought that was more important than stopping payments to criminals.

This Government has got itself completely tied up in knots over prisoners’ rights. The answer to this is very simple and very clear, and it has been enunciated by Dr Don Brash, the Leader of the Opposition. He said “No money.” Dr Brash said this morning, as he was wiping the floor with Phil Goff: “This is a Government that says there is no money for tax cuts, but there is money for prisoner compensation.” That is what this Government says. There is no money for hard-working New Zealanders as a reward for effort, but there is money for prisoner compensation. This legislation has a gaping hole—

💬 Jill Pettis: What’s all the fuss about a date, when you can get up and tell porkies like that?

I want to tell Jill Pettis, because I am sure Chester Burrows will tell the people in Wanganui, that under this legislation offenders will still get the money. Every single one of those offenders who got a payment under the last set of payments by the Government will still get the cash. Let me give an example of where that happens.

If no victims are identified, the money goes to the offender. I want to talk about two men from Remuera, in Auckland. They lived in an exclusive part of Auckland and their children went to private schools, but when they lost money they resorted to trafficking pure methamphetamine, or P—amongst the most destructive and addictive drugs in this country. Using their status as businessmen as a disguise, they smuggled up to $14 million worth of methamphetamine in and out of the country for an international drug syndicate. Who were their victims? No victim was promoted during the court case. These vile characters were sentenced to jail for what the judge said was some of the most serious offending known to New Zealand, and there were no identifiable victims. Well, of course there were victims. The people who used the evil that these guys peddled on the streets of New Zealand were the victims, but not one victim was identified in the court case. If those two men, the Remuera drug dealers, do get a compensation payment, they can keep every dollar. Any drug dealer who gets a compensation payment will keep every dollar, because there is no identifiable victim. What does Mr Goff say to that? Nothing, because if there are no identifiable victims, the crim gets to keep the money. If the judge does not approve the victim’s claim, the money goes to the offender.

Under this plan, judges will be put in the unenviable position of having to decide how the compensation should be split amongst the number of victims. They will be forced to put a value on pain and suffering, and make a decision between victims. This bill pits victims against each other.

Here is the third outrage of why the offender still gets the cash. If there is anything left over, it is handed to the offender. This bill does not block, stop, wipe payments to prisoners. It allows them to keep the cash. Dr Brash on Morning Report this morning, when he humiliated the Minister of Justice—

💬 Rodney Hide: It wasn’t hard.

As Rodney Hide says, it was not very hard. I presume that Mr Goff was busy worrying about the demise of some of his proposals to decriminalise the sexual activity of 12-year-olds, but what Mr Goff, one of the worst sorts of liberals we can see in this Government, would not admit is that this measure will re-traumatise victims. The victims will have to prove that they deserve compensation. The victim’s application is to be shown to the offender. The rape victim will talk about the pain and suffering she has suffered over the years, and write it down, and Phil Goff will show it to the rapist.

💬 Hon Dover Samuels: What did you do about it when you were in Government?

I will say to Mr Samuels what I will do about it. I will stop payments to rapists and to murderers. I will stop these compensation payments, under a Government led by Dr Don Brash. Let us face it: the rapists are to read the comments of the victims. The victims will get legal aid, but so will the offenders.

I want to debunk one of the big myths from Phil Goff. He says that international obligations mean we have to pay this compensation. We have looked at the international obligations. There is not one international obligation that says we have to pay criminals compensation, and in fact there is a reservation to the international covenant that says that payments can be made only at the discretion of the Attorney-General. It is clear: payments can be made only at the discretion of the Attorney-General. That is why Margaret Wilson paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Mangaroa prisoners. Mr Goff should confront the fact that the only reason these payments are subject to the human rights legislation is the Baigent case. When the police shockingly raided the home of the late Mrs Baigent, whom I knew, and in that raid on her property took away her dignity, the court decided that she should get compensation. That is where this started. It was a court decision relating to the late Mrs Baigent. There is no international obligation whatsoever, and the Government has been told that. The Minister will not admit it, but the Government has been told that. I am sure that when the Official Information Act requests for all of the advice to the Government come out, people will see clearly that there is no international obligation that we pay criminals compensation. In fact, the international obligations say it is totally at the discretion of the Attorney-General—in this case, the high priestess of PC, Margaret Wilson.

This bill is an appalling fraud being committed on ordinary New Zealanders by Phil Goff. The crims can still get the cash.

That was a surprising address from someone who clearly did not listen to Morning Report very accurately this morning. He has not read the law on international obligations very carefully, nor does he understand the law on compensation. This bill, of course, is a patch-up effort for the failures of the previous National Government during the 1990s, which developed a culture of abuse within prisons, resulting in the mess that this Government now has to handle.

So this bill is the first step towards bringing something correct to the crazy world that existed under the previous administration, as represented by the previous pathetic speaker, who seems to be careless with facts as well as with logic.

The main way to stop money from being paid out to prisoners is to stop prison officers from ill treating them—it is as simple as that. And, of course, that is what the Government is doing, under its enlightened Minister of Corrections, the Hon Paul Swain. We will not see the need for this legislation, when it becomes law, to become active as a result of the actions of this Government in relation to prisoners. But we are still cleaning up the mess left by the previous administration. During the early and mid-1990s—in 1992 at Mangaroa, and then down in Christchurch—when the previous speaker, the Hon Tony Ryall, was a member of Cabinet, prison officers felt welcome to inflict cruelty and unfair treatment on prisoners. That will no longer happen, so this bill is really a patch-up for the problems caused by the last administration. The previous speaker ridiculed the bill, but he will not sleep well at night, knowing that he is the author of the conflict in prisons and the author who created compensation for prisoners who do not deserve such compensation. We know that this bill will have very little practical effect, because of the sterling work done to sort out our prison service so that we stop mistreating prisoners.

