Parole Amendment Bill

I move, That the Parole Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Law and Order Committee to consider the bill. The bill implements the Government’s post-election action plan to reduce the number of unnecessary parole hearings where the offender has little prospect of release. The bill also includes a range of measures to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the parole system. It is clear to the Government that hearings where the offender has yet to address the reasons for their offending and continues to pose a risk to the community serve little purpose. These hearings also cause unnecessary stress and anxiety for victims, as they relive the offence again and again. Under the current Act, the Parole Board is generally required to consider each offender at least once in every 12 months after they become eligible for parole. On average, each offender has three hearings prior to release, but there are four or more hearings in a third of all cases. The exception is where the Parole Board makes a special order postponing further consideration of a case for a longer period. I will talk about the changes to postponement orders in a few minutes.

This bill increases the maximum interval between hearings in the general run of cases from 1 year to 2 years. This will give the Parole Board greater flexibility in scheduling future hearings. It will be better placed to align future hearings where appropriate with the completion of core components of this prisoner sentence plan. The existing requirement for a hearing at least once in every 12 months has led to a number of problems that this bill will address. Hearings often have to be brought forward to meet that strict requirement because of the scheduling of Parole Board meetings. A further hearing in a few months has to be scheduled in many cases because offenders are still completing core components of their offender plans.

A third problem is that the entitlement to an annual hearing provides no incentive for unmotivated prisoners to address their offending behaviour. This bill requires the board, when it declines to release an offender on parole, to specify when the offender will next be considered for parole. It also gives the board the power to identify any milestones relating to the offender’s risk that it expects to be achieved before the next hearing. As an incentive for prisoners to address the reasons for their offending, the bill includes a process for having their case brought forward when the milestones are achieved earlier than expected.

I mentioned postponement orders earlier in the speech. Under the current Act, the Parole Board can make one of these orders where it is satisfied that in the absence of a significant change in the offender’s circumstances, they would not be suitable for release at the time when they are next due to be considered for parole. Under the existing legislation, postponement orders can be for up to 3 years for prisoners serving indeterminate sentences and up to 2 years for other prisoners. The Parole Board makes these orders relatively rarely. There are about 20 postponement orders each year, but they play an important role in parole decision-making, not least by reducing the number of unnecessary hearings. Postponement orders are often made for offenders convicted of the very worst murders. They provide important comfort to the families of the victims, knowing that they will not have to endure all the stress and anxiety that goes into a parole hearing for a period of years. The increase in the maximum interval between hearings from 1 year to 2 years in the normal run of cases will remove the need for postponement orders for prisoners serving sentences of less than 10 years. The bill, therefore, restricts postponement orders to prisoners subject to indeterminate sentences—that is, life imprisonment and preventative detention—and determinate sentences of 10 years or more. The maximum term of the postponement order will, therefore, be increased to 5 years.

The bill includes a number of other measures to improve the Parole Board’s efficiency and effectiveness and reduce the number of unnecessary hearings. For example, the bill transfers the power to deal with written applications from prisoners to have their hearings brought forward from a panel of board members to the chairperson or a panel convenor. These applications do not relate to the sorts of issues board members are appointed to consider. The chairperson or a panel convenor is better placed to decide whether there has been a change in circumstances that justifies bringing a hearing forward, leaving the board to deal with the substantive matter of whether a prisoner is ready to be released on parole. There are about 500 applications of this sort each year.

The bill also removes the procedural steps in the Parole Act for deciding whether hearings should be held as an attended or unattended hearing. The existing processes have made unattended hearings unworkable in practice, as they extend the preparation time by many weeks. This defeats the original purpose, which was to increase efficiency. The bill takes the more practical approach of specifying the circumstances in which the board can conduct an unattended hearing, although the prisoner will have the right to attend if they wish to do so.

I am confident that the measures in the bill will make significant improvements to the parole system, and that they deliver on important commitments made by the Government at the time of the last general election. I commend this bill to the House.

I rise to speak on the Parole Amendment Bill and to indicate from the outset that the Labour Party will support this bill, at the very least to the Law and Order Committee. It is a bill that meets some obvious problems that there have been and we have seen in the management of parole in this country, and it comes up with some useful solutions to them. It is worthy of examination by the select committee.

