Criminal Justice Reform Bill

Well, what an interesting 30 minutes we have just had on the Criminal Justice Reform Bill, the title of which is now the subject of the debate, as is the commencement date. The interesting thing about the commencement date is that what is about to commence is quite different from what was going to commence 25 minutes ago.

Yesterday, when the National Party raised issues with the Minister over the rights of victims of crimes to appear before the Parole Board in a very limited and narrow fashion—only at the invitation of the Parole Board and only on certain limited matters, such as public safety and the like—the Minister purred, cooed, checked with the officials, and told us that everything was all right. I said at the time that I was worried about the ambiguous nature of these particular clauses, and I was worried that the victims of crimes throughout New Zealand would consider it to be a loss rather than a win to have victims’ rights heard on what otherwise could be seen as a bill concerned only with offenders’ rights. The interesting thing, of course, is that this very point was raised by Victim Support at the Justice and Electoral Committee when the bill was before that committee.

Then the most curious series of events occurred. As Heather Roy tabled her amendments to the bill, National looked at them quickly, and was supportive of them. Ron Mark, on behalf of New Zealand First, quickly made an assessment that the amendments were worthwhile and decided to support them. All the while Lynne Pillay and Charles Chauvel were put in the odd position of standing up and rejecting the amendments for various reasons, which I am sure they believed to be right and proper—which they were not.

Then the Minister stood up and took a call, and in one of the most glaringly obvious and clever understandings of MMP that we have seen in this Chamber for some time, he realised, after doing the maths on his fingers and toes, that these particular amendments would pass whether or not the Government supported them. This meant that the rights of victims to appear before the Parole Board would remain as they are today, and that the issues National had raised in the Committee yesterday—and that were put on paper by Heather Roy on behalf of the ACT party—would stand forever inscribed as the Government being opposed to any lack of ambiguity around a victim’s right to appear before the Parole Board.

Not only were Charles Chauvel and Lynne Pillay completely sideswiped and had their legs knocked out from under them, having stood in the Committee to speak against Heather Roy’s amendments, but the Minister—who is a Minister because he is able to do numbers, unlike his two colleagues—realised it was all going to turn to custard. All of a sudden the ambiguity that National had referred to yesterday became a problem for Labour, and it was suddenly a problem for the Minister of Justice, who stood in a reasonably chastened way and said: “Well, we don’t want any ambiguity on this; let’s just make it all crystal clear.” He talked to the officials, who shook their heads. But the Minister, who takes political responsibility for the numbers game in this House, worked it out, and the Government supported ACT’s amendments, the contents of which were pointed out to the Government yesterday by National—then there was not a problem; today there was a problem. The Government has finally realised the mistake of its ways, because of Victim Support, because of National, because of ACT, and because of other organisations outside the House that have strong views on these issues, and it was forced to back down, despite sending its loyal troops Lynne Pillay and Charles Chauvel in to argue the contrary.

This is a good day for MMP, because a common-sense result occurred, despite the Government giving assurances yesterday that there would not be a problem. Today it has recognised that there was a big problem. It was a big problem, because if the Committee had voted on this the Government would have—

I want to assure Mr Power that my socks remain firmly on my feet. I did not require my toes for counting! I want to repeat what I said before. I think we arrived at a point at which members had seriously raised concerns. I think the points my colleagues were making were entirely valid. I am not convinced that the amendments that Heather Roy has brought forward will, in a material way, advantage victims. But, on balance, in a situation where the intent, I believe, was genuine, and where it appears no harm could be done, it did no harm for members of Parliament to simply support a measure that, clearly—overwhelmingly—parliamentarians would want to support, and that is the notion of looking after the rights of victims. So I do not regard it either way as a particularly big deal.

One way or another, these are not significant changes. They will have limits. They may or may not have any meaningful impact but, on the balance of it, it was simply time to find a positive way of moving forward. Indeed, as Simon Power says, this is MMP, and MMP requires accommodation. From time to time it requires that all of us listen, consider an argument that is made sensibly and fairly, and respond to it. So the amendment has become part of a much larger measure, which we are now seeing move forward.

I welcome the introduction of what are very significant changes to New Zealand’s criminal justice system. We are seeing the movement towards the introduction of the Sentencing Council. We are seeing a raft of community-based sentences, which will significantly enhance the range of choices available to judges and to the community in terms of appropriate sentencing. Of course we want to see, where necessary, the use of appropriate custodial sentences. But this legislation will enable a raft of non-custodial alternatives where they are the best option, with the appropriate support and conditions around them that can give the bench—and, perhaps most important, the wider community—the confidence that they indeed represent significant advantages for the wider community, both in terms of safety and in terms of the way these options deal with those who have offended against society.

