Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (2012 Expiry and Application Dates) Amendment Bill

I think it probably is a sensible decision to take the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (2012 Expiry and Application Dates) Amendment Bill as one question in the Committee. It is a short bill. I want to say just a few words so that those listening and members who have not had the benefit of sitting on the Justice and Electoral Committee do understand the context of the legislation.

Back in 2005 Parliament enacted the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Act. This was in response to widespread concerns about the decision of the High Court in a case referred to, and reported as, Taunoa, where an inmate sued the Crown because he had suffered what the court decided was an abuse not only of his physical well-being but of his human rights through the application of what was known at the time as the BMR—the behaviour management, or behaviour modification, regime operated by the Department of Corrections. What happened is that the High Court said on that occasion that the inmate was entitled to a substantial award of damages to, in part, indicate that the behaviour of the prison officers concerned—sanctioned, it seemed, by the department—was not condoned by the court. There was real concern at the time about the position of those who had suffered loss—physical or otherwise—as a result of the misdeeds of offenders who were serving time in prison and had received a windfall payment of compensation through the application of the precedent in Taunoa. As a result of that concern, the 2005 legislation was enacted.

The 2005 legislation, as can be seen on its face, was always intended to be temporary in effect. There are two sunset clauses in that Act. Part 1 of the bill before us in Committee today would extend one of the sunset clauses, and Part 2 would extend the other, for a period of 1 year. The reason for this extension was canvassed in the second reading debate. There was, as is known, a change of Minister of Justice between the previous election and now. For whatever reason, the Order Paper was not in sufficient order to see the legislation that was proposed to replace the 2005 Act brought through all of its stages in order to be enacted. When that became obvious the Minister of Justice approached, as I understand it, a number of parties and said, well, what do you want to do with this legislation? Do you want it to expire, in which case there is a real risk of that; do you want it rushed through the House; or is there some other way that we could deal with it—for example, by a short extension of the current provisions of the legislation? My colleagues and I discussed the issue. We could not see that it would be just, as far as the victims of offending were concerned, to simply allow the existing regime to lapse. Although we would have preferred a considered discussion of what ought, if anything, to replace the 2005 legislation, we were in the end agreeable to a short extension of its terms in order to allow that careful consideration of replacement legislation to occur.

So that is the simple background to the bill that we are considering, with its two extensions of the relevant sunset clauses for 1 year only, to 1 July 2013. As to what might happen after 1 July 2012, it is my hope that we will get some sensible discussion, both at the Justice and Electoral Committee and also, hopefully, between spokespeople, about what ought to be the replacement model for the 2005 legislation. In respect of that discussion, it seems to me that we need some information to be put on the table.

First of all, how much use has been made of the existing legislation? To what extent have the victims of offending found it a useful tool to try to make themselves whole as a result of having suffered loss through the wrongdoing of people who then ended up in jail, have themselves won damages, and then have had some of those damages go to their victims? The figures, I have to say, are a bit disappointing. Although the Minister was not initially willing to disclose them, she made some disclosures in her second reading speech, and further disclosures were made during the estimates process by the Department of Corrections. So we now have a relatively full idea of the extent of the use of the Act and of the contingent liabilities that accrue to the Crown as a result of potential pending claims. Frankly, it is not a particularly compelling picture. That is not to say that this legislation was not the right thing to do at the time, but that is not the question before the Committee and perhaps later, at the third reading stage, the House; the question is what we ought to do now with this legislation.

My colleague Phil Goff made, I think, a compelling point in the second reading debate, and that is if we are going to rethink this from the perspective of the victims of offending, without violating the human rights record of our country or the rights of those who are serving sentences in our prisons, how best should we do it? Well, first of all, what logic is there in restricting any ongoing legislation simply to those who are sentenced to a custodial sentence? What about community-based sentences? Why should people who have simply managed to avoid jail avoid having to make some sort of payment to their victims in the event that they receive a windfall payment at some point during their sentence? That just does not seem to be logical. Secondly, why should the windfall payments be restricted to payments from the Crown to the offender? What about if the offender somehow gets some enormous payment from a will, or from a Lotto win, or from some other means? Why should the victim of their offending have to go through the ordinary processes of suing in the court, all the expense, all the trauma, all the delays that we know are inherent in civil litigation, in order to try to recover something to recognise what they have been through?

