Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Bill

We are debating Part 2, which deals with the provisions for prisoners’ and victims’ claims. It is interesting that there are more provisions for—and, I would say, barriers to—victims getting hold of any compensation than there are for the crims. I want to repeat my comments from last night that this bill is a huge fraud that the Government is perpetrating on decent New Zealanders.

Members will recall that this legislation came about because of some huge payouts made to some of our worst criminals. The public rightly got up in arms and said: “What about the victims?”, and now we have a bill before us that deals with compensation paid to some of our worst criminals for supposed hurts they suffered while they were under the care of the Department of Corrections. It also contains provisions that allow victims, if they are known or can be identified, to claim some of that compensation before the money finally gets into the criminals’ hands.

What is annoying is that this is typical, liberal, namby-pamby, Labour-type legislation. This bill is an absolute affront to decent New Zealanders. In urgency, we are making sure that criminals who are awarded compensation get the money they have been awarded. The Government has put some provisions in the bill supposedly for the victims, which I will come to in a minute. Ordinary, middle New Zealanders—the people who could have expected something from the Budget that we had just the week before last—now have to be a witness to legislation that will allow some of our worst criminals to partake of compensation paid to them for who knows what. The criminals go into the prison behaviour management regime. They can allege that they have been treated wrongly, or that they have suffered some kind of mishap or stress, and get awarded some compensation. The Government is obviously soft on law and order. We have known that for the last 6 years. It is absolutely soft. To top it all, before the election it will make sure that criminals can keep their ill-gotten gains for whatever hurt they say they suffered while in the care of the Department of Corrections.

As I said, Part 2 sets out the provisions for the award of payments to prisoners. That money is to go in trust to be kept until victims come forward with their claim. But why would anyone do that? Why would a woman who had been raped by one of those vicious criminals, given the provisions in this legislation, put herself through the trauma of trying to claim some of the money that had been awarded to the offender? The provisions in Part 2 consist of barrier after barrier. It is a whole re-traumatisation for victims. Why would a woman who had been raped or seriously harmed by one of those vicious criminals put herself through that trauma? There is no guarantee that victims will get the compensation. They still have to show good reason why they ought to get some of it. It is absolutely outrageous.

That is what this Government thinks of victims. It absolutely does not care about victims. Shame on it! If the women in the Labour caucus are sitting there thinking that they are doing victims a favour, I say to them that many of the victims are female. They are subject to rape and all sorts of horrible, heinous crimes. The women in the Labour caucus are sitting there and letting this bill go through.

In speaking in this debate on the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Bill, I put on record the fact that New Zealand First believes that this is a sad day for New Zealand. It is a sad day not only for New Zealand but for the victims of crime. It is a sad day for the families of victims, and it is also a sad day for prison officers up and down this country, for reasons I will highlight in just a couple of minutes. As I said, it is a tragedy for this country when we see a bill like this being passed through Parliament.

One would think that when the Government was constructing a bill such as this one, on issues concerning the claims of prisoners, the very centre or core focus of the bill would be designed to look after the needs and emotional well-being of victims. But when we look at the clauses in Part 2—clause 16; clause 18, subclauses (2), (3), (4), and (5); and clause 48—we start to realise very quickly that victims are not at the heart of this bill, and that this bill is soft on crime. The bill should not be called the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Bill. It should be called the “Soft on Crime, Leftie, Liberal, Labour-backed-up-by-the-Greens Bill”. That is what the title should be. It is probably a long title and would not work in that respect, but that is exactly the meaning of this bill.

This bill will continue to allow payouts to the most vile and vicious criminals—unlike what Nandor Tanczos from the Greens was saying last night. When I said that this is a sad day for New Zealand in respect of prison officers up and down this country, I meant that they will be victims of prisoners taunting them and being able to say: “Ha, ha! We’ve got one up on you here. The Government is on our side. We’re going to give you a hard time and see what we can get out of this so-called justice system.” That is what they will do. This Government and the Green Party know it, but they will not do anything about it. They have not done anything about it for the last 2 years, since Justice Young made his decision. They have done nothing. They have sat on their hands because they have not wanted to do anything. They have wanted to keep the status quo, and they continue to do so with this bill today.

Members voting against this bill asked the Minister last night, before he got up and spoke, why he had to put the bill through, and why he had to put it through in this way. The Minister said, in his heartfelt speech, that—wait for it—this bill would not abide by international conventions if it took on amendments, such as the ones put up by my New Zealand First colleague Dail Jones, and so on, that would provide for money obtained to go to victims. He did not say—but he might as well have—that countries like Sudan, Namibia and Zimbabwe would be offended, and that groups like the Taliban would say: “Oh, no, no. You can’t do that.” That is how ridiculous that answer—that excuse—is. It is just unbelievable what this Government will stoop to, to find a way to be able to slip through its leftie, soft, liberal legislation. It is sad, and that is why it is a sad day for this country.

We can tell that there is huge public support for this bill by the number of people in the gallery who have turned up to support it—or the lack thereof. A number of things about this bill deserve special mention. Although some of the broader themes have been talked about already, and no doubt will continue to be talked about and debated, I think that a couple of points in the bill are actually quite sinister.

Firstly, in clause 14, “Guiding considerations for awarding of compensation”, subclause (1) includes “(a) whether compensation is required to provide effective redress;”, and “(b) the quantum of an award of compensation required to provide effective redress.” The interesting thing is that that assumes a sum of money can ameliorate an infraction that no other form of redress can. Time and time again during the select committee process I asked what those things are that could not be addressed through means other than money. The Justice and Electoral Committee never received an explanation—not once. When we think about it, if an individual has a broken leg, he or she can be given medical treatment, and I do not think anybody is against that. And if some counselling is needed for those poor, misguided criminals in prison, then by all means let us provide them with that. But why should they walk away with a sum of money? Why should they be able to profit over and above the medical or counselling expenses that we would otherwise provide for them?