What an extraordinary speech that was. The member said that this Government was sorting out the mess inside our prison service! We do not even have a prison service; it is a Department of Corrections. Some of us would be very appreciative if we could get back to having a prison service, not a business unit. Some of us would like to see the return of a culture of service to the public, not the promotion of Labour’s much-vaunted reforms from the 1980s that were parroted out of the good member’s mouth there, when he referred to the prison service. I make it very clear right from the outset that New Zealand First will support the bill’s referral to a select committee, but we recognise that some work has to be done on it.

We need to peel back the pages and see what is not covered in the legislation. New Zealand First has long expressed its disgust at the fact that inmates have been paid compensation under this Government. This Government said that it would end the culture of excess, that it would stop the golden handshakes, and that it would stop unseemly, disgusting payouts to people. We all remember the payouts to people and the campaigns that the Government ran against Christine Rankin and a number of other public servants. However, what was the first thing that Margaret Wilson, as Attorney-General, did in respect of big payouts? She approved them. She paid out $230,000 to two inmates within a year or so of having her job.

What was another payout that this Government approved? There was the young man in the South Island who was not released after he had completed his full sentence—he was released belatedly, after having qualified for parole. He was held in jail for 1 week extra. The Government allowed that little piece of scum to get $42,000. And here is the real rip: that boy had been put in jail as a result of beating up a barber, breaking his teeth, and being told to pay $500 in reparation. Did the Government move then when he put his digit in the air, and said there was no way that he would pay the reparation? Did the Government move when the barber was on television, explaining how he had been viciously assaulted, had had his teeth broken, and had still not been paid reparation? No, it sat on its chuff and did nothing. So the Government did not pay out once or twice; it paid out four times. Then we had a ruling about five inmates who had been illegally detained. Once again the lights were flashing to signal that another payout was coming, but the Government did not do a thing.

Now we are sitting here going gasp, gasp, horror, horror, because there are more inmates who are likely to get $130,000. Why? It is because Labour is lazy. It is so focused on genetically re-engineering the New Zealand populace, on its social law reforms, and on representing the rights of inmates that it forgot all about the rights of victims. Now the Government expects the country to applaud it for championing the issue in the House today. Well, this measure is too little, too late. The Government has been in office far too long, and New Zealand First aims to correct that at the next election.

But the party that sits to my right is not immune from criticism, either. The National Party needs to accept that it has also played a part in this situation. The legislation that has allowed those things to happen has been around for about 9 years, and nothing was ever done. But, more important, the formation of an emergency response unit in the Christchurch prisons happened under National. That unit set about acting illegally and improperly, and breaching inmates’ rights, which put the country in jeopardy of such lawsuits, and was anything done about that? No. Now we go flip-flop back to the Government side of the House, because who is to blame for letting that debacle go on for so long? Inmates have been mistreated and abused, which has raised the potential for lawsuits to be lodged. That happened as a result of a National Party initiative with regard to an emergency response unit, but what did Labour do about it when it came into power and was told there was a mess down in Christchurch?

The first Minister to say he would not do anything about that situation was Mark Gosche. He was paid over $100,000 a year to do nothing. Did he redress the situation? No. Did he react to my call for an investigation? No, he did nothing. I am sorry, but I failed to mention that before Mark Gosche we had Mr Matt Robson, the great champion of civil liberties and human rights, as Minister. He is the man who is out there campaigning for Zaoui. He will do anything for some terrorist foreigner who has sucked up $2 million of taxpayers’ money, but he would not do a jolly thing about his own people being abused in his own prisons. Matt Robson is the great champion of no one for nothing, unless it suits him personally. He did nothing about the emergency response unit, the excesses, the allegations, and the abuses. He did nothing about the prison officers who raised their concerns. One of them even went to the Employment Court and had everything he had said vindicated.

Mark Gosche, who did nothing, came after Matt Robson, and then came the matriarch herself, Margaret Wilson, when she became the Minister of Corrections. What did she do? Nothing! Then came Paul Swain. Hallelujah! I begged him, asked him, and pleaded with him to deal with the issue. The select committee discussed having a select committee inquiry into the abuses and excesses in the Christchurch prisons. It took Paul Swain years, but finally he relented, and right now the Ailsa Duffy inquiry is being held into the excesses and the abuse of inmates by the emergency response unit in Christchurch. We get claims and lawsuits such as those, and disgusting payouts such as those, only when we break our own rules. When four Ministers in this Government ignored such breaches of the law and did nothing, we should not ask ourselves how those things could have happened. Rather, we should ask ourselves how we can have people who are so incompetent sitting on the Government bench and drawing ministerial salaries, using ministerial credit cards, living the life of Riley, and supposedly representing New Zealand. How can we allow that?