I just say that this Government is basking in the success of the work of the previous Government in the criminal justice area—no less than the work of my colleague the Hon Phil Goff, who will talk in this debate about his great achievements. The Parole Board as we understand it today was established by Mr Goff—probably one of the most far-sighted and visionary justice Ministers we have had in this country. He is entitled to take credit for the many positive achievements that have been made, which this Government, of course, takes credit for and has no business doing so. I note in the regulatory impact statement the observation that the number of offenders who, having been released on parole, are committing offences has almost halved since the creation of the board.

So the board is getting it right—it is moving in the right direction—but, nevertheless, there is a problem still. Too many parole hearings are being convened relating to prisoners who really have no prospect of success in an application for consideration for parole. The nature of their time in prison, the passage through their sentence, is simply not such that they would warrant being released on parole, even under the strictest of conditions. This bill does address an obvious issue that needs to be considered, so if there are changes that need to be made to accommodate that, then all well and good. Let us ascertain whether the changes proposed in this bill will actually provide the remedy being sought.

I want to make the point too—and we will come with this in mind in terms of examining this piece of legislation—that notwithstanding the fact that there clearly are unmeritorious hearings being conducted, we do not want to lose sight of the fact that the Parole Board continues to provide very important and very effective oversight when it comes to the management of prisoners who are serving out their sentences in prison.

The truth is that some prisoners, particularly those serving longer sentences, may take some time to get to a point in the course of their sentence where they realise that they have to change. Whether or not they openly admit and acknowledge their wrongdoing and their fault as part of that journey towards change, many nevertheless get to a point where they are willing to change, and we would not want the deferral for a further extended period of the opportunity for consideration for parole when they may, in fact, be a suitable candidate for that. We would not want it to be pushed out so far that it becomes a hopeless prospect for them. So let us bear that in mind. We do not want those prisoners who are fit for parole, whether under suitable conditions or not, to be denied that opportunity when releasing them on parole would be not only better for the prisoner in terms of their rehabilitation and social integration but, actually, better for the criminal justice system and the community as well. So let us not ignore what the Parole Board is there to do and what the purpose of parole itself is, notwithstanding the naysayers in our community who want to abolish parole altogether.

The other point I want to make is this: this bill appears to be yet another in the growing heritage of criminal justice legislation under this Government that is haphazard, uncoordinated, incoherent, and largely about responding to the odd sort of flare-up in public opinion. You know, you need only look at some of the provisions in this bill. I am looking specifically at clause 14 and the proposed new section 29AA, which relates to conditions being imposed on prisoners by the Parole Board—not something that is new, but it now provides for special release conditions. Yet only a month or two ago we had the first reading of the Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill, which requires victims, at their own expense and their own cost, to go to court to get special conditions put on just-released prisoners. How absurd is that? I said at that time, and I maintain it again now, that when it comes to the protection of victims of offenders, the criminal justice system should take responsibility for that. That is what a responsible criminal justice system does. That is what a Government that is genuinely understanding of the needs of victims would do. Would it not be a jolly good idea if a creative Minister of Justice and creative members on the Government side of the select committee could see that perhaps we could integrate parts of the Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill into this Parole Amendment Bill, thus obviating the need for the former and making the latter even more relevant than perhaps it might otherwise be?

I think that this is a bill that opens the opportunity for fruitful debate, and we are prepared to do that and we want to do that. But most of all—if I could make this plea to those members who have the ear of the Minister, because I do not know who does in this House, starting from the Prime Minister down—we think that it would be nice to have a justice policy or a justice strategy that actually develops and progresses the justice system so that it is coordinated and it is coherent, and so that the time of this House is not taken up by sort of knee-jerk responses to yesterday’s headline. We should actually have an approach that is about having a good justice system and good criminal justice, that is about looking after victims, that is about managing offenders effectively with a view to minimising recidivism and ensuring rehabilitation, and that is about that being better for the country as a whole.