The interesting thing is that there is a bit of a contradiction when we look at clause 13(1)(b), which refers to exactly that: “another remedy, or a combination of other remedies, cannot provide in relation to the act or omission on which the claim is based redress that the Court or Tribunal considers effective.” The problem is that this Government never actually came out and said what that redress was. There is a bit of subterfuge here. The advisers told us that part of the point of awarding a sum of money is as a penalty against the Department of Corrections. Nobody can deny that that is a viable and reasonable option, but why should that money go to the offender in prison? It is one thing to exert a penalty on somebody who causes an infraction, but it is quite something else then to reward a criminal.

So we have had cases like that of Taunoa, who was paid $40,000-odd because with him we did the only sensible thing we could. That man had slashed the throat of a person so badly that it exposed the spine. He was a danger to guards and other inmates.

💬 Peter Brown: How much did the Government give him?

Over $40,000. There was an appeal yesterday. What are we supposed to do with him? If we try to elevate his human rights—as, perhaps, the Greens would want to do—then we put the human rights of guards and other inmates at risk. Where should the balance be? It seems clear to me that the balance has to be on the side of the prison system, the guards, and, in fact, other inmates. Taunoa was put in solitary for a prolonged period of time, and that was the only place for him. It was where he would do the least amount of damage. To turn round and reward him for that is crazy.

The point is that two things have been inextricably woven together that need not have been: firstly, the penalty against the corrections system for allowing infractions, brutality, or mistreatment; and, secondly, the rewarding of financial compensation to the inmate. If we skip over to clause 16, “Compensation of prisoners, etc, must be paid to Secretary”—and this is the part that I find very disturbing and, in fact, quite sinister—we see the subterfuge that the money will be put aside so that the victims will have the ability to take that money off the prisoners, but further down the track, in subclause (5), we find something that has been slipped in quite surreptitiously: “a creditor includes the Commissioner of Inland Revenue …”. Am I just imagining things, or is that a way in which the Government is trying to extract the victims’ money?

Hon RICK BARKER (Associate Minister of Justice): We are debating Part 2 of the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Bill, and the essence of this part—

💬 Dr Richard Worth: No, “Prisoners’ Compensation Bill”.

💬 Hon RICK BARKER: It is the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claim Bill. The first key element that needs to be made is that this is going to strengthen victims’ rights to make civil claims against offenders. Point No. 1, which the Opposition seems to overlook, is that it is going to recognise that victims have first claim against any compensation. Who in the House would say that that is wrong? No one. That is what it does, yet the Opposition votes against it. The bill goes on to state that when compensation is required to be paid by the Crown to prisoners, then the compensation will be first paid into a trust account to satisfy any valid claims that are brought by victims against the offender. So the victims get any compensation paid to them first.

Marc Alexander notes that the bill will also provide that if a person owes fines, or owes outstanding reparation payments, or other bills to the State, he or she will come second. He says this is somehow sinister. Well, I cannot get my head around that being sinister, but neither can I get my head around some other parts of this debate. It is true, as Mr Worth said before, that this legislation is closely linked to the case being heard in the Court of Appeal today. Yesterday, Mr Worth put up the proposition that we might not have to do anything, because if the Court of Appeal says there is no compensation to be paid, then this bill is irrelevant. Well, that is not quite right.

💬 Dr Richard Worth: Why?

💬 Hon RICK BARKER: Because it is the sort of logic that says we should not put the roof on the house, because it might not rain. Well, the fact is that the claims are there. The compensation has been awarded, and if this legislation is not passed through this Parliament, and the Court of Appeal does not uphold the appeal against it, then the money will be paid out to Mr Taunoa and others. The very action they rail against will happen. I am amazed that Opposition parties are trying to stop legislation going through this Parliament that will give effect to the end that they want for themselves.

The other thing that amazes me is that this issue has been before this Parliament and the public before. In 1994 a Mrs Baigent took a case against the Crown.

💬 Dr Richard Worth: We were told this last night by you.

💬 Hon RICK BARKER: And Mr Worth did not listen. Mrs Baigent went for a breach against the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. The then National Government Minister of Justice went to the Law Commission and asked it what it thought. The Law Commission said that there needed to be an effective remedy for breach of rights under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, and that the international law reports link these remedies to these rights. The Law Commission said that people should be able to get monetary compensation for breaches of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. The National Government did nothing about that, and accepted that advice. That is what it did. Now the National Party turns up here and says that it does not accept it. Well, why was it good enough for the National Government in 1994-95, and is now not good enough for it today? It was confronted with this problem and ran away with it.

This Labour-led Government, with the support of the Greens, says that that is not good enough. In our view if there is to be compensation, then compensation should go to the victims first, and then any other payments made afterwards. But better than that, we have said we want to see these breaches stop. We are going to have an independent commission look at prisons and manage the concerns or issues that prisoners raise. Because one of the problems with the current situation is that if people perceive that their rights have been breached, they can simply leave the issue until they go to court at a later date. The public have this perception that a person can go all the way around the board, back to “Go”, collect $200, and do nothing in the meantime. Well, we are saying that that will not be good enough.

So we are going to have an independent prison complaints authority by the end of 2006—independent of the Department of Corrections—to ensure that if people do have problems, and their rights are being threatened or abused, then they can make a complaint and it can be dealt with at that level and there will be no issue of compensation. It will be independent.

The third point that the Opposition overlooks is that the Government, with the Greens, has undertaken to have an inquiry into the victims of serious crime. Reference to this will be picked up very shortly, and we will be under way with it. This is something that the Justice and Electoral Committee said it wanted to see happen. The Government and the Greens are going to make it happen. The Opposition parties oppose this.

I reaffirm the point that this is about giving the victims their rights first; secondly, it is to make sure we are compliant with international law. Some people make a laugh out of this, and I find what Craig McNair says—that we are looking to have the same sets of rights as the Taliban—distasteful. Also, it is wrong, because the Taliban is not a signatory to the UN conventions on human rights, as he as a member of the House of Representatives should know. The Taliban is effectively a terrorist organisation, and to compare its rights with human rights is just absurd. The member devalues the currency of his own opinion and standing.