The problem is that we have had a succession of absolutely incompetent Ministers of Correction. We now have the Minister of Justice coming in over the top, with a bill to try to clean up the mess. There are three areas of blame. The National Party is one. The Labour Party is hugely to blame—all the more so because it said that it would fix all the problems. It had 9 years to plan for that, and it has been in Government for 5 years. The warning lights were flashing and people were telling Government members that there was a mess inside the Department of Corrections, but four successive Ministers chose to ignore that. Then we had an Attorney-General who handed out money like an eight-armed octopus gone mad to inmates here, there, and everywhere. And now we have the cleaner coming in, and trying to clean the mess up.

Well, New Zealand First is here to help. We want to make this law workable. We do not like the situation whereby inmates are being paid out money. We do not like inmates getting money that Agent Orange veterans cannot get. The Government announced yesterday that it will not pay compensation to the Vietnam veterans, yet it hands out money willy-nilly to inmates who get a bit of a hard time. New Zealand First is here to help to clean the whole mess up. We aim to do more than just work on this bill. Come 2005, we aim to clean up the Government benches well and truly.

The Greens do not support this bill going to the select committee. We suggest that the Government go back, identify the problem clearly, and rethink how best to remedy it. We suggest that the Government go back to the conceptual stage and take the time to work through the issues a bit more carefully, because this is hasty legislation. It has been drafted in response to a specific situation, and to claims that are before the courts and in the wings. We do not believe that that is a good basis for hastily enacting legislation that has such significant and enduring effects. Of course, there is an issue. Inmates are being granted significant damages by the courts for suffering abuse—tantamount to torture, at times—at the hands of the Department of Corrections. While I agreed with some of the things that Mr Mark said, I do not think we can compare that compensation with a golden handshake. I do not think it is in quite the same league as that.

The problem is that the victims of the inmates who receive such compensation—sometimes victims of terrible, terrible crimes—may be unable to sue those prisoners for damages, because the statute of limitations does not allow them to. That is clearly unfair. It is abhorrent to most New Zealanders, and I do not believe that we can allow it to stand. Having said that, there is a very simple way to fix the problem. It is to extend the statute of limitations. This bill does that in clause 60, and that is a good thing. Clause 60(1) states: “The limitation periods to which this subpart applies cease to run while the offender is serving a sentence of imprisonment in a penal institution or a prison.” That is a very sensible amendment, and the Greens support it.

Out of a concern for victims, we would also look at supporting ways to make it easier for victims to sue offenders for damages. For example, we support automatic eligibility for legal aid for such victims, which is what Part 3 of this bill provides for. We support removing court filing fees, as this bill does in clause 27. So this bill does do some of those things, and we support those parts of it. However, the bill goes significantly further than that. It goes much further than simply fixing some bizarre anomalies in the law. In fact, far from focusing on the rights of victims, we believe it puts up a smokescreen. It makes a number of changes that are more in the nature of protecting the Crown from liability for its own actions with regard to prisoners than they are about protecting victims’ rights.

Let us look at what the bill does. The Minister has run through this stuff. First, it restricts the granting of an award of public law damages to prisoners and people “under control or supervision”. Let us note the phrase “under control or supervision”. Despite the Minister’s assertions, that is not just about serious violent offenders who are in prison for the most heinous offences. That may well be so in some of the cases that are before the courts now, but this wording means that people who are doing community service for very minor offences will have their right to sue the department for significant breaches of basic human rights restricted. In any case, the law is supposed to be blind to the status of individuals. It is supposed to treat all people equally, regardless of our views of them. This bill is a significant infringement of that principle. It forces people to rely on the official complaints procedure. That weakens the most effective protection against abuse in the prison and correctional system, which is the ability to seek damages. Russell Fairbrother mentioned that. He said that the best way to stop compensation from being paid out was to stop the abuse. I absolutely agree with that, but what we are doing is removing that sanction from the department. That is a very dangerous thing, particularly when we bear in mind that the Government has strenuously resisted the establishment of a complaints body that is independent of the Department of Corrections.

The second thing that the bill does is to provide that any money awarded, even under that highly restrictive scheme, will be frozen for 6 months while victims of the inmate are informed of their chance to sue. Interestingly, given that the bill claims to be about victims’ rights, any moneys that are paid out from those frozen funds will, under clause 17, be used firstly to pay off any legal aid bills—that is an interesting thing—and secondly to pay for reparations. Only thirdly will compensation claimants be able to get hold of any of that money. Again, that brings into question the actual intent of the bill. Just as an aside, the Greens would have supported legislation that stated that any compensation money must first go towards paying off any fines, outstanding reparation orders, or things like that. But it is also interesting that fines are absent from the list.

The third thing that the bill does is to set in place a special procedure under which victims will be able to sue offenders: the victims’ special claims tribunals. We are seeing here the establishment of a new kind of tribunal. Again, it is being done in haste. The implications of that have not been well-thought-through. Normally, we would expect to see significant policy work done before such a thing was introduced. We would expect to see a discussion document from the Law Commission, papers go out for public submissions, submissions come back, and then the development of a bill. But because this is a hasty bill that is designed to protect the Crown from liability, we are seeing a significant new procedure being set up, the implications of which simply have not been thought through. Hearings will be on the papers except under exceptional circumstances, when the plaintiff can give oral evidence. Interestingly, the defendant apparently will not be able to give oral evidence; only the plaintiff will, which seems unfair.