I want to just express this disappointment when we come to consider this bill. It is interesting in the regulatory impact statement that when it adumbrates the benefits of the bill, the first thing that it comes to is the cost saving, as if cost saving is the only thing that matters when it comes to managing prisoners. Yes, of course it is desirable if the Government can save a dollar and not have to spend it if it does not have to, but the truth is that when we are dealing with matters of criminal justice and we are dealing with the awkward, sometimes nefarious, and sometimes utterly bad personalities who pass through our criminal justice system, there is actually an investment that we make in getting the system right, not only the processing of it through the hearing of crimes and the imposing of penalties but also the management of those who are sentenced. Whether it is imprisonment or whether it is other forms of punishment, we actually do need to make sure that that investment is made for the best possible outcome. So just achieving a cost saving is not enough on its own in terms of supporting those measures.

But, as I said, there is some worthwhile and fertile ground in the bill for debate, discussion, and scrutiny, and we will give it that, but we will go into that with Labour’s approach of wanting a coherent, well-coordinated, well-managed, constructive, and productive criminal justice system.

This Parole Amendment Bill is another example of National delivering on its promises, with a big plan for the justice sector that is being rolled out and has been very successful.

This bill aims to reduce the number of unnecessary parole hearings. Victims of crime should not have to face the very stressful prospect of attending parole hearings year after year when an offender is clearly not safe to be released into the community and might have made little or no effort at rehabilitation. Each year there are around 5,000 parole hearings and, on average, offenders have three hearings before they are granted parole. Our changes will provide strong incentives for prisoners to address their offending behaviour, for the betterment of our community. I commend the bill to the House.

Labour will be supporting this bill, the Parole Amendment Bill. But at the same time, at the Law and Order Committee, which I sit on, we will be examining it very closely because I think that the quid pro quo for the changes being recommended here being acceptable is that there are adequate safeguards to ensure that there continues to be fair and timely consideration given to parole decisions.

It is not often I talk about movies in this House, but there is a particular movie that I remember very clearly called The Shawshank Redemption. I remember very clearly in that movie the unfairness of the system that was prevalent in the United States at the time, where you got called up for parole, but they were never going to give it to you. That is taking the system far too far in the wrong direction, even when people had reached the point where they had done their time, they had shown remorse, they were clearly on a better track in their lives, and there was not much point in keeping them in the prison system. Even this Government has acknowledged that keeping people in the prison system beyond the time that is necessary to preserve the safety of the community is not a good idea.

I put the Parole Act 2002 in place when I was the Minister of Justice. There was a huge amount of work that went into that new legislation, and that legislation brought in huge changes, which I think have had major and beneficial effects for New Zealand. The regulatory impact statement for this bill actually acknowledges that the reform put in place by the 2002 legislation has been really effective. It notes, and this was something that I insisted on in that legislation, that the Parole Board’s paramount consideration—and those are the words it used: “paramount consideration”—must be the safety of the community. That is exactly as it should be. The Parole Board has to be satisfied, before it grants release on parole to any inmate, that that person will not pose undue risk—those are the words that are used—to the public. That considerably tightened the parole system. It put the public and the victims first. When I say “victims”, I mean not only the victims of the offending that saw that inmate put into prison but also the potential victims, if you let somebody out when it was inappropriate to do so and raised the risk that they would continue offending.

The regulatory impact statement produced by this Government notes that the decisions made under that parole system that I put in place have resulted in a lot more prisoners serving a higher percentage of their total imposed sentence in prison, but it also makes this comment, which is absolutely vital: the result of that system is that the number of offences committed by prisoners between release on parole and the end of the sentence date has halved—the amount of offending by inmates on parole has halved. That is a huge achievement and that is a major vindication of what that Labour Government did in 2002. Not only was the offending halved but on the measurements of harm done to the community by people on parole, that had also halved. So the legislation was a lot tougher, it was a lot more effective, and it has produced the results. It was not flimflam legislation designed to make the public think how tough you are on law and order; it was genuinely about the safety of the community, and that is the way that it needed to be.