I make it clear that the advice given to the Government is that in other like countries, such as Britain, Canada, the United States, the EU, and Australia, the rights of people to take claims when their human rights have been breached do enable them to have monetary compensation as part of it.

💬 Brian Connell: What about the human rights of victims?

💬 Hon RICK BARKER: We have a shrill shriek coming from National members for political ends, but the truth of it is that that is the dispassionate advice to the Government from officials, with no political agenda at all. That is their advice. Members can check that advice if they want to. New Zealanders go overseas, and they like to hold their heads up high as being good international citizens. We do the right thing, and we are good international citizens. I say to those members opposite that we should not have laws in New Zealand that are less than those of the people in the countries we compare ourselves with—Australia, Canada, Britain, the US, the EU, and so on. Those are the places that will enable them to have compensation. [Interruption]

I still have barracking from members on the left of me, from the National Party. I say to Mr Connell that in 1994, when Mrs Baigent got paid compensation for a breach of her human rights in New Zealand, the National Government did nothing about it. It said that it was acceptable to it. The point of this is that Tony Ryall, who has been leading this campaign for the National Party, was a Minister in the then National Government, and all the other hangers-on and Klingons in the National Party are still here. They did nothing then; they said it was OK. They said it was good, that it was fine, and that it was acceptable to them. This Government has said that it is not. We believe that if there is to be compensation paid, the victims should get the money first, and that is what this law will do. If this law is not passed, then the money that has now been awarded by the court to Mr Taunoa and others will be paid out. The people who are opposing this legislation will do their best to ensure he gets the cash, and we are opposed to that.

We have heard from this Minister. This bold Minister is apparently announcing an inquiry into victims’ rights. That says it all; that sets out the Government’s priorities. When confronted with the real issue—the balance, if you will—between this bill, the “Prisoners’ Compensation Bill”, and the rights of victims, what does the Minister do? He takes urgency on legislation for prisoners’ compensation, and apparently announces an inquiry for victims.

💬 Lindsay Tisch: Another delay.

Just a delay. The Government had real choice. It could literally have turned that round. It could have had urgent legislation to provide compensation for victims, and have had an inquiry about discipline within prisons. Instead, it is doing it the other way round, and that is a disgrace.

I say to the country that this bill is a code of compensation for prisoners, and I say that because detailed rules whereby prisoners will receive compensation are set out in this bill for the guidance of the courts. Those are the provisions of this bill. No doubt the Minister in the chair, Mita Ririnui, will take a call and try to deny it. But can he deny that under clause 14 detailed rules are set out whereby the courts will be required to pay compensation to prisoners? That is the effect of this legislation.

Under clause 14(1)(a) and (b), the courts will have to consider whether compensation is an effective redress, and then they will have to consider the quantum of an award of compensation. So they have to decide: firstly, whether compensation is the right remedy and, secondly, how much the prisoner should get. That is why National says this is a statutory code, being passed under urgency by this Government, to deliver monetary compensation to prisoners—not to victims but to prisoners. That is the starting point.

Then, and only then, will victims have any rights. The first rights actually belong to the prisoners. That is the whole structure of this legislation. It is a code whereby prisoners in our courts can sue for compensation and then, as an afterthought, maybe victims can have some rights to that compensation. But first of all the legislation is set up to enable the prisoners themselves to sue for compensation. It is a statutory code, being passed under urgency, that gives prisoners the right to sue for monetary compensation.

There were other alternatives. The National Party suggested another alternative, which was an inspectorate of prisons to deal with the issue of breach of rights, because that is an issue of some substance. I know that my colleague Mr Brian Connell has had something to say about the way to deal with issues around international law and breaches of human rights.

There is a different way, which National has suggested. We believe in putting victims first, not second. This bill puts victims second and prisoners first. We say turn that round, and then the Government would be doing something worthwhile for victims. At the moment it puts the victims into some kind of torturous relationship of further victimisation with the perpetrator of the crime. The victim is expected to almost “hope” that the criminal will get compensation, because only then can the victim get compensation.

I say to the Minister in the chair that the best thing to do would be to set up a proper victims’ compensation procedure—not an inquiry. We have had inquiries. The Justice and Electoral Committee has dealt with victims’ issues for a number of years, on other bills, and the committee recommended that there ought to be a system of compensation, as exists in virtually all states in Australia. The Government does not need an inquiry, and the House should not be spending time in passing a code of compensation for prisoners.

New Zealand First’s view on this bill is straightforward. We want New Zealand to comply with all international conventions, so we support the right of prisoners to go along to the courts to make a claim, if they have been mistreated in prison. We say that any money they receive should be paid to victims, only. We do not want to see the murderer of Coral Burrows, or the murderer of the people at the RSA, being compensated for their time in prison. We do not want to see prisoners being encouraged to misbehave in prison, so they may then get compensation. This bill encourages prisoners to misbehave and make prison officers’ life hell. It is a difficult enough job to be a prison officer, without having prison officers being provoked by thugs and the absolute no-hopers of our society, which would make a prison officer’s life even worse than it is. This Government has no regard for the well-being of prison officers and for the things they have to go through. Of course, the Government closed down the private prison in Auckland. It really does not give two hoots about the prison service.

We say that no funds should be made available to criminals. The Government should take appropriate action against prison officers and any other persons employed by the Department of Corrections who have created a situation whereby prisoners are entitled to make a claim. That is the redress that we say should be undertaken. If a prisoner is mistreated, then redress should be taken against whoever has mistreated that prisoner, but no actual compensation should be given to the prisoner himself or herself. Remedies such as dismissal from the Department of Corrections and prosecution should be utilised by the Government to ensure that any situations that would give rise to claims by criminals will not be repeated. That is what we should be looking at. We should be looking at a non-repetition of those events. But this legislation will ensure that those events are repeated, and that is the whole problem with regard to it.