In the end, it is in the best interest of every member of our community that those who have offended ultimately do the time or pay their debt to society, but rehabilitation is an important part of the total Effective Interventions package, which this legislation is part of moving forward. It is absolutely in all our interests that effective rehabilitation treatment programmes and so on are available in order that those who have offended can ultimately be rehabilitated, rejoin the community—which the vast majority of them do—and become contributing members of the community.

So I say to members that I think this is a positive day for Parliament. We have seen MMP busily at work but, perhaps more important, we are seeing major legislative change that will significantly improve New Zealand’s criminal justice system.

It was interesting listening to my friend and colleague Simon Power’s speech, but Simon did leave out a couple of small steps in the chain of events that occurred. In actual fact, after New Zealand First had consulted with Heather Roy and received our email from our former colleague Stephen Franks, we consulted the Minister Mark Burton. As was typical of the Minister throughout this whole process, he did something I have found it difficult to have achieved from other quarters in this Chamber. That is, he listened; he did listen. I find it interesting that Simon Power and other National Party members should now be trumpeting a success on their part in claims and statements that they always wanted this amendment to occur. I am reading pages 16 and 17 of the bill right now, which contain National’s minority report. And guess what? It makes no mention of the clauses that Heather Roy has now amended. It says: “National members are also concerned about proposed amendments to the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Act. We oppose moves to extend the Act beyond 30 June 2007.” But that issue relates to Supplementary Order Paper 127. It does not deal, in any way, shape, or form, with clauses 96, 97, 98, 101, 102, or 104.

Mr Power did make a speech on those clauses. But National has been accused by the Sensible Sentencing Trust and by Stephen Franks of paying lip service to victims’ rights. In that the issue is not included at all in National’s minority report, it would appear that Mr Franks is quite correct. National is, dare I say, grandstanding on that issue. The fact of the matter is that there is a lesson to be learnt here. One should look to Heather Roy as an example and look to the Minister as an example.

New Zealand First was challenged severely in the debate last night by Mr Henare, who said: “What are you going to do about it? What have you done?”. I say to Mr Henare that here is a perfect example of what can be done if one wishes to work constructively, as Ms Roy, the Minister, and I—now supported by National—have done. Yes, this is a fine example of MMP at work, but it requires, for a start, a Minister who is prepared to listen. We have had that. I do not particularly want to see some of the former Ministers of Justice from National reappearing on the front benches of a Government, because they did not listen, did they? Tony Ryall is a perfect example. Tony Ryall knows everything, he knows what is best for everybody, and he is the first to tell anyone that. So I do not expect to see any changes in MMP with that man as the Minister of Justice in a new Government, should that ever eventuate.

New Zealand First wants to put it on the record that we do believe that effective rehabilitation is not only important, but essential moving forward. But our serious belief is that the Department of Corrections and the Ministry of Justice over the past—God knows how long—decade or 15 years have been running rehabilitation programmes that simply are not effective. We think that the changes to home detention in particular are a good move forward, but we would have to say that New Zealand First is putting the justice sector on notice—on notice. Our confidence in home detention has been severely undermined. We are happy that back-end home detention has been removed. We are very happy that home detention has now become a sentence in its own right, which will be given by the presiding judge who has heard the case, immediately, at sentencing. We believe that that is a very definite, positive step forward. But we still have grave reservations as to the way in which home detention is administered. We view with a high degree of scepticism the claims by Ministry of Justice officials and Department of Corrections officials that home detention is well administered and that the number of breaches is minimal and very low.

We know from our sources inside the departments and the industries concerned that many of the breaches of home detention are never recorded, because people consider them to be of minimal concern. Well, we do not agree with that. So we say that with the passing of this bill—and everyone is on notice from our chair—home detention is still up for further observation and further monitoring, and if we do not see severe progress being made in respect of the administration of home detention we will be first to the front looking to see it repealed. We would say that the Government is on notice again.

This bill at this stage is, in fact, a victory for MMP—and a very sweet one, I have to say—because it is not about who changed their mind at the last minute and who said this and who said that; it is about the rights of victims. I am delighted that, as a member of a party with just two members—and after the next election that will not be the case any longer—our amendments had the support of the Committee of the whole House as common sense. That is, in fact, very, very good, and New Zealanders can be proud of the way Parliament has operated this afternoon.