So I think this rethinking needs to happen, and if we are to support something going forward, it needs to be based on principles, it needs to be based on the idea that victims are entitled to recover something if it is possible to make a recovery, and they should be able to do that without having to go through the hoops, as it were, of the legal process. It should not matter, as I say, how that money becomes available. If it is within reach legally, as it were, it ought to be reachable. But the second principle—and the most important counterbalance to that—is, obviously, what we have learnt as a result of observations from human rights bodies and other experts about the operation of this legislation. Can we balance those considerations and what is an important factor for New Zealand, which is our very proud record of preserving and protecting human rights on the international stage, while maintaining a regime in this sort of area that does look after those who suffer from crime, or their families? It is that balancing act that this bill will give us only a year to consider. We have assurances from the Minister that we will be able to perform that exercise adequately. Really, what I want to do—in conclusion in this speech—is give very clear notice that we will be holding her to those undertakings.

I am pleased to take the opportunity to speak to the Committee stage of the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (2012 Expiry and Application Dates) Amendment Bill. But I guess the first thing we need to say about this bill is that actually it should not be here. The only reason this bill is here is that the Government, over the last 3 years, has ignored the fact that there was an expiry date of 30 June 2012 on the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Act, and that, despite having that 3 years’ notice, nothing—or too little—was done. Hence we are in the position today of debating a bill that does one thing, rather simply: it extends the expiry date from 30 June 2012 to 30 June 2013. So I think the point has to be made to the Minister in the chair, the Associate Minister of Justice—and I know that you were not Minister through that period, so I am not holding you personally responsible—that your party did not adequately manage what it was required to do to have a proper response to an Act that you have known for 3 years is going to expire this week.

The Act in 2005 was passed for a very specific reason, which was that in the wake of the behaviour management regime that was introduced in 1998 and had been in place for 6 years, the regime was subsequently found to be in breach of rules that we had signed up to internationally. Very clearly, the system was outside international standards under which inmates are properly treated. And I have to say that regardless of the heinous crimes that many of these inmates have committed, we still have a rule, as a civilised society, that we treat people according to the standards that are proper within our prison system. So it is with a sense of irony that I recall Tony Ryall standing up and debating that legislation in 2005 and saying that the whole thing should be thrown out because inmates have no rights. It was, I think, political populism at its worst. I want to acknowledge the Minister in the chair, who has extensive experience in the New Zealand Police force, for taking a far more reasonable and considered view on this.

I suppose if there is one irony it is that National has totally reversed its position and now wants to keep an Act that it fought tooth and nail originally, while the Green Party wants to oppose an Act that it originally supported. I do want to comment on that because I think the minority report by the Greens is actually wrong in the premises that it works from. The idea that ensuring that payments made to inmates be available for those inmates to compensate their own victims for the damage done to them would encourage abuse of prisoners is just totally unfounded. There is absolutely nothing that the current legislation has done that in any way condones, allows, or encourages the abuse of prisoners. There is a whole range of ways in which, when the system works wrongly and those wrongs have to be righted, the people who have committed the wrongs within the system can be found accountable, and that is right from the ability to complain to the Ombudsman to writing to your parliamentarians. When something goes wrong in the corrections system, it must be corrected, and if people behave wrongly within the corrections system, and deliberately so, there should be harsh sanctions against them—loss of job, for one thing. So having a system whereby victims get compensation when an inmate is in a position to pay that compensation is not a perverse incentive for abuse within the system. I do not think, despite what the Greens have said in the report, there is any support for that at all.

I do agree with the international obligations that the Greens’ minority report refers to. Those international obligations are real, and we pride ourselves on keeping within the obligations that we sign up to. The credibility of any country depends on acting upon the things that it agrees to do, puts in a treaty, and signs and ratifies.

I want to come back to the opportunity that the Government’s negligence in not actually addressing the problem earlier has created for us. I agree with Charles Chauvel that it really is important that the Minister of Justice does honour the undertaking made that we will properly review what needs to be done. The reason that I originally brought in the Act that is being extended was not so much about disgust that inmates were getting compensation; it was that sense of fundamental wrong that an inmate whose rights were breached could get compensation but that the trail of victims that that inmate himself—usually himself—had created got no benefit of compensation. I said in the second reading that fundamental to justice is that concept of restorative justice, that the way in which you achieve justice is for the person who has committed a wrong against another to be required to right that wrong to the extent that they are able to. That is why restorative justice, I think, is the best form of justice.