We want to see any money that will flow, as a result of a natural right that is available to anyone who has been mistreated, go to people who really have been mistreated. We take the view that when a murderer, like the murderer of Coral Burrows and the one who committed the RSA murders, commits crimes like those, he or she virtually loses his or her human rights. In many societies, when people go to prison they lose all rights. Well, we do not have that particular type of society, nor should we. We should make sure that when people are incarcerated, they are given a decent way of life, are able to do their time, and are able to come out of prison and make a contribution later on. But the people we are talking about—in particular, the ones who are before the courts now, making claims—have almost lost their right to human rights, because of the way they have behaved in society.

New Zealand First proposed various amendments to this legislation, and if those amendments had been supported, obviously we would be supporting the bill. That is why we agreed to its going to the Justice and Electoral Committee. We wanted to give the Government the chance to get this bill correct, so that the various victims of criminal offences around the country could benefit from the funds that are to be made available as a result of this legislation. The Government was not prepared to listen to New Zealand First. It was not prepared to listen to the Sensible Sentencing Trust, which took the view that the funds should go into a victims’ claims trust account and should be paid out to all victims around New Zealand, once the specific victim of the offender had first been compensated from the fund. But no, this Government wants to support prisoners; it wants to support brutal murderers. Well, New Zealand First cannot support that viewpoint. We have also made it clear by, if I may just indicate this in passing, an amendment to clause 2 that this bill should come into effect on 1 January 2005, and should apply to all cases that are currently before the courts, including any appeals, so that any money that is made available by the courts must go into a victims’ claims trust bank account and be there for the benefit of victims only, and not for the benefit of hardened criminals.

I am staggered that the Greens support this legislation.

💬 Brian Connell: What are you staggered for?

Because the Greens are supposed to support the environment, and we know that many of those criminals have a great desire to go out into the pristine parts of New Zealand to grow certain plants that damage that pristine environment. I thought the Greens supported the conservation of our environment, but no, the Greens want to support those types of murderers, who commit their crimes while under the influence of cannabis and other drugs—cannabis that has been grown in the pristine parts of New Zealand and destroys our environment.

There is a race on at the moment. It is a race between the Government and the Court of Appeal, because the Court of Appeal is hearing the very issues that gave rise to this legislation. After a quick flick through the New Zealand Herald this morning, I see that what is going on in the Court of Appeal is being reported. The argument that the Government lawyers are advancing is that there should be no compensation in cases of this kind; that it should be enough that a declaration is made that a particular prisoner’s rights have been offended.

I made comment last night, when we were talking about Part 1, about the seriousness of what the Government is doing in constitutional terms. It is, of course, worse than that, because both the paper this morning and the Associate Minister of Justice last night indicated that whatever the Court of Appeal decides will be captured in this legislation.

We heard the most amazing comment last night from a party that is supporting this legislation. That was when the Green MP Mr Locke rose to his feet and said these memorable words: “This is a bad bill, but the Greens are going to support it.” How unprincipled is that? “This is a bad bill, but the Greens are going to support it.”

He is in good company in thinking that this is a bad bill. The National Party, on whose behalf I am speaking at the moment, and United Future, New Zealand First, and ACT similarly judge that it is a bad bill, and we are voting against it.

But even within the Labour camp all is not well. I was looking at a newspaper report of 10 February. Probably, if there is a competent lawyer on the Labour benches, it is Russell Fairbrother. Currently, he is tasked to be the private secretary—without pay and without position—to the Attorney-General. His task is to support Government policy. His task in a select committee context is to support Government policy, but could he? No, he could not. He made clear his concerns to the media, and they were reported in this way: “Government MP Russell Fairbrother has labelled his Justice Minister’s prisoner compensation bill a ‘lottery’ for victims and suggested principles, not emotion, were needed ‘to guide us through this mess’.” Then he made another comment. I am a member of the select committee; I heard these comments. He said: “ ‘What worries me about this bill is that it makes a lottery, so that some people who deserve it get compensated and others who deserve it don’t.’ ”

I would like to explain to members of the House, and to those who may be listening, why National opposes this bill. This bill is all about giving prisoners who are in a harsh regime substantial compensation payments. It is about giving them money for hurt feelings. It is about giving them money in circumstances where their liberty was taken away because they had been misbehaving in prison.

The Government’s plan is to compensate them, and we have heard some very specious reasons advanced by the Minister as to why, as a matter of international law, New Zealand should do that. Well, the Minister is wrong, and he has been wrongly advised. New Zealand is completely performing its international obligations at present. We are a party to two relevant conventions that we have signed and ratified; we are a party to two international treaties, and we have made it clear in both those treaties that there will be the rare class of case where, on an ex gratia basis, if a prisoner’s rights have been grossly abused, compensation will be forthcoming. The law calls those payments ex gratia payments. They do not arise as a result of the pursuit of legal remedies. Instead, they are payments made in the context of our international obligations. So if one looks, for example, at the New Zealand reservation to article 14 of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, one sees that we accept that there is a very limited class of case where such payments should be made. But the Government will go much further than that; it will set up a statutory framework for prisoners to sue, and, potentially, receive massive amounts of money.

It was refreshing to hear the Hon Rick Barker speak some while ago. [Interruption] Well, it was for one reason. He held truth in the same regard as one would hold a duck during duck-shooting season. One would not buy it any insurance whatsoever. He was a bit disingenuous when he talked about how all the moneys were earmarked for victims and everybody else who came second and third, because clause 17 clearly contradicts that. Clause 17 talks about the secretary deducting money for legal aid, reparation, and earlier orders and then paying the surplus into an account. Clause 17(1)(a) states: “first, pay out of that money any sum necessary to satisfy fully any relevant charge—”—then it lists three—“(i) in favour of the Legal Services Agency; and (ii) on proceeds of proceedings relating to the specified claim, and to which a grant of legal aid relates; and (iii) arising by operation of section 32 of the Legal Services Act 2000; ”. Then the clause moves on to the second category. Subclause (1) states: “(b) secondly, pay out of that money any sum necessary to satisfy fully any amounts of reparation …; and (c) thirdly, pay out of that money any sum necessary to satisfy fully any amounts owed by the accused or the offender under any relevant order made under section 43 …; and (d) fourthly, pay any surplus remaining into the account.”