I thank the Minister for his comments about my amendments. I thank the National Party for its support, and I thank New Zealand First for looking very quickly at those amendments when they came forward at the last minute, as, indeed, they did. But I would like to spend a moment just contemplating what might have happened had these amendments not been supported, because the Minister says he is not sure what effect they will have. I think they will have a very profound effect for victims in the future. Victims’ rights are very often set aside when crimes, particularly crimes of a very vicious and brutal nature, are committed. Very often the rights and the privileges accorded to criminals are not, in fact, accorded to the victims of crime, and that reflects a very, very sad part of our society.

The select committee, I notice, in its commentary that came back to the House after the select committee process was worked through, did not bother to comment on the victims’ submissions, and there were many, I know. I think that is very regrettable. There was no mention of that from any of the parties on the select committee. I think this shows how our parliamentary process works, in that these issues can be raised again in the Committee of the whole House so that the right result can be arrived at. Victims now will have the same ability they have at the moment to present to parole boards, and that should, and will, remain a right. It will not be a privilege. They will not have to be invited to come before parole boards; they will have the right to do so, as was previously done. That is exactly as things should be.

I will focus only on this matter in my speech. Of course, this bill is about a wide range of issues, and the ACT party does not support many parts of the bill, but, in fact, it is very, very pleasing that the amendments that came forward to the Committee in my name this afternoon have been supported by the Committee as a whole. I hope that victims listening to this debate are able to have some degree of satisfaction at that point.

We have definitely seen MMP in action, and we have seen something else that will surprise many commentators on Parliament. We have seen a fleet-footed, agile Minister of Justice manoeuvring around MMP and the votes and being rolled. That was what was about to happen to Labour. The Minister of Justice has, like a mountain goat, negotiated those tricky passes. He has come right through them. I have never been as impressed with him as I am now, and I congratulate him on being able to count. The counting would have told him he was about to be rolled and, in fact, victims were going to retain the right to be able to attend a parole hearing in their own right, rather than simply if they were asked. It took Mrs Roy and her work to get that through. I congratulate her on that, because I have always seen her as an extremely good member of Parliament. “Good on Mrs Roy.”, I say.

One of the things that I think we should look at in this bill is that it is actually about keeping people out of prison. It is about getting the prison numbers down. Part of that little plan was stopping victims from being able to turn up at parole hearings and actually say what they wanted to say. I see Mr Mark is nodding and agreeing with me, so I do not understand why he is, in fact, voting for this bill in its entirety. I say that because this bill has other provisions that are also about keeping criminals out of jail and out in the community.

One of those is the idea of a Sentencing Council and sentencing guidelines. The Sentencing Council is all about replacing the power of a judge, who currently has such discretion, with a council that will tell judges pretty much what to do. Judges already look at precedent. They already have guidelines, and they work to those guidelines. But they also have the ability—a much greater ability at the moment—to look at the evidence, look at who is saying what, make some judgment calls, look at the age of the person, look at the whole background, look at someone’s previous history, and make a call as to the sentence. That is the role of a judge.

So why do we need a Sentencing Council to come in on top of judges, all of whom are highly experienced people, and tell them how they need to do that work? We already have sentencing guidelines. They already take into account precedents in relation to sentencing, and they already take into account the facts. Instead, this measure is some sort of attempt to get a whole pack of limp-wristed sociologists from Steve Maharey’s next workplace at Massey University to come along and tell judges what to do. That is who will be on that council—a whole pack of limp-wristed sociologists, all about to tell everybody why a person is a mass murderer, or why a person happens to have 16 convictions for attacking people and the last lot are for rape and murder. That is the sort of nonsense we will get from a Sentencing Council.

I am particularly concerned too about the sentencing guidelines, which some of my colleagues have referred to today. We are not allowed to know about those guidelines, but apparently the Government has sent them all around the country to various other people whom it wants to agree with it. But, yet again, those guidelines are all about cutting down the time that prisoners spend in jail. On the one hand the Government says that it will resile from its previous position and say that people cannot get parole until they have served two-thirds of their sentence—in other words, the National Party’s policy, and that is fine; we can share it with the Government—but on the other hand the Government is to make it easier for people to serve much shorter sentences in the first place. That is one of my concerns. I know that is why the Government wanted to keep victims out of parole hearings. It did not want victims like Mrs Croskery, from my electorate, and many others turning up and saying it is not fair to grant parole, because people who have done the crime should do the time.