The other interesting aspect is that action can be taken “by or on behalf of” a victim. The Minister has suggested that many victims may not want to sue offenders for damages, and so are unlikely to take action. So we may see a number of cases coming through on behalf of victims. It may well be that the victim does not want payment from the offender; he or she may see that as distasteful. The Minister has suggested that many payments may well go to organisations apart from the plaintiff. That opens up, I think, the very worrying possibility of some unscrupulous organisations—and there are many good organisations working in this area—that claim to represent victims manipulating victims of crime who have no wish to initiate proceedings into allowing those organisations to take proceedings on their behalf, in return for keeping the proceeds. Given that the bill puts in place a special procedure to sue that is all about expediting the award of damages to the victim, I think that procedure is seriously open to misuse by people whom the bill is not at all intended to benefit. I think the Minister needs to take a very careful look at that.

This bill has already caused significant disquiet in the legal fraternity and among organisations with an interest in, or a commitment to, civil rights. Once again, the Green Party is the only voice in Parliament that is prepared to defend some basic civil rights. While some people and some members of this House view civil and human rights as a kind of fluffy, PC thing, or as an expendable luxury, basic human and civil rights are, in fact, what distinguishes and separates a just nation from a tyranny.

I rise for the ACT party to address the Minister of Justice’s hasty Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Bill.

💬 Dr Wayne Mapp: Hasty?

This bill looks as if he still has not had a chance to read it. I would not be surprised if he has not read it properly. Of course, the Government has only one halfway-competent Minister in the field. The Government is riddled with Ministers, Associate Ministers, and others that it needs to take out of its caucus and stick into Cabinet so that it can halfway trust them.

Here is a bill that falls squarely within the scope of the authority of the Minister of Corrections. It could have been dealt with by the Minister who has negotiated some of these dreadful payouts, the Hon Margaret Wilson, but she is, of course, getting the kick upstairs and obviously could not have been trusted to sort out this little mess. The Hon Paul Swain is in the House and is, I hope, preparing to take a call and speak on this bill, because this is, again, something that was absolutely predictable when his Corrections Bill went through earlier this year. That was a bill that simply opens the Government up to more claims like this. Chapman Tripp, my old law firm, took the precaution of putting in writing its warnings to the select committee on the likelihood of increased liability of the Crown under the new Corrections Act. These are liabilities that are utterly immoral. These are liabilities that the courts impose because they want to get into the business of straightening out the Department of Corrections.

As Ron Mark said earlier, there are reasons why prisoners have grievances against the prison authorities. In a civilised country it is important that those grievances be addressed. Being healthy and safe are minimum requirements for prisoners—safe from each other, safe from abusive behaviour by officers, and safe from themselves if the misery that they are dealing with is too great. But that does not mean that they should be getting paid great sums of money because their rights have been abused. It means that the visiting justices should be doing their jobs. Instead, Mr Swain passed a bill earlier this year that turned the visiting justices—who should be blowing the whistle on this kind of thing, who should have independent clout, who should have the mana of their judicial office to draw attention to abuses in prisons—into prison toadies. A visiting justice is any lawyer of 7 years’ standing whom the department wants to retain and make into a formal part of its internal system. A visiting justice these days is hitchhiking on the honourable term “justice” with no claim to it. They are not justices; they are simply another part of the machine that is operated by the Department of Corrections. The Minister knows that that system will not provide the independent overview that will mean we do not get the kind of outrage that has led some of the prisoners to file their claims.

I will get back to what Mr Goff’s bill does. I measure that against the bill I drafted for him in a week in the middle of September, when it became quite plain that, despite his bluster and his statements that he would fix this problem, he was really just hoping it would die down and the media would forget it. It does not do the most important thing, which is eliminate the ability of judges to invent grievances and then invent remedies to deal with them. The 1994 Baigent decision involved a piece of judicial lawmaking that this Parliament had expressly considered and decided not to adopt. The courts gave themselves the right to give monetary awards for breaches of what they determined to be human rights law.

In the circumstances that we face, vicious criminals are making these claims and getting awards that work out at hundreds of dollars a day—amounts they could probably never earn anywhere—when they have suffered nothing except irritation and perhaps humiliation and a sense of grievance. The fact that their compensation sticks in the craw of victims is absolutely obvious. This bill does nothing to fix that because it does not give the victims an equivalent right. There is nothing in this bill that conveys the outrage and sense of loss that a victim feels when justice is not done, or the sense that most people in this country have that the price is not paid for a crime, or that it could lead to an outrage every bit as intense as the kind of offence that, in the Taunoa case, a judge decided should be rewarded with compensation for a prisoner. These prisoners—who may be feeling a sense of grievance because they have not had fresh towels, or because they have been forced to clean out their own cells—are claiming for breaches of standards that are not extended to law-abiding, innocent citizens.

What Mr Goff’s bill should have done, but of course does not do, is state quite simply that monetary compensation should be paid only when there is something to compensate. When someone has lost something, or when there is damage, then that damage should be remedied. But in most cases what these prisoners have lost is respect for their minimum rights to be safe from abuse, and kept healthy. That does not involve a loss of money, and there is no reason why this bill should not have included a provision that requires a judge not to invent a redress that is really an ability to attack the Crown. Instead, it should have said that compensation or damages should be payable where damage has been suffered.