This is a sinister attempt at the Government being able to recoup some of the money that has been allocated on the premise of human rights for these offenders. The victims actually come off second best. It is a way of putting the Government’s grubby fingers all over the compensation that it is forced to pay out by the courts, ahead of the interests of victims everywhere. It is a perversity, it is utterly wrong, and it is incomprehensible that any Government—or the Greens for that matter, who pretend to put the interests of victims first—can support a bill that does exactly the opposite.

Another interesting fall-out from the bill, as one sees if one reads through it, are two things that I think are perverse. The first is that prisoners will be able to bargain their proceedings for privileges. One can imagine a situation whereby a bunch of prisoners who state that they have claims for one thing and another, will then be able to bargain that off within the prison system in order to gain privileges so that they do not pursue the claims. The reason the Department of Corrections might accept that is that, first, it does not want the embarrassment, and, second, it does not want the additional costs of the legal proceedings in pursuit of it. So there is a very real danger that we will end up with prisoners being able to bargain away their proceedings for personal privileges within the prison system.

The second perversity, and it is the one that really bothers me, is that victims will be rewarded or not rewarded depending on whether their offenders pursue a legal claim. The bill will actually set up two categories of victims: those whose offenders are liable for a compensation claim, and those whose offenders are not. The interesting thing is that we heard testimony after testimony through the select committee process that victims do not actually want the money. They do not want to have anything to do with their offender. They want to heal and get on with their lives, but they cannot rest or heal their lives knowing that their offender is able to access any compensation at all. So they are forced by necessity into an arrangement to try to get it off them. That is an utter perversity, because in pursuit of the so-called human rights of these offenders we are, necessarily, undermining the human rights of the victims they offended against—and those offenders, because of their actions, chose to go to prison in the first place. It is an utter perversity, but that is what this legislation will do.

This bill will set up victim against victim. Even if another agency is authorised to go after the compensation, such as Victim Support or the Sensible Sentencing Trust, they will still have to partake of the process and be part of it. Obviously, they will be watching it. They will not sit back and just pretend that it never happened. Unfortunately, they will be dragged into it, and it will halt the whole process of healing on behalf of victims. I do not know how many members have spent much time with those victims who have to go to parole hearings time and time again to ensure that their offender stays in prison. It breaks them up. It rips those victims apart because they have to relive the crime all over again. This legislation will do the same thing.

This part of the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Bill is the heart of the bill. In simple summary, for the benefit of those who are listening to this debate, it states that prisoners must exhaust all the internal remedies before they can go to court and bring claims based on human rights law or tort law. It states that if prisoners do get an award, it must be held for claims by victims. The bill takes a lot of pages to state that. I think this Parliament should go for a practical test: what does this legislation save? What will it do for this country, for prisoners, for discipline in prisons, and for victims?

I have gone back to the judgment that prompted this legislation: the judgment of Justice Young in the case of Christopher Taunoa and others, as a result of which more than $200,000 has been awarded to Taunoa and his mates. That judgment, which is only the first of the judgments, is 136 pages long. It is 136 pages of a judge, at great distance, reviewing the case and expressing a view on how prison officers should have dealt with some of New Zealand’s worst prisoners. The judgment is fair-minded and even-handed, or it tries to be even-handed. But on a typical page the judge goes through a complaint by Christopher Taunoa that he was unreasonably restrained—the technical term is “confined and restrained”—after he had shouted at prison officers, rung the bell for prison officers, and gesticulated. The judge, having heard all the seemingly endless evidence, concluded that it would have been better to leave Mr Taunoa in his cell. That is an example of exactly what this bill should be making irrelevant.

This bill should simply state that people can bring proceedings—prosecute or foster prosecution—and that there should be a complaints system to prosecute prison officers who have broken the law. This bill should not have Her Majesty’s judges, at great length, second-guessing about prisoners who have suffered no injury that we can read about—prisoners whose litany of complaints included the lights being left on for too long or being too bright, there being too much noise, the windows being open or not open at various times, and there being a lack of respect for their dignity, and who then tried to categorise that as torture. The Government needed to make a simple response. It should have been “Stuff off.” The victims of prisoners have had their remedies eliminated under New Zealand law by the accident compensation scheme. Mr Taunoa and his mates qualify for accident compensation coverage, and they are therefore in the same position as their victims in relation to the alleged abuse. We should leave it at that.

Instead, in this bill we have pages of cynical pretence. The bill would be perfectly unobjectionable as it stands, if it were not being held up as the solution for victims, who will continue to see monetary payouts to those who have hurt them, when the victims themselves will not qualify for compensation for far worse hurt. The Government can do nothing to hide that. All it can do is to rush this bill through and hope the issue goes away, because the bill does absolutely nothing for victims. It does not respond at all to the victims who came before the Justice and Electoral Committee and said they were not looking for money, but were simply looking to make sure that punishment was punishment. The Sensible Sentencing Trust has essentially done more for victims than this Government, with all the resources it can command, has done in 6 years. The Sensible Sentencing Trust is living off the generosity of a very fine farmer and his wife who decided that something needed to be done, and who put their own time and money into it. The money from one of those prisoner claims cases would keep the Sensible Sentencing Trust going for a year.

The speech made by the Hon Rick Barker was probably the most pathetic PC nonsense I have heard in a long time. His message is that the rights of prisoners are more important than the rights of victims. If that Minister had got out of his office more often and come down to the Justice and Electoral Committee and listened to the parents of some of the victims of those lowlifes, he could not possibly hold the opinions he holds now. He typifies why there will be a change of Government when we go to the polls on 30 July this year.