We say there should be no parole for recurrent violent offenders. They should not be getting parole in the first place. Victims and their families should not be hauled in to come and tell the Parole Board what has happened to them. They should not have to relive that every single year and, when there are multiple offenders, on multiple occasions. Victims and their families should be able to get on with their lives as much as they can, knowing that, thankfully, the perpetrators of crime are locked away in jail and should stay there.

As I indicated earlier, National notes that the Government has finally recognised the errors in the 2002 legislation, when it introduced what was, frankly, one of the most outrageous law and order policies this country has ever seen. The reason I say that—for the benefit of the Minister in the chair, the Hon Mark Burton—is that the Government was warned repeatedly at the discussion phase, through the select committee process, by the public, and by parties informally that to introduce a policy that would allow the worst offenders in the country to get out of prison after serving one-third of their sentences was a betrayal of public expectation.

The public had given the clearest possible indication to the entire House, by an overwhelming majority, that it wanted serious violent criminals to be more severely dealt with, not more leniently dealt with, as the Government delivered up. Yes, the Government did make some amendments in the Committee stage in recognition of that, but they were belated and feeble, and the public saw that at the time. It has taken another 5 years for the Government to finally recognise its mistake, and it has now restored the two-thirds parole provision.

Of course, it is all too late really because the public has moved on. Political parties across this House have moved on. The Government says: “Oh well, it might be just knee-jerk responses by parties.”, but it is actually a thought-through proposition. We have not said: “No parole for anyone at all.” We have been quite selective, actually. We said there should be no parole for violent repeat offenders. That is a narrow class of people. In truth, it is quite a lot of people and they make up a large percentage of people in prisons. [Interruption] Yes, they do. The Minister may not believe that, but if he knew the figures he would know that those people make up a large percentage of people in prisons.

Violent repeat offenders are the people whom the public wants to be protected from. They are the people who should not be getting parole. They should be serving the full length of their sentence, and in fact that really means we should trust the judges to get their sentences right. Judges hear all the evidence, they hear from the victims, and in the courtroom they have information about particular offenders that we in this Parliament by and large do not have, other than what we read in the papers. They decide what the sentence should be, and the public ought to be able to trust that sentence. The public should be able to trust that when a violent repeat offender gets 9 years as a deterrent and to protect the public, that person will serve 9 years. Clearly, it is recognised that that person will ultimately get out and there needs to be post-sentence supervision, and I know the Government has looked at that. But to wait 5 years for belated recognition that the two-thirds provision should be restored is actually missing the boat, because things have moved on, I say to the Minister, and violent repeat offenders should not get parole.

We say to the Government and to the public of New Zealand that in 2008 there will be a choice. People will be able to decide on the Government’s response, which is parole for violent repeat offenders. This Government will give violent repeat offenders parole. It is in the legislation that it is attempting to pass in this House.

💬 Hon Mark Burton: Oh, that’s nonsense.

On our side we are saying that those people will not get parole. It is a clear choice. I have just heard the Minister say that that is nonsense. That says it all. The Minister simply does not understand the public mood.

I really enjoyed the spectacle that occurred about half an hour ago when, after devastating contributions by Charles Chauvel and Lynne Pillay, the Minister Mark Burton changed his mind from opposition to support. I was kind of hoping that those two members would reappear in the Chamber to make devastating speeches in favour of the Sentencing Council, because I was holding my breath in the hope that the Minister would then stand up and say: “Well, actually, I oppose it.”

The Sentencing Council is a vile creature. Parliament has given birth to a body that the public and the judges will react very strongly against. It is unconstitutional. It seeks to press-gang judges into the executive for wholly illegitimate purposes. Time and time again during the Part 1 debate I came back to clauses 9 and 10 and asked honourable members to focus on what exactly was being proposed. Really, what was being created was a body that, for example, would facilitate the provision of information to enable penal resources to be effectively managed. When one looks at the functions of the council, one sees that it is a body that is being created essentially to control the prison population or prison muster. So judges, as part of this creature, are required to provide information on the likely effect of the guidelines on the prison muster.