The second thing that this bill should have done and does not do is stiffen the prison discipline provisions. I have already mentioned the failure to maintain the status of visiting justices. We do not want our prisons to get the sort of reputation that Turkish prisons had—Midnight Express sort of prisons. We do not want to be embarrassed in this country about the state of our prisons, even though we do want prisons to punish offenders. What should be happening here is that when there is a genuine claim upheld by the court, the court would really be doing justice if it had the authority to ensure that those who are responsible for it were brought to justice. There is nothing in this bill that ensures that. This bill should make it quite plain that when victims claim, they will be able to claim for the same kind of hurt and grievance that has given the offender the entitlement. We can know now that most of these sums will stay intact for the prisoners, because the accident compensation scheme blocks the claims of people who have been physically injured by criminals. The accident compensation scheme does not block claims for mental injury. So we will put victims, who are really claiming because they are outraged, through the hoops of having to try to establish that they have a continuing injury. That is humiliating for them, it is not healthy, and it does not do what this bill should be setting out to do, which is to even the scales of justice. It should be a very simple matter to describe a grievance here that is compensation for the offence of seeing a prisoner getting a sum that the victim could not get in the same circumstances, unless they were in prison.

This bill does not do what my bill did, which was to authorise and instruct someone to take the proceedings for the victims. The so-called tribunals are simply District Court judges who have been given another label. They are already overworked and do not have the time. There is nothing in this bill that says they will get the priority they deserve. Lastly, it does not do anything about the money that has already been paid out. Although we do not approve retrospective law, there should have been an ability to simply save that money intact at least until it was determined, under existing law, whether the victims of the offenders who have already been compensated should be able to access some of that money in civil actions. This bill, as I read it, does nothing to deal with the offence that must be felt by victims.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.

This bill has given us a great deal of difficulty for a number of reasons, because from a purely gut, instinctual point of view, my attitude is that international obligations be damned. This is about justice in our own country. No criminal, for whatever reason, deserves one cent of compensation for being in prison for choosing to commit a crime. Sadly, whichever way we look at it, we see that the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Bill is a compromise—nevertheless, it is one that we have no choice but to accept at this time. Hopefully, members will be able to improve upon it during the select committee process. I say it is a compromise that we have no choice but to accept, for a number of reasons, but chiefly because the idea of expecting victims to have to fight to take the compensation given to inmates is an absolute affront to any form of justice, at all. If anything, it is another kick in the teeth for victims by our criminal justice system, which certainly needs a monumental overhaul. Criminals have won awards for things like hurt feelings. It is pathetic! In August 2004 the High Court saw fit to award $130,000 to five inmates for alleged mistreatment under the provisions of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, but that was only the beginning.

Let us consider one of those five, Christopher Taunoa. That man was in prison because he slit the throat of someone so badly that it exposed the spine. He put at risk not only the guards in the prison but also the other inmates. He was put into segregation for 700 days, and for that he was awarded a sum of money, because it breached his so-called rights.

💬 Stephen Franks: $55,000.

He was awarded $55,000. Sadly, there is no win here, because had he been put back into the general prison population, I have no doubt that he would have infringed the human rights of the other inmates and the guards. What is the Department of Corrections supposed to do with people like him? He must be in segregation for everybody else’s good, and damn his rights, because he has chosen to abrogate the rights of others.

I find it absolutely horrifying that—as stated in answers to my written questions—in the last year there have been 41 claims made for breaches of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, the Crimes of Torture Act, and the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, amounting to $963,000. There have been 26 claims for breaches of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and negligence, amounting to $1,569,000. There were three claims for assault and breach of duty of care, four for unlawful detention, one for loss of opportunity, and one for breach of privacy—that one amounted to $10,000.

There is clearly a problem within the corrections system that needs to be addressed, but compensating inmates is not the way to do it. The total external legal costs incurred by the Department of Corrections for the five inmates was $616,938.20 as at June 2004. The total amount of legal aid paid in relation to those proceedings was $357,961.96 as at September 2004. The Government is appealing the claims, which will escalate the cost to taxpayers further, but regardless of that course of action, for the $130,000 that was given in compensation, $1,104,900 has already been spent. That works out at an average of $220,980 per criminal. The inmates’ lawyer, Tony Ellis, has filed a claim on behalf of 18 other criminals, and has sought permission to represent 175 more. Assuming similar costs and outcomes, that means it will cost at least another $3,977,640 for the first 18 criminals, and a whopping $38 million – plus for the other 175. The taxpayer has to pay for compensation, legal proceedings, and legal aid for criminals who chose to commit crimes, and that is an affront to anybody in our country who loves justice.

If we add it all up, we find that the taxpayer could be stung for up to $44 million, and that is without looking at possible appeals. The fact is that law-abiding taxpayers are facing a potential bill that is outrageous in the extreme in settling compensation claims from criminals alleging mistreatment in jail. Complaints from inmates have been escalating at an alarming rate—from 96 in the year 1998-99 to 147 in 2001-02, 204 in 2002-03, and 226 in 2003-04. Successful claims for compensation will only incentivise those criminals and, worse, their lawyers—who sometimes are indistinguishable from the criminals themselves, in my opinion—at the expense of our notions of justice. The very idea that criminals are getting their taxpayer-funded day in court to claim taxpayer-funded compensation because they pose a genuine threat to the safety of guards and other inmates can be seen only as a slap in the face for all victims, and it is happening because the Government is putting international treaties ahead of the interests of justice in our own country.

The Greens are resolutely opposed to this bill. I cannot help but reach the conclusion that those members do not find it repugnant that criminals could be rewarded, but their position gives the rest of us who do care about the interests of victims an opportunity. I urge all other parties—National, ACT, and New Zealand First—to work together with United Future to make this bill achieve what it needs to achieve, because Labour will not get it through without one of our parties. We can make it better.