A mother of one of the victims, who lost her daughter to one of those lowlifes, came to the select committee. She said that a gentleman—although I cannot use that term; a prisoner—by the name of Sam Te Hei had beaten her daughter so severely and so badly that she, her own mother, could not recognise her. If the Minister in the chair, Rick Barker, had been at that select committee, I daresay that he, like everybody else there, would have had a tear in his eye, because—

💬 Peter Brown: Like John Key.

Well, anyone in that select committee, I believe, would have had a tear in his or her eye. The mother said that she could not recognise her own daughter, because she was beaten that severely. I say to Mr Barker that her daughter’s “crime” was that she would not have sex with Te Hei, a stranger, when she was walking by. Mr Barker now proposes that Te Hei get compensation.

💬 Judith Collins: It’s a disgrace!

It is a disgrace. That is what the Minister is proposing. Following that mother into the select committee was the mother of the Sanson hotelier, in the North Island, who had his throat slit from ear to ear by one of the thugs that the Government now wants to give compensation to, as well.

💬 Lindsay Tisch: That’s disgraceful.

It is disgraceful, but what is worse is that when the act was perpetrated, that thug then tried to blame the victim’s son. The Minister is saying that that family, having been dealt those savage blows, can then go to court and sue that prisoner for the money, should he get it.

Are people going to get money out of prisoners? Yeah, right! Are they going to get money out of those thugs? Yeah, right! Does the Government have any regard for the law? Does it have any regard for the human rights of victims? Absolutely not. The only regard for human rights it has now is for those of prisoners. It is suckers like the Hon Rick Barker and his cohorts, and the Green Party, which says that this is bad law, who have come to the House and said that it is bad law but that they will vote for it anyway.

We in the Opposition parties are not unreasonable people.

💬 Lindsay Tisch: Soon to be Government though!

We are soon to be Government, because we are seen as reasonable people. If prisoners do not have their rights or sentences adhered to in a fair and just way, then, sure, there is a problem. But we should fix the problem, rather than give compensation to prisoners. We should fix the problem. We should go and talk to the prison authorities and make sure that they conduct themselves in a way that is appropriate. We should deal to those prison authorities and take them before the courts, if that is the case.

But to stand up, as the Minister is now doing, and say that prisoners have more rights than the victims against whom they perpetrated the most unthinkable acts is absolute nonsense. The Minister should not look me in the eye; he should hang his head in shame. He is a disgrace to the House, and the people across the country who are listening to this know that he and his cohorts will get turfed out on their ear, because they have had a gutsful of this type of PC nonsense.

It gets worse. I will come back to what we are being told about victims.

I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. Is the Minister’s microphone on? If it is, he has been interjecting all the way through without regard to the convention that he not do so, because he is in the chair and the microphone is on.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): I take the point.

In speaking on behalf of New Zealand First on Part 2, I ask first why this bill is before us. It is here because the public have become disgusted with the payouts that have been given to various inmates since Labour has been in Government. I will give an example, not in the words of New Zealand First but in the words of a newspaper article. It says: “A notorious Mongrel Mob member who once stabbed a police officer with a screwdriver,”—Mr Barker, although he is a former union representative who I do not think has worked with his hands for many, many years, might know what a screwdriver is; it is a tool, and a very blunt tool at that—“leaving him partly paralysed, has been convicted of assaulting another two officers.” This man, Mr Gillies, who left a police officer paralysed, subsequently received a $40,000 payout as a result of a deal done by this Government with him and with a bunch of other inmates like him, who supposedly were mistreated and had their “feelings hurt”. Well, I ask members to imagine the feelings of the wife of that police officer. I ask them to imagine the feelings of the partners and spouses of those prison officers, and to imagine the feelings of Mr Gillies’ own children, from whom he stole between $60,000 and $80,000 after his release from prison and after he had received $40,000 in compensatory payment from this Government.

Let us just think about that. That is taxpayers’ money. This man, who stabbed a policeman with a screwdriver, and who got $40,000 of taxpayers’ money for having his “feelings hurt” when he was insulted by a prison officer, within months of his release from jail had stolen from his children, out of their education fund—[Interruption] He stole $60,000 to $80,000, and Jill Pettis thinks that that is a joke. Jill Pettis is the woman who has been reported around the country as having said that she would not contemplate a coalition with New Zealand First, because its members are so unsophisticated. Jill Pettis, the woman who strips the varnish off the walls behind me when she speaks, dares to consider Winston Peters and New Zealand First MPs unsophisticated. It is no wonder she has some feeling deep down inside for men who would steal money from their children.

💬 Jill Pettis: When was I reported?

The member should not worry; it is all around the place. Why do we have inmates claiming money for abuse within our prisons? I hold in my hand right now a document, almost an inch thick, entitled: Report for the State Services Commissioner into the Department of Corrections Canterbury Emergency Response Unit (CERU). We waited for this document for 4 years. For 3 years New Zealand First asked for an inquiry into what was going on in prisons, and for 3 years this Government refused an inquiry. Then, when it became too embarrassing, the Government finally conceded, and 1 year later we have this report. What does it say? It says that abuses in our prisons have been going on for years, sanctioned by senior management at the highest level, under this Government.

Why do we have prisoners claiming compensation? That happens when a lazy Minister who thinks he knows everything and a Government that thinks it knows everything refuse to believe or accept the criticisms and observations coming from New Zealand First, the National Party, the Greens, and United Future. They refuse to listen, and the abuses go on. Is it any wonder that inmates are lodging claims and bringing charges? There are a couple of easy solutions to the problem, but they do not lie in Part 2 of this bill. They lie, firstly, in the next election. People need to vote against Labour in every way. They need to get Labour out. Secondly, we need a system in which our Department of Corrections is run by good people who respect the law.

I move, That the question be now put.