That is not the function of the judiciary, and I am deeply sorry that this Parliament has created such an unconstitutional creature. I believe that what has happened here is, for the first time in the history of this Parliament, the melding of the executive and the judiciary. I believe that this Parliament will have cause to regret that. It is a major constitutional outrage, and I am very disappointed that good lawyers and members of Parliament like Mr Fairbrother did not stand up and oppose it. Mr Fairbrother was remarkably quiet during the debate, because as a criminal lawyer he knows exactly what the function of the judge is in a criminal trial. He knows that a judge is not expected to be a mere automaton and simply apply sentencing guidelines, but that the judge has a very complex task to perform—

💬 Russell Fairbrother: They would take part.

Well, I would take Mr Fairbrother back to one of the many trials he has participated in as counsel for the defence. He knows that when the sentencing part of the trial takes place, the judge is required to undertake a delicate balancing act in looking at the particular circumstances—looking, for example, at the seriousness of the offence, and looking at whether the defendant has pleaded guilty, thus obviating the necessity for a long trial. All those sorts of things are brought into the mix, and then the judge makes a sentencing decision. Can that member honestly and sincerely stand up and tell this Committee that with the new Sentencing Council, and with judges being press-ganged into obeying guidelines—as though they are organising timetables for German trains—we will see justice?

💬 Russell Fairbrother: Yes.

And can the member honestly say, when focusing on new section 21A, inserted by clause 40—these are rhetorical questions for which he is answering yes because, I suppose, he has to—that justice will be served when a judge is told that he or she “must adhere” to particular guidelines rather than take them into account or have regard for them?

The whole situation is most unsatisfactory, and what I find so disappointing about the Labour Party—and I have said it before in this place—is that 20 years ago we had in that party plenty of lawyers who would have stood up—

💬 Dr Wayne Mapp: Robust!

—in a very robust way, as Dr Mapp says, and complained most vehemently about this constitutional outrage. Sir Geoffrey Palmer would have been purple with rage, and there would have been Frank O’Flynn—the well-known Wellington QC—Richard Prebble, David Caygill—any number of them. But the apparatchiks on the other side have lost all sensitivity for constitutional matters. The end really does justify the means, and if the executive and the judiciary are illegitimately melded, that is just too bad. This is totally unsatisfactory.

Members on this side of the Chamber have repeatedly urged on the Government that this measure should not be passed. But, with politics being all about numbers, it seems that the Government does have the numbers, on this occasion, to pass this legislation.

Mr Finlayson has just sat down after making a number of comments about the separation of powers, and about how inappropriate it is to involve the judiciary in the executive function. That is a concept that should be obvious to members opposite, just as the constitutional affront should be similarly obvious. It is interesting to reflect that in other jurisdictions there are Sentencing Council equivalents. For example, in the United Kingdom there is a Sentencing Advisory Panel, and there is a raft of legislation around that. But those structures are not in the same form as the structures proposed in this bill.

One of the worst provisions, I would suggest, is this new provision in section 21A, inserted by clause 40, “Court must adhere to sentencing guidelines”. There is something very odd—

💬 Hon Mark Burton: Read the rest of it.

Yes, I will; I will read the whole provision so that the Minister will not be embarrassed, and he will have an opportunity to comment. Guidelines are guidelines; they are not mandatory instructions. But these guidelines are cast in mandatory terms. Why do I say that? The Minister invites me to read the provision, and I will: “When sentencing an offender, a court must impose a sentence that is consistent with any sentencing guidelines that are relevant in the offender’s case, unless the court is satisfied that it would be contrary to the interests of justice to do so.” That is why Mr Finlayson, myself, Dr Mapp, and others urge on members of this Committee the realisation that judges are being reduced, substantially, to the role of automatons.

We know why this is being done. It is being done under a guise that there is significant inconsistency in the sentencing process. That is despite the fact that judges already have guidelines—in books they refer to, and in cases that have been decided—that indicate what the approach should be, in particular classes of criminal offence, as to the appropriate penalty. I say that that is the guise under which this legislation is being launched, because, as others have said, a key purpose in this legislation is to control the prison muster. The reality may be that in New Zealand there is an overrepresentation of people in prison. We do not come, of course, anywhere near the American standards, but what—curiously, I think—we have come to accept in New Zealand is the fact that prisoners must be housed in their separate cells. It is quite a rarity for prisoners in New Zealand to be sharing cells. In fact, I understand that there are only about 1,850 prisoners who are doing so.