We have a system of justice in this country—that Chester Borrows knows about—that is essentially adversarial. You know, we almost forget about the victim. When you have a case it is the Crown against Smith. Smith is the offender, and the Crown, representing the State, is the prosecutor, but where is the victim in that mix? The victim is nowhere to be seen in that mix. What we want is a system where the victims are at the centre of it, and where the victims get proper compensation, restitution, reparation—call it what you want.

We have a system at the moment where if at the time of conviction the accused is unable to give any reparation or restitution to the victim, they never have to pay it. But what about a situation, further down the track, where that inmate, for example, wins Lotto? That is not quite so likely in every case; it is more likely, perhaps, that the inmate receives a bequest—[Interruption] Yes. The inmate, or the person who has been convicted, later comes into the means whereby they can put things right for the victim, but they never have that requirement on them to do that. In the legislation that I passed originally it took a very narrow sector of offenders—those who got compensation because their rights were breached—and said they should do that for their victim.

But I think we should use this opportunity to look much wider at the way we can require a person who has committed terrible crimes against his victim to be required to make reparation for that. I see in the papers a guy, in relation to Jane Furlong’s murder, who was a gang enforcer and now, apparently, is a semi-respectable businessman. I probably do not need to mention his name in the House, though it is mentioned in the papers. He is probably doing very well, but what about the victims he left behind him? He is living the good life now; the people whom he made victims of still bear the scars of his offending, and he has never been required to put things right.

So my challenge to the Minister is to use this year’s extension that we have given to the legislation to show a genuine concern for the needs of restorative justice and to work through a process—and we are happy to work, I think, across all sides of the House on this process—to ask how we can ensure in the maximum number of occasions that the victim can properly receive the restitution or the reparations that are owed to them. That would be far closer to achieving justice for those victims than simply extending this Act, or, as the Minister has foreshadowed in another piece of legislation that has not yet been debated, prisoners’ compensation maybe just going into a general fund for victims. The most powerful form of justice is where the offender directly puts things right for the person whom he has offended against. If we can devise a system—and there are other systems and models around the world that we can look at—we would get a piece of legislation that, I think, would achieve true justice in this country.

I am pleased to take a brief call on this quite brief bill, the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (2012 Expiry and Application Dates) Amendment Bill. In particular, I would just like to address Part 1. It tells us in Part 1 that the purpose of this part is to amend Subpart 1 of Part 2 of the principal Act—in effect, to extend it by 1 year until the end of June in 2013. That is fairly innocuous on the face of it, but effectively it extends for another year a piece of legislation that has not been proven to be particularly effective, and that does create some serious concerns about the nature of the delivery of justice—restorative justice, indeed. I will refer to that point briefly.

I think the purpose of this bill could more rightly be stated as actually compensating for the inaction of this Government in this term and, indeed, in the previous term. For whatever reasons, it is interesting to trace the genesis of this bill and how we got to this position we are in. The substantive legislation, of course, was passed in 2005 with an expiry date of June 2010. Clearly, this was known, so there was a 5-year opportunity indeed to think through what was going to either replace this bill or indeed allow it to hit that sunset clause and go out of existence. The National Party’s statement of its policy on victims and crime in 2008 made it clear that it intended to maintain something along the lines of this legislation. Therefore, it was not that the Government had to develop policy, yet it was not until 22 April 2010 that the Government brought into the House a bill to extend the provision to give the first extension to that 2005 legislation. It was tabled on 22 April 2010. A few days later it had the first reading; 1 bare calendar month was allowed for the select committee to consider it. A few days later, under urgency, it was sent through its second reading, its Committee stage, and its final reading to extend it to the date coming before us now—to 30 June 2012.

Once again we find ourselves—not in urgency but certainly looking to pass this legislation a matter of days before it is due to expire when the sunset clause kicks in—doing this under extended hours. Tomorrow morning we can expect that this will go through its final stages. One must wonder at the process. The expiry of this legislation was, I believe, always intended to be accompanied by, or to be in parallel with, a substantial conversation, a discussion, about how best to deal with victims, how best to ensure that victims do get some rightful restitution. I am quite sure nobody has any argument with that, and we in the Greens certainly do not. The principle of restorative justice is at the core of our justice policy.

We know that with this bill the Government has weighted numbers. It has been supported by the Labour Party for reasons that I can understand, up to a point. It is encouraging, open to, and hoping and expecting that we will get a 12-month debate—an intelligent, informed debate about how best to ensure that victims get rightful restitution. I have much less confidence than the Labour Party obviously does that we will get that open debate, simply because we have a bill on the table—the redirection bill—that will make most of the provisions of this current legislation permanent. I simply do not have any confidence that in the context of that bill coming up before us quite soon there will be this open debate about the very nature of the justice system.