I want to put it absolutely on the record that the National Party and the other members of the Opposition—and even United Future, which is not in Opposition because it supports this Government—do not support brutish behaviour within prisons. We do not support the abuse of prisoners by people in positions of responsibility and power in prisons. But we do not support the nonsense the Minister has talked today and last night—that we cannot do anything about it because the Court of Appeal said so, and that we cannot do anything about it because there is an international convention. Well, what about the international convention that says that a woman should be able to walk in the streets of this country without being raped? And what about the international convention that says that victims have rights too, so that they can in fact become survivors? What about those conventions? What about a convention for human dignity and a bit of decency? What about a convention that says people cannot abuse their positions of power against little children? What about a convention that says people cannot abuse their positions of power against people who are in their charge? How about that?

In this country at the moment we have a prison service that is in dire need of reform. In this country we had a model prison. It was run in Auckland and it was a private prison. We had that operating, and it was a model prison. What did we get from this Government? It said we could not have the private prison because the idea was not ideologically pure. Where is all the abuse coming from? Did it come from the private prison? No, it did not. Where did it come from? It came from the Government-run prison—this core service that had to be run by the New Zealand Public Service Association, the trade unionists. That is what we had to have, and it came from them.

When we look back at the abuse that has been carried out in this country by big organisations against little people—such as the abuse at Lake Alice Hospital—and ask where that abuse came from, we see that it came from Government-run institutions. When there has been abuse in schools, where has it come from? It has come from Government-run schools. Big Government breeds big abuse against little people. [Interruption] I say to Mr Mark that I will not get into the tennis ball thing. We know that no abuse like that by people in power against children and prisoners is acceptable. That does not, however, mean that those people should get money. If there is any money, it belongs to the taxpayer. The very victims who pay their taxes are now paying for those thugs because the thugs have hurt feelings. That is not right. If there is to be any payment, it should go into a victims fund. It should go to the victims so that they become survivors. That is where it should be.

Marc Alexander made a very good point this morning. He said that the victims, the survivors, do not actually want money. They want to get on with their lives. They want their dignity restored. They will not get it restored while knowing that the killers and abusers of their children are out there getting paid for it. Do we think that the prisoners who abuse people, abuse the system, and then are themselves abused by abusers, care what happens to their victims?

💬 Lindsay Tisch: No way.

No, they do not. If they did, they would reform. We know that they are recidivists. Time and time again the same people are committing the same or worse crimes, and this Government sits by and says that no matter what, it cannot do anything because it might hurt someone’s feelings. I suggest that Government members get out there, talk to victims and survivors in this country, and tell them that they care more about them than maybe they thought. This Government does not have the courage to do that.

I move, That the question be now put.

I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. This part is the meat of the bill. There is an awful lot in the part that needs to be discussed, and I would hope that the Chair recognises that the debate needs to carry on in order to appreciate the full depth and complexity of this portion of the bill.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): That is not a point of order.

I ask the Minister in the chair, Rick Barker, to explain the thinking behind the time limit that this bill is now to have. Supplementary Order Paper 374 will have the practical effect of making the bill expire in a couple of years’ time. That needs explanation, because if the bill is a good idea, we need to know why it will suddenly cease to be a good idea in 2 years’ time. If it is a good idea for only 2 years, we need to know what will change in 2 years’ time. If it has a time limit because it is not really a good idea and the Government wants time to get a better idea, we ought to get some explanation from the Minister of just what would be better, and just what we as a Committee should be looking out for that ought to be improved.

If, in fact, the bill will expire because the Government expects the current proceedings before the Court of Appeal to make it irrelevant, we ought to know that. It is very curious that the position the Government seems to be arguing in the Court of Appeal is so different from the position being advanced by the Minister in here. The Minister is saying that we must have rights of financial compensation for prisoners in order to suck up to all those thugs and tyrants in the United Nations. Meanwhile, the Government’s own lawyers are telling the Court of Appeal that it does not need to award compensation, and that this is not a matter where Baigent’s case should have been applied. Which is it, and what is the reason for putting a time limit on this procedure? Why is the Government doing this, in fact, without explanation? The Supplementary Order Paper does not explain why this particular structure will expire in 2 years’ time.

There is another reason that the Minister should explain it. The Budget says that the Government will spend $534,000 on setting up the tribunal that will look after these cases, and $379,000 on it for each of the 3 years after that. Does that mean the Government actually expects it to continue—that when it expires the Government will simply renew it? The Government has provided in the Budget for it to continue 3 years after this year; in other words, it has provided for 4 years of expenditure on this tribunal. I would like to know, because I think the Sensible Sentencing Trust, which is struggling to stay alive, and which has done more to restore pride to victims, in the sense that they can be masters of their fate, than anything the Government has done, would love to have just a tiny fraction of the amount that is going to be wasted on a tribunal that probably will see two or three cases a year. That sum of $500,000 is more than the Government has paid out in compensation! Are we going to spend $500,000 to supervise the distribution of $200,000? Why not just give it to the victims straight off and say: “We’ll match whatever is given to the thugs; we’ll match whatever is given to the criminals.”? How can a Minister who has concern for taxpayers and public money be wanting to spend $534,000, and $379,000 a year thereafter, on a new tribunal to administer payouts to prisoners that in the past have never exceeded $300,000 in a year? Has anyone asked why we are doing this?

Why is there a time limit? If it is a genuine time limit, why are we providing in the Budget for the tribunal to carry on after the time it expires? The Greens say they will vote for this time limit. I hope that a Green member in the House will take a call to explain why they want to vote for a time limit. One would have thought that, with their sanctimonious principles, they would think either it is a good idea and they will vote for it for good, or it is a bad idea and they will not vote for it. But they seem to think that something bad is OK if it lasts for only 2 years.