I reflect for a moment on my life in the navy as an ordinary seaman where, on the mess deck, for example, of HMNZS Kaniere my colleagues and I had—and I illustrate this in imperial terms—space of about 18 inches in which we swung our hammocks. On the particular mess deck that I shared as an ordinary seaman there were about 30 of us, and we lived in highly cramped and rat-like conditions. The incentive to be commissioned and move to the officer corps was very compelling, if only for that particular reason. This was the case in the army, too. The army personnel in their barracks were often in bunkhouses of 20 people. But we have this curious idea that we have to have separate cells for each prisoner.

What is driving all this is one of the numerical consequences of prisoner musters being measured in terms of the costs of building jails, and we know that the cost of building jails is fantastic. If members think I am being over-imaginative on this issue, they need only to look at clause 15 of the bill and the draft guidelines relating to prison musters.

I thank members for their various contributions. It has been an interesting afternoon in Parliament, and generally the debate around what are important matters to do with the organisation of the criminal justice system has been worthy of Parliament.

I say to the member who has just resumed his seat, Dr Richard Worth, that I do not for a moment agree with him that the Sentencing Council and sentencing guidelines in any way reduce the requirement of a high level of judgment and, indeed, wisdom on the part of judges. Of course, the guidelines provide ranges for judges to operate within, but it is interesting that the concept enjoys its highest level of support among the judiciary, among those who make the most judgments—

💬 Dr Richard Worth: That’s not right!

It is entirely correct.

One member commented earlier that somehow the Sentencing Council was going to be made up of appointees of the Government—that was clearly the inference that was suggested. Well, I remind that member that the person who will have the single most influence over the composition of the membership of the Sentencing Council will be the Chief Justice, and that 50 percent of the membership of the council will be judges. I think that the comments made by at least one member a little earlier on—not Dr Worth—cast rather unfortunate aspersions on the character of judges, when we consider that they will play a very significant role on the Sentencing Council.

I conclude by saying that although it is certainly the case that there are a raft of provisions in this legislation for community-based sentences to broaden the range of non-custodial sentences, there is no question that this Government remains firmly committed to the policy that those serious repeat violent offenders who are incarcerated will need to continue to be so. There is no question of that. The issue is that, equally, through some of the measures in this legislation and elsewhere in the effective interventions package, the community knows that better rehabilitation and better dealing with mental health and addiction issues are being addressed in the criminal justice system and in the corrections environment, and that is equally important.

Let me finish with this challenge to members: is there any member in this Parliament who can, hand on heart, take any joy in the notion that New Zealand has one of the highest levels of incarceration in the OECD, in the developed world? Why would any member want to see an increase in the number of New Zealanders imprisoned?

Our objective as a Parliament should surely be to protect society first and foremost through early intervention and crime prevention. I suggest to members opposite that that is by far the most effective form of intervention. It is certainly the best way to avoid victims becoming victims in the first place. So the package of interventions, which is about early intervention, about prevention, and about rehabilitation, is critically important, because the interventions address the overwhelming majority, I tell Dr Mapp, of those who are in fact involved in the criminal justice system. As for the small minority in total who are indeed serious repeat violent offenders, the community of course must be protected from them, and it will be. This legislation addresses itself to the overwhelming majority for whom we simply must do better, and I say to the Committee that the advancing of this legislation will enable us to do just that.

I rise to take a short call on this matter because the Minister has set out a challenge. He has referred to the membership of the Sentencing Council, and I think he alluded to some comments that I might have made where I referred to the pinko sociologists of Steve Maharey’s friendship who will be appointed to this council. Actually, I stand by those comments.

When I look at clause 11(1) of the bill I see that the council will consist of “(a) 1 Judge of the Court of Appeal … (b) 1 Judge of the High Court … (c) 2 District Court Judges … (d) the chairperson of the Parole Board: (e) 5 members”—that is, five members—“who are not Judges, appointed by the Governor-General on the recommendation of the House of Representatives.” That is the same House of Representatives that will go ahead today to put forward this bill and pass it—in other words, the Government and its mates.

Frankly, when we have five members of the council who are not judges, how can we not infer that the point here is to get a whole pack of sociologists who will be Steve Maharey’s mates when he is back at Massey University? I stand by those comments.

The Minister today effectively alluded to the fact that this Government is trying to cut down the number of people in jail. This bill is about many things, but primarily it is about cutting the prison muster. We do not want people in prison, but, then again, we do not want people to commit crimes. But if they commit the crimes, they have to do the time.

It is a nonsense to put these five members in charge of the judges who hear the cases, and who sit on the bench every day and understand what is going on. The Government will put them in with a whole pack of people—like all the Labour MPs who have just announced their retirement.