I turn to the content of the bill. Some of these provisions are quite positive things that we ought to retain. Any compensation that might be awarded will be placed in a trust until a victim decides whether to make a claim. Legal aid charges and unpaid reparation will be deducted. A sensible protection has been included so that prisoners on remand who prove a breach of their rights and who are not convicted will not have their funds subject to the trust. The accessibility of prisoner funds will be extended to include offender income other than compensation, such as accumulated savings, bequests, and so on. Those provisions will also apply to so-called victimless crimes, whereby victims from previous offending are identifiable and may also have the capacity to take compensation from offenders.

I am also particularly pleased that the Minister of Justice has picked up three points that I have been strongly pushing and advocating for. They include a rigorous complaints process that decreases the possibility of compensation. As I said earlier, I would rather not have that possibility come up, at all. A victim will have access to legal aid to claim the prisoners’ compensation without regard to the victim’s financial circumstances, and I think that is important. As most victims do not actually want the money—because they think, quite rightly, that it is blood money—are scared to sue sometimes because of an offender’s gang connections, or do not want an ongoing legal connection to the offender, which is also understandable, an organisation such as, for example, the Sensible Sentencing Trust would be able to sue for the money on their behalf. I think it is absolutely right and proper that it be able to do that.

Above all else, we must understand that compensation—a reward—should never be given to anyone who chooses to commit a crime and finds himself or herself behind bars. Where is the compensation for victims for their loss of human rights at the very crux of the crime that was inflicted upon them? Yet offenders demand those rights for themselves. It is an ironic and absurd situation when those who most despise the law then use it to assert their so-called rights. Rather than criminals pursuing rewards that eluded them in the pursuit of their unsuccessful crimes, they are appealing to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. It is a pity that we do not have a “Bill of Responsibilities” under which we could make the criminals pay, instead of their victims and other taxpayers. United Future will be supporting the first reading of this bill and, with other parties, we hope to improve it immensely for the benefit of victims.

I support the first reading of the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Bill, because, in the first place, it ensures that prisoners can be compensated in only exceptional cases, and after exhausting all avenues of complaint; and, the second part of the double, it provides new opportunities and assistance for victims to pursue compensation from those who have offended against them.

I certainly would not regard that last speech as exhaustive or thorough. But I must say that I did appreciate Mr Alexander’s speech. He has put a lot of thought into the material and weighed the balance, and United Future will vote for the bill. He feels—and I suppose in some respect, so does National—that we do not have a great deal of choice, because there is the opportunity for the select committee to repair the damage of this bill. National’s position is clear: there should be no monetary compensation for prisoners, under any circumstances. That is not to say there should be no remedies, but we are clear on this: there should be no money for prisoners under any circumstances.

That is not the appropriate remedy, because that is not the loss they have suffered. In fact, it leads to bizarre and perverse results. It can result in the absurd proposition that victims might want the prisoner to get money, because that then gives them an avenue to get it themselves. Why on earth would we put victims through such a ludicrous lottery? The Victims’ Rights Act was dealt with by Parliament some 3 years ago, and National saw major deficiencies in it, and so did Mr Marc Alexander, who contributed to that as well.

One of those deficiencies is the very, very limited statutory regime for monetary compensation for victims. New Zealand lags behind in that area, particularly compared with Australia, and I know that for a fact, because members of my immediate family have had the direct experience of compensation for the effects of a crime—in fact, a serious assault—in Australia. We do not have that here, so we have the bizarre position of the victims’ rights legislation not having an adequate mechanism with which to compensate victims. However, in this situation, in the event that an offender’s rights might be transgressed, there is the opportunity for the victim to get compensation on a truly random basis. How would any victim know, in advance, whether his or her particular offender is likely to have some form of grievance?

When we look at the cases that were involved, this happened with the very worst offenders, because they are the ones who come to the attention of the prison authorities. They are the ones against whom the prison authorities have to take special measures. We heard from the previous speaker of the incredibly egregious behaviour of offenders that led them into the punishment regime. Ordinary offenders do not get there. They have to be particularly bad, violent, unruly, or difficult before that happens. All of that brings the offender to the attention of the prison authorities, and then they go through the behavioural change regime, I guess they would call it.

It is in the application of that regime that the alleged defaults occurred, which then caused the judge to award compensation of up to $130,000. In this scenario, the worst offenders in jail—who had committed the crimes, the ones who caused the most difficulty to the prison authorities, and indeed to other prisoners—were the ones who went through the regime that then led to the claim for which the judges awarded compensation. On that lottery, the victim then has a right to those funds. It is an absurd proposition—

Hon Georgina te Heuheu: A lottery!

But it is a bizarre lottery. It is a lottery based on bad behaviour—bad behaviour by the offender, actually, because that is what initiates the whole process. So as a matter of principle it seems fundamentally wrong that prisoners would get compensation that then leads to victims getting compensation. It is wrong in principle on that basis. I do look forward to the select committee trying to deal with what is, frankly, an absurd conundrum that they face.

Now maybe what they should be doing is going back to first principles and asking: “How do we compensate victims more effectively?”. Because that is, after all, much of the motivation of this legislation. How do we ensure that victims get properly compensated? Well, the answer to that is to actually look at the victims’ rights legislation, not this particular legislation.

Mr Marc Alexander said that he felt forced to accept the reality that prisoners would get monetary compensation. I would not like to misrepresent Mr Alexander, but that is what I understood him to say. I say that that is incorrect. The international conventions do not require that. The Attorney-General has to consent to that sort of thing. We could, on a statutory basis, essentially say: “No consent, end of story.”