Well, that legislation is now 12 years old, and I am happy for it to be reviewed. On first consideration, I think that the changes proposed will be beneficial, and they will be beneficial in particular to the victims, who will not unnecessarily have to worry every time an inmate comes up for parole, even if that inmate is patently unready or unsuitable to be released on parole. I and the Labour Party put a huge amount of emphasis on the position of the victim in society. The victim in the past has too often been the second consideration. It is the victim who comes first. If a person in all likelihood is not going to be released on parole, why then put the victim through the trauma of having to attend the parole hearing or wait to hear the results of the parole hearing, all the time fearing what the result might be from the release of the person who offended against them—particularly in the case of very serious offences? If you are in the situation of getting parole, generally the offences are very serious. So what we put first is the position of the victim.

The regulatory impact statement makes much of the fact that there will be a saving of about $700,000 a year. Well, you know, it is always good to save $700,000 a year, but that is not, I hope, and should not be, the driving cause for this reform. I think the cause for this reform has got to be that if a person is ready to be released on parole, then they should be released. It is pointless and is not right to continue to incarcerate a person who is ready for release, but we want to make sure that the person is ready for release.

The regulatory impact statement also points out many of the problems that we have. Most inmates go up for parole three or four times before they are actually released on parole, and that indicates to me that probably we are taking people to parole too early. There is a safeguard—that the prisoner himself, or herself, can at any time ask for parole to be given if there is a change in their circumstances. If a person has completed a programme, and they have come through and all of the assessments—and the assessments today are much more professional—show that they are unlikely to reoffend, then let us get the person off the taxpayer’s back, out of the prison, back with their family, and back contributing to the community. That is quite important.

The other thing with the 12-month review that we have in the present law is that because you have to do it within 12 months, many people are coming up at the 11 month period each time. So the period is actually shorter than the 12 months set out in the current legislation.

Further to that, in many cases the parole hearing is taking place before the offender has completed the programme that they are on to address the causes of their offending. That is a bit dumb, to be frank. You know, if you go in there and if you have, as so many of our prisoners do, an alcohol or a drug problem and you are doing one of the programmes that we started up—which this Government, to be fair, has continued and expanded—for your alcohol and drug problem, then you are not going to be released before you have completed the programme. So why would you have a parole hearing—because you have to every 12 months—if you are working on a 17-month offender rehabilitation programme that is going to vastly reduce the chances of your reoffending while in the community? So there is a certain amount of common sense in the proposals that are being made, and that is the reason we are actually supporting this legislation before the House.

I want to reiterate that although I am in favour of not holding unnecessary parole hearings, I am in favour of those parole hearings, in appropriate cases, being unattended by the offender. That sounds extreme, but there are many cases where the second parole hearing is just to get more information. If the inmate does not need to be there, and provided those rules are followed fairly and honestly, then I think there can be an exemption for the inmate having the right to attend that parole hearing. There are other cases where the only work being done is technical work where it does not require attendance.

There is also a provision for the person seeking parole to attend by way of video, rather than in person. I have been in court when inmates have appeared electronically before court hearings. That works perfectly well, particularly in circumstances where it may be dangerous to transport the inmate. So there are some good things happening there, but what we at the select committee will be doing is looking to ensure that this does not obstruct the right to a fair and timely parole hearing, and that what we do will be about common sense. It will not be about actually keeping people in prison longer; it will be about not having unnecessary parole hearings when it is patently obvious to everybody that the answer will be no.

Last but not least is that we need to make sure that what we are is consistent with all of the international human rights standards that we as a country have signed up to and have always acknowledged.

Tēnā koutou katoa. Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. I am going to take a short call on this issue, because my colleague who is the expert on justice is doing something else. But it is very important that we are on the record, because we are, at this stage, opposing the Parole Amendment Bill. We are not saying we will continue to oppose it all the way through. We look to the select committee process. We believe in improving justice law, parole law, and all of those other strategies. We think that the Law and Order Committee could make some fair improvements to this bill, and we will be watching it closely. We would like to be able to support legislation that improves things for victims and offenders, but at this stage we cannot support the bill as it is currently written.