What is this measure achieving in those 2 years? Why is the Court of Appeal being told that compensation should not be paid, while the Government, in the House, is turning its other face to the members of this House—and, of course, to the United Nations, which it hopes will one day employ the Prime Minister, when she has passed her use-by date—and saying: “Of course we’ll hand out money to criminals, because that is what the likes of Mr Mugabe tell us should happen.” The Human Rights Committee of the United Nations is a joke. When the officials came before the select committee, it was an absolute—and I cannot remember the phrase that describes something that is the exact opposite.

I move, That the question be now put.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. During that vote the senior Labour whip actually voted “two” before the party she was casting the vote for was called. She said “two opposed”, but we do not know what party she was voting for, because the Clerk did not ask what party it was.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): We can ask for clarification on that matter.

💬 Jill Pettis: The two votes were for the Progressives.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I would have thought that the Clerk would ask each party the way it wished to vote, which is the normal practice, and we have followed that for some time. For the senior Labour whip then to call out “two” when we do not know what party she was voting for is out of order.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I remind members that in terms of voting they cannot anticipate what will be said by the Clerk. I ask them to reflect on that, because it will help the progress of the business through the Committee.

The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Marc Alexander to clause 13 be agreed to:

to omit this clause.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I seek your guidance. Is it not the common practice that when you ask for those in favour and those against, the members stating the votes actually desist from making comments until such time as you call for the votes to be heard? The chief Labour whip has been flapping her jaw at the wrong moment. I ask for your guidance. That practice is incredibly irritating and distracts from the process of the vote. It holds things up, and that is unacceptable in terms of the process in the Committee.

Sometimes in this place you win, and sometimes you lose. The way that we have been responding to votes today has been the same way it has been done since MMP was introduced. There is nothing different happening today that does not happen any other day that we are taking votes in the Committee stage. You do not need to get personal, Mr Alexander.

I do not want to accuse the member over there of misleading the Committee, but I have to say that her performance today lacks the necessary decorum, and it has not been as bad as that in the past. A little bit of decorum would not go amiss, and a little bit of respect for other people casting their votes would be appreciated.

Mr Chairperson—

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I am just about ready to rule, but I will hear the member.

I do believe that the whip of the Labour Party actually brought you into disrepute and into the debate by using the word “you”, with a clear reference to me.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I just say to members that there is such a thing as common courtesy. Members might like to look at Speakers’ rulings 61/2 and also 61/5, which actually mention that no other comment at all is allowed while the vote is being taken. I think it would be orderly to work along the lines of previous Speakers’ rulings, being those of Speaker Kidd and Speaker Hunt. If members would wait until they are called, it would help facilitate the business of the Committee.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I have ruled on this, Mr Tisch.

I think this is a serious matter. Mr Alexander has brought up the issue, and I reiterate the point we made before about the senior Government whip. She was pre-empting what the party votes would be, and you have ruled on that. There is actually nothing different from what has now been happening, where the senior Government whip has been pre-empting what the Clerk might call out when we are going for the votes. I find that unacceptable, and I think that the ruling you made earlier, that the whip cannot pre-empt what the Clerk may be calling out, is the proper course of action to follow. If that was your ruling, then we can move to a process of decorum in this Chamber, which has been lacking this morning since we started at 9 o’clock.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you, Mr Tisch. The matter has already been dealt with. The situation is that I had put the question on the amendment in the name of the Hon Tony Ryall to clause 14 to omit and substitute words in subclause (1).

There is an amendment to clause 14 in the name of Marc Alexander. It is out of order because it is the same as the previous amendment affecting subclause (2)(b).

The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Marc Alexander to clause 14(2) be agreed to:

to omit paragraph (c).

There are a number of amendments in the name of the honourable member Marc Alexander to clause 26. They are out of order, but I will go through them one by one. The first, to omit and substitute paragraph (i) of subclause (3)(a), 7 months, is out of order because it is inconsistent with a decision on a clause 21 amendment. The next, to omit and substitute paragraph (i) of subclause (3)(a), 8 months, is out of order because it is inconsistent with the decision on a clause 21 amendment. The amendment to omit and substitute paragraph (i) of subclause 3(a), 9 months, is out of order because it is inconsistent with a decision on a clause 21 amendment. An amendment to omit and substitute paragraph (i) of subclause (3)(a), 12 months, is out of order because it is inconsistent with a decision on a clause 21 amendment. An amendment to omit and substitute paragraph (i) of subclause (3)(a), 16 months, is out of order because it is inconsistent with a decision on a clause 21 amendment. An amendment to omit and substitute paragraph (i) of subclause (3)(a), 18 months, is out of order because it is inconsistent with a decision on a clause 21 amendment. An amendment to omit and substitute paragraph (i) of (3)(a), 24 months, is out of order because it is also inconsistent with a decision on a clause 21 amendment.

The third amendment to clause 30 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 372 in the name of Marc Alexander is to omit words from subclause (2). The first and second amendments to that clause on the Supplementary Order Paper have been ruled out of order. The subclause was numbered (1) in error; it should be subclause (2).

The question was put that the following amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 372 in the name of Marc Alexander to clause 30 be agreed to:

to omit from subclause (2) the words “withheld from the accused or the offender and”.

The additional amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 372 in the name of Marc Alexander to clause 45(3) is ruled out of order because it is inconsistent with the previous decision.

The question was put that the following amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 372 in the name of Marc Alexander to clause 46 be agreed to:

to omit from subclause (1) the words “to the offender”.

The two additional amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 372 in the name of Marc Alexander to clause 46 are ruled out of order, because they are inconsistent with the previous decision.

The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Marc Alexander to clause 48 be agreed to:

to omit subclause (1), and substitute the following new subclause:

(1) The Secretary must not pay to the offender any amount of money that continues to be held in the account for the offender but surrendered to the victim, a recognised authority acting for the victim, or Victim Support.

The amendment in the name of Dail Jones to omit clause 52 is ruled out of order, because it is the same as the previous amendment.

The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Marc Alexander to clause 52(2) be agreed to:

to omit paragraph (b), and substitute the following paragraph:

(b) must be transferred to Victim Support.