Clearly, we all want restitution for victims. A key principle of restorative justice is certainly about restitution, but it is also for the victim to see that the offender has internalised the fact that they offended and that the victim was hurt. The genuine remorse from an offender is an important part of the restorative justice process, and nowhere in the extension of this legislation—or indeed in the redirection bill that we will be debating, presumably some time in the next few months—is there really reference to that fundamental part of restorative justice that looks at the whole breadth of the offender once more being made to feel that they are secure, that their rights have been—

Thank you for the opportunity to take a short call in respect of this Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (2012 Expiry and Application Dates) Amendment Bill. Points have been made across the House that have been very pertinent to the question of the extension, the validity of extending this legislation forward for 12 months, in order to get a solution that has buy-in from other parties and will see us into the future. I also pick up on the points made by Charles Chauvel and the Hon Phil Goff in respect of the need to be able to get some permanent solution in respect of compensation and remediation for the wrongs that are done by offender to victim, and the anomaly that the victim of a person in prison has the ability to get some compensation but the victim of an offender who has a community-based sentence or who has been released from prison who later comes into a degree of wealth does not. I think these are all questions that need to be addressed.

I also take the point that the way that we treat those who are the most despised in our community is also a measure of our civilisation as a society. I do not believe for a moment that we can turn a blind eye to the fact that many of our victims end up in prison because they are also offenders, and vice versa. I believe that it is important that we put victims at the centre of our justice system and at the same time recognise that on occasion those victims are standing in the dock. I think a number of these questions are hard questions, but there will be a way that we can chart through it. I believe it is incumbent on us as a Government to do that.

I do also want to make another point, and that is we have been criticised as a Government for not getting to this legislation over the 3 years prior to the last election. It should be pointed out that this Government passed a large amount of legislation through the Law and Order Committee and the Justice and Electoral Committee, and the vast majority of those pieces of legislation were supported by the Opposition. It cannot be said by any means or in any manner whatsoever that this Government was recalcitrant in its duty to pass legislation. It is not unusual for sunset clauses to be extended when Governments of either colour have not been able to get to that legislation. I commend this bill to the House.

This Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (2012 Expiry and Application Dates) Amendment Bill, as we know, simply extends the current regime for a further year while new legislation is developed. I want to emphasise that, because New Zealand First does not expect that the current regime will simply carry on after the delay of another year. What we do expect is that there will be a rigorous examination of the current regime under the current legislation to see whether it does work, whether it is worthwhile, whether, in fact, it is necessary at all, and whether it has achieved, or is capable of achieving, its current objectives. We do not know whether or not that is the case yet, but for the time being New Zealand First is happy to accept the bill as it is, to extend the date for a further year, and to support the bill on that basis, and also on the basis that there will be genuine consultation and a willingness to listen by all parties in the House so that we can, in fact, get some legislation for the future that is really worth having.

I am not saying that necessarily the current legislation is a failure—I do not know whether or not that is the case yet—nor am I saying that it is needed. It is yet to be seen whether that is the case. But I do know that there are some underlying principles that I think we should always observe in considering the new legislation to be developed. First of all, we must make sure that the penalty a person who is imprisoned gets is just the loss of liberty. That is the penalty they have been sentenced to, and nothing else. I do not believe that it should get in the way of opportunities for rehabilitation, education, and reorientation of their direction in life. I do not believe that it should result in the loss of other rights, such as the right to vote and the right to protection from personal or mental abuse while in prison, or result in the loss of services like decent medical care, and it does not mean, either, the loss of a right to accident compensation for genuine—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! The member must refer in the Committee stage only to what is in this bill. He cannot expand it out.

What I am saying is simply this. We have a year within which to develop new legislation, and this is the basis upon which New Zealand First says that this new legislation should be developed. Central to this are rights; whether prisoners should be able to have the same rights to compensation—accident compensation or compensation for mistreatment—while in prison. That is central to this bill, so I do not see why that should not be discussed right now. And it does not mean, of course, the loss of other rights as well.