I want to make it perfectly clear: National clearly wants proper regimes to ensure that prisoners are not mistreated. There is a range of options to do that, as the Deputy Prime Minister would well acknowledge. That range of options does not need to include monetary compensation. For instance, and this would be in the nature of a hierarchy, one can have administrative disciplinary procedures in relation to staff. That does happen from time to time—people get demoted in a position, and things of that nature. For more serious matters—and there have been a number of them—the staff would get prosecuted. They themselves would be punished for egregious breaches of the law. There might be more general retraining of staff—a clearer understanding of how to manage prisons.

Finally, of course, and this has arguably been one of the more serious breaches in this area, there has been a lack of accountability by senior officials. When one gets a culture occurring, as seems to have occurred in a number of prisons, where quite a large number of staff have been prosecuted, dismissed, or engaged in completely inappropriate behaviour with prisoners—it would be fair to say in some cases with the prisoners consent, but I will not go down that line too far—then one knows that something is fundamentally flawed in relation to the management. So the management needs to be held accountable.

Ministers need to hold their senior executives accountable. This is, after all, and the Government consistently says it, a core State function. Therefore, Ministers have direct responsibility and accountability. And when one gets a pattern of behaviour the buck actually stops with the Minister. Members might say: “That’s all very well, you deal with the problem of the staff, but how does that help the prisoner?”. Well, the way it helps the prisoner when his or her rights have been offended is that the breaches stop. That is the remedy for the prisoner. The breach of the law stops, and they are correctly treated. I think it was Mr Franks earlier in the debate who said that they have not suffered a monetary loss, so therefore why should they receive monetary compensation?

I shall expand on that point slightly. The Government sort of argues that there has to be monetary compensation to sheet home the level of responsibility and to truly sheet home to the Department of Corrections the level of responsibility. That is simply false. There are other ways to sheet home responsibility. I would guess that the prospects of job security would have to be the most important thing, and more important than that are the risks and prospects of prosecutions. What do the guards in Abu Ghraib fear at the moment? They do not fear that the prisoners might get monetary compensation in Iraq. They fear that they will be court-martialled. I return to the fundamental proposition. There should be no monetary compensation for prisoners. It is not necessary. Furthermore, it is wrong to put victims through that lottery. The problem is the legislation itself. That needs to be fixed so that victims are properly compensated.

I support the Prisoners and Victims Claims Bill and I want to see it off to the select committee.

I am pleased to take a call on the Prisoners and Victims Claims Bill. I want to say to the House and to those New Zealanders who might be listening that a fraud has been perpetrated on this House tonight and on the public of New Zealand. We have in the introduction of this bill—

💬 Dr Wayne Mapp: Which Minister?

In the first place, the Hon Phil Goff, but in the end, the Government, overall. This bill builds huge expectations for victims of crime, without actually delivering, and pretends to take away from offenders—prisoners—the ability to receive money for any supposed wrongs that have been done to them while they were under the care of the Department of Corrections. Of course, the Government was under pressure to do something about this issue, but torn as it is between wondering whether to continue the right of prisoners to make claims, but at the same time to satisfy the public demand for the rights of victims to take precedence over the rights of criminals, it has come up with this hybrid legislation that, in the end, probably will satisfy only the offenders and will do very little to fulfil any expectations that victims might have that the hurts and suffering they have had at the hands of criminal offenders will be catered for in the long run. That is why I have said that a fraud is being perpetrated on the New Zealand public and on this House with the introduction of this bill.

That is not surprising. This Government, through its various Ministers, is great for doing the great huff-puff job, pretending to be disgusted at certain things. We have seen that this week with the issue of Judy Bailey’s salary increase, where the Prime Minister and the Minister Steve Maharey did a huge mock-disgust act. The Prime Minister said that the pay rise resembled something of a culture of extravagance in TVNZ, it was not acceptable, and she would not stand for it. What did they do today? When three of the directors on the board of TVNZ offered their resignations they were given a little slap with a wet rag and told no, they should stay in their jobs—but not before the Prime Minister and Steve Maharey had huffed and puffed in the last few days about the disgusting nature of Judy Bailey’s salary rise. When they had a chance to do something to satisfy the public disgust at that pay rise, they did not do that.

A similar pattern of behaviour is contained in the issue we are addressing now. When the issue arose of prisoners getting huge payouts for supposed hurt and damage they had received while in the corrections system, and the public of New Zealand got all worked up, that, of course, was a signal for the Minister Phil Goff to give some of his vein-popping speeches and feign disgust as well. He is very good at feigning disgust, I might say, but in the end the words are not as important as the delivery.

As I say, we are seeing in this bill expectations raised for victims of crime. If it is a proper thing to do, if there are some principles on which this House believes that victims should be compensated for the hurt they have received, then that should be addressed through the victims’ rights legislation and not through some half-pie mumbo-jumbo that is contained in the bill before us tonight.

The other thing is, if we are truly trying to satisfy a public disgust at huge payouts to criminals, then this bill does not achieve that. The reality is that if one looks at the detail, and considers the hoops and barriers that victims have to go through to try to claim some compensation out of a fund into which money won by a prisoner has been placed, even if victims of any particular crime could be identified, it is highly unlikely that they will win anything back.