On the other hand, there is no doubt that there needs to be a balance of the preservation of all of those rights with the fact that some prisoners do attempt to abuse those rights, and we have seen some of that happen in recent years. We certainly should not mollycoddle prisoners, and we should make sure that there are no rorts attached to their exercise of the rights that they have, especially those that I have mentioned—for compensation. There does, we believe, need to be the development of some special rules around what sort of compensation and what circumstances prisoners can claim compensation for, whether it be for an accident or whether it be for mistreatment while in prison. Those are the sorts of rules that we expect to see developed as part of the coming legislation. That balance needs to be there to meet community expectations and to make sure that rights are not abused.

Finally, I do want to make some comment on the point that other speakers have made concerning victims of crime in relation to restorative justice. We should consider, as part of the rules I have spoken of, whether any compensation paid to a prisoner, however it may arise, should be capable of transfer to their victims, and, therefore, the need for restorative justice in that way. There are two choices there. Either that should be the case only for the victims of a particular prisoner’s actions, or the compensation should be available to all victims of crime in a pool or fund held for that purpose. I believe that it is only appropriate for us—

Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. I rise to take just a brief call on the Prisoners’ and Victims’ (2012 Expiry and Application Dates) Amendment Bill during the Committee stage. As we have heard, clause 5 seeks to amend the principal Act, the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Act 2005—specifically, sections 16 and 17—by replacing the words “30 June 2012” with “30 June 2013”, and “1 July 2012” with “1 July 2013”, so effectively extending a sunset clause.

I think it is at this point that I would like to respond to comments raised by the Hon Phil Goff. He was surprised that the Green Party was opposing this bill. I thought I would just remind him that, actually, when the Green Party agreed to support the principal Act at the third reading, it was uniquely because it was the lesser of two evils and it included a sunset clause. So it is not surprising that we would oppose this bill, which is effectively extending that sunset clause. I believe that at the time it was because the Labour Government at the time did not have the numbers to pass this legislation unless it was going to be with the support of United Future, which wanted to amend it in ways that we found very, very troubling indeed because they would further threaten the rights of people in prison who had had their human rights breached.

I do not quite follow the logic here that when there are two completely separate breaches of rights, you would take the compensation for one and use it to rectify the other. When we have had a breach of rights that a prisoner is serving a sentence for, his or her loss of liberty is a result of the breach of rights that resulted in whatever harm the victim has suffered. But the separate breach of rights—which, in the case of Taunoa and the behaviour management regime, was quite a gross breach of rights on the part of the Crown, unfortunately—is a separate breach of rights. So it is unclear why the compensation that the prisoner would be seeking for that breach of rights should be used then for the victim of the first breach of rights. In other words, two wrongs do not make a right.

So, just to connect the dots on the relationship between prisoners not having an effective remedy and potential perverse incentives that could lead to increases in breaches of human rights in prisons, if prisoners no longer have an incentive to seek compensation when there is a gross breach of rights, they are less likely to seek compensation, they are less likely to take a case, and therefore the Crown is perhaps less liable for breaches of rights and more likely to be sloppy in its administration of justice, because there will not be the incentive for it to look after the human rights of prisoners. And that is really fundamentally very, very important.

This bill is still part of this race to be tough on crime and support victims, but it is unclear that this bill is going to do more than perpetuate a system that, at best, is ineffective, and, at worst, creates perverse incentives for the mistreatment of prisoners. The Government’s plans, including extending this deadline, do not substantially create a better environment for victims of crime, but do come at a heavy price to prisoners’ ability to realise an effective remedy for their own victimisation after they have started serving a sentence, which was what the State decided was the price they would pay for the crimes that they committed against their victims. And victims do have the ability to seek remedy through taking a lawsuit if they believe they need additional financial compensation, or, in some cases, they are able to have their needs met by ACC. That is a decision we have made as a society as to how we are best able to achieve justice. So for these reasons we disagree with the amendments to sections 16 and 17 of the principal Act. Thank you.

I rise to take a very brief call on the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (2012 Expiry and Application Dates) Amendment Bill. It has been very interesting listening to the debate, because this bill is new to me. It has been very interesting listening to the Hon Phil Goff and Charles Chauvel explain the history of this bill and the background to it, and also set out Labour’s position on this whole issue of compensation, but also victims’ rights, very clearly, and, I think, very succinctly.

The bill is about extending the restrictions on the award of compensation under the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Act 2005, because they are due to expire on 1 July, so it extends the deadline for one more year. It is a temporary measure and I do want to put on the record my unease about the pace that this has gone through the process. I understand the bill had its first reading on 2 May. It was a very short time frame for submissions. There were five submissions, four of which were opposed to the bill for human rights concerns.

I also understand that since the enactment of that legislation in 2005 there have been a low number of cases such as the one that triggered the original legislation. Labour believes that an inquiry into the legislation—and I am pleased to hear the Minister’s assurances about what will take place in the next year, and to see whether it could be repealed or could be replaced with an alternative—is a good course of action. I hope that there will be a genuine look at the options around this bill. The Labour Party has made it clear that it supported the extension of the sunset clause only to ensure that if replacement legislation is required, it can be developed. We do not think the need for replacement legislation has been made clear, and a review of the claims under this legislation is required to ensure that the correct balance between compensation for breaches by the Crown, and the need to remedy the victims is struck. So with those few words I am pleased to support this bill in its Committee stage.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (2012 Expiry and Application Dates) Amendment Bill on behalf of New Zealand First. It was Baroness Thatcher who once said that if you set out just to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing—absolutely nothing. One thing I know for sure is that New Zealand First is never going to be soft on crime. It is impossible to compromise in relation to serious crimes, for the sake of being well liked.

The intention behind this bill is to amend the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Act 2005. I think I am more than qualified to talk about the experience that staff have to go through, being someone who used to work at the Department of Corrections. The main purpose of the bill is to extend the boundaries around the awarding of compensation. According to the Minister of Justice’s own words in the first reading, it ensures that “awards of financial compensation are made to prisoners only in extraordinary circumstances where no other remedy is deemed appropriate.” The bill also seeks to ensure that the victims’ claims process applies to any compensation awarded, or to be paid pursuant to an out-of-court final settlement, in respect of a prisoner’s claim made on or after 1 July 2012 but before 1 July 2013. This is all very well. However, there is a balancing argument between prisoners as victims and as people who should be punished. Yes, I acknowledge there is a need for practical rules to ensure that abuse of rights by prisoners is not possible.

There is also a very strong criticism to be made about National wasting Parliament’s time with bills that could have been avoided with better prioritisation and fewer unnecessary bills on education and social welfare that the Government has introduced and we have spent so much time on.

I would like to reiterate the view presented by my colleague Denis O’Rourke in the second reading. New Zealand First has no objection to the passage of this bill and supports it proceeding. The restrictions on the awarding of compensation simply defer the expiry date to 30 June 2013 while we await the substantive legislation, namely the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Redirecting Prisoner Compensation) Amendment Bill, which is yet to have its first reading—a bill that seeks to make the existing victims’ claims process permanent, and to redirect any prisoners’ compensation remaining after that process to fund services and programmes for victims of crime. I cannot help wondering why there has been a delay by the Government of this review. Of course, New Zealand First is reserving its position on the substantive bill, and will consider the Government’s position when the bill is read.

Prison sentences should be orientated towards rehabilitation to avoid reoffending. The issue is not who needs to be tougher on crime. We can no longer afford to argue with one another and participate in an ongoing law and order auction—no, no, no. Our aim should be to reduce crime. There is no point throwing someone into prison and throwing away the key when there are no active steps in place to ensure a reduction in recidivism, especially when the prisoners are released back into our communities.

There is also a need to restrict unnecessary claims by prisoners. Prisoners cannot and should not make claims to certain things that do not need claiming. However, on the other hand, prisoners are victims too. Prisoners should have their basic rights upheld—the rights to medical treatment and mental health care—knowing that they have already been deprived of their right to liberty and freedom. Recent studies that focus on punishment have told us that punishing prisoners by imprisonment does not achieve our overall goal of reducing crime rates in New Zealand. The National Government does not want to be seen as soft on prisoners, either. But what about standing up and making sure that whatever steps this Government takes, they should be steps to the goal of reducing crime rates and making New Zealand a safer place to live?

Furthermore, if the Government had dealt with its proposed bill earlier, we might very well have been debating that bill today rather than this bill, which simply extends the expiry date. The National Government should be getting its priorities right. Stop wasting our time. This bill could well have been avoided if we had not wasted time on other, unnecessary paper-shuffling schemes from the social welfare Minister, and debates about the education Minister’s misinformed ideas on class sizes. Efficiency is key for a working Government to operate well. On that note, we support the extension of expiry dates as required in this bill. Thank you.

Part 1 agreed to.

Part 2 agreed to.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Clause 3 agreed to.

Bill reported without amendment.

Report adopted.