One then gets that invidious kind of situation where, on the one hand, the Government is saying: “Here we are, we’re setting up this framework whereby if this prisoner gets a huge payout the fund will go in trust and as a person who suffered at the hands of that prisoner, you can make a claim and you can win some of that fund.” Clearly, that is not true. If one looks at the detail, offenders will still get the money. If no victims are identified, and in many, many cases it will not be possible to identify the victims, then the money will go to the offender, anyway. So nobody, not one person who has been disgusted with the huge payouts this year, and in the past, will be satisfied with that.

Secondly, if the judge does not approve a claim, and there are a whole lot of reasons why a judge may not approve such a claim again, the money will go to the offender. If anything is left over, even if a victim was able to win a part of it, the remainder is handed over to the offender anyway. I guess on balance it is more likely that offenders who have managed to get a compensation payout will end up having that money paid to them.

Of course, there is the other side to this, and that is why my colleague Dr Wayne Mapp and I say that there is a better way to address the suffering and hurt of victims. Under this framework victims will be absolutely traumatised if they bother to apply for part of the payout of any of the funds anyway. As I say, it is highly unlikely, when they consider the hoops and barriers, that they will even bother.

But as I say, if there is a good principle on which this House should be seeking to develop a framework to compensate victims properly, then this is not the way to do it. We do not need to put victims through a trauma again. They are already victims. Under this bill a victim’s application for a payout from the fund is shown to the offender who can then comment on it. What victim would want comment from some person—for instance, why would a woman who is a victim of a rape go through such a stupid procedure and become traumatised all over again? Why would she? The victim’s comments go back to the offender. The victims may have to reappear in court in support of their application. Again, why should that be the case? [Interruption] If it is wrong, the Minister can explain why that statement is wrong. What he cannot deny, though, is that his bill raises expectations for victims, many of which expectations will not be fulfilled. They just will not be.

That is why I say that a fraud has been perpetrated on this House, on the New Zealand public, and on the victims of crime. This is a hybrid bill, no doubt hastily put together even though these payouts have occurred over a long period of time. In looking at the way it has been set out, one can only ask who put it together. Of course, the Minister will claim credit for it. However, it does not do him any credit. There is a better way of compensating victims than the way presented in this bill. The Minister should withdraw this legislation.

As there was no twelfth Speaker from the other side—and I take the point made by David Carter to me the other day that if we wanted a second call we are free to take one in a situation where National has had three calls—I thought I would spend just a few moments on the issue.

I am quite concerned about some of the statements made, especially by Dr Mapp. When he mentioned the Iraq situation, it made me think of the Middle East and Afghanistan. It made me think also of the situation in Guantanamo Bay. What level could we possibly get to in New Zealand if we did not have this type of legislation? Almost what Dr Mapp says is that the prison officer involved should be slapped over the wrist, perhaps demoted or fired, and off he or she goes home. We could have a Guantanamo Bay situation in New Zealand, and there would be no penalty on any Government. I am astonished that the Greens are opposing this legislation. I would have thought that this legislation was strong and did the sort of thing the Greens want to see done, because the suggestion by the National Party—one that I do not think is fully appreciated by the Greens—is that we could have a Guantanamo Bay situation in New Zealand, not in Cuba, or somewhere else, and all that would happen is the prison officer would get a slap over the wrist.

New Zealand First is strong on law and order. We are interested in this bill going to the select committee. We have been calling for it for a long time, and we have wanted to see it go there.

💬 Dr Wayne Mapp: Gross misrepresentation.

Dr Mapp says I am grossly misinterpreting what he was saying, but it is a logical conclusion of what he said. It suggests that the National Party, with its continuing coalition with the Greens on the last couple of bills, has not fully understood the nature of the legislation. That was very, very clear in the speech made by Ms te Heuheu.

💬 Nandor Tanczos: It does not protect them from physical abuse.

Mr Tanczos keeps interjecting on me. I do not mind explaining to him that we could get a situation where, if we opposed this legislation and supported Dr Mapp’s view, some Government could have a regime—and I know it would never happen in New Zealand; I am speaking theoretically, and, as lawmakers we make sure that even the worst situation cannot develop—[Interruption] Dr Mapp and Mr Tanczos are voting the same way on this legislation, so they are supporting each other even though they say they are not. I suppose that is the best place for me to finish on this particular issue. It shows the ridiculousness of the whole situation. The Greens and the National Party oppose this legislation but say they do not support each other.

Bill read a first time.

I move, That the Prisoners' and Victims' Claims Bill be referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee for consideration, that the committee present its final report on or before 4 April 2005, and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time during a sitting of the House, except during questions for oral answer, during an evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, despite Standing Orders 191 and 194(1)(b) and (c).

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Is there a means of moving an amendment to that motion, to omit the permission to sit outside normal hours? I would like to move that we omit the words that represent the departure from the normal Standing Orders relating to the sitting times of that committee.

I understand that the member might be able to seek leave to do that, but it is my understanding that it should also be in writing if there is to be an amendment.

💬 STEPHEN FRANKS: I did not know that that was to be the condition of sending the bill to the select committee until the motion was moved.

💬 Hon Phil Goff: The member should have read my first reading speech.

💬 STEPHEN FRANKS: The Minister mentioned the committee. He did not mention those conditions.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I advise the member that Standing Order 284(4) states: “An amendment to substitute another committee or to alter any proposed special powers or instruction may be moved if notice of such an amendment is delivered to the Clerk at the Table before the bill is read a first time.”