The bill purports to reduce unnecessary parole hearings for offenders who do not acknowledge their offending, and have made little or no effort at rehabilitation, by increasing the maximum time between hearings, particularly for offenders serving sentences of 10 years or more. We have real concerns about the strategy of keeping people in prison longer if they can be rehabilitated. We recognise, as does everybody, that there are people who need to stay in prison for the well-being of society and for whom rehabilitation is a very challenging issue. But we also believe that there is a large, large number of people who are incarcerated at the moment—and we need to remember that this country has one of the highest rates of incarceration—who are not in that group and who may be moderately un-socialised at this time but through genuine rehabilitation, and support once they are out of prison, can actually become part of the peaceful synergy of a decent society. That is a big challenge.

We support all parties’ efforts with rehabilitation, but we think that this particular bill, in lengthening parole, could affect that in the sense that there are a number of experts who are concerned about this bill and do not believe that it is actually going to work to motivate offenders to join programmes. If we are going to motivate them, then those programmes have to be of quality, they have to available, they have to be robust, they have to be culturally appropriate, and they have to actually address the issues. When we think about some people in prison who are illiterate, who are dyslexic, or who have experienced extreme abuse, we see that those people’s engagement with rehabilitation in order to make changes in their lives is quite a sophisticated business. It is not simple for them to change their lives. It is not simple if programmes that would be helpful do not exist or are too overloaded at the time to actually work.

We do listen very carefully to people who work in justice and we do acknowledge some of the suggestions of people like Kim Workman, who says that these changes could encourage inmates to lie. He says that rehabilitation programmes could be inundated and are not resourced at this time to cope, and that there could be an argument that the change could force prisons to improve access. The problem is that it could also deter innocent people from pursuing appeals. So there are a number of interesting issues associated with costs and associated with victims’ rights as well.

The statistic that only 5 percent of victims attend parole hearings is an interesting statistic. In reality there is also a challenge we would make around cost. We would argue that the idea that saving $10,000 per hearing by delaying parole hearings does not mitigate the cost of the $95,000 that it costs to keep an inmate in prison for another year. So this bill does not necessarily address the issue. If one is thinking about financial efficiency, the bill does not necessarily make for a more efficient system in terms of cost. The reduction in parole hearings may not be the most robust way to actually deal with rehabilitation. It may not be the best way to incentivise prisoners to engage in rehabilitation. I think that at all times we need to be thinking about how we can move people from incarceration into the community, and we are not yet convinced that these strategies will, firstly, save money, and, secondly, actually lead to the kind of motivation that is being discussed.

We in the Green Party take a stance on justice that is very much about what is going to work. We have had a lot of punitive rhetoric in this country, and it is very easy to support the “throw away the key” rhetoric when you see the pain that some people have inflicted on others in this society and some of the unthinkable things that have happened, but that is actually a small percentage of the prisoners who are locked up, sometimes for quite a long time.

We need to look at the other body of prisoners, the large body, and look at why it is that they have ended up where they have ended, and how we can change that so that they actually can leave prison—ideally much, much earlier, before the “University of Crime” makes it impossible for them to change—and regain a relationship with the community. There are many experts in this country who talk about the critical period when prisoners have reached parole and are about to leave prison. That is when we really need to look at these issues, as well as before. So there are some serious issues here about parole and about postponement orders, which already exist as a mechanism but are claimed not to incentivise behaviour change.

We are not yet convinced that this bill is going to do what it says it is going to do, so we will be coming to the Law and Order Committee and hoping to hear from those experts and from community groups that work in prisoners’ rehabilitation, and in victims’ rights as well, to see whether this bill actually does what it claims to do and whether it will actually make a substantive difference to justice for all parties in this situation.

The regulatory impact statement does not claim that the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act has been breached in terms of parole delay and in terms of prisoners’ rights, but there may be interesting select committee submissions on the issue of rights and what that does in terms of disincentivising people to rehabilitate if they feel they are being hard done by. There are complex issues around change in the prison system. There are complex issues around justice. If cost is the driver, we are not sure that this bill is going to save money. Every year that we keep a prisoner in prison reduces the chance of rehabilitation. It reduces the chance of saving money for the State and for the taxpayer, and we think that a more creative and innovative approach to justice is needed at every step in the justice system before we get so many people locked up for so long with little hope of change. If we take away hope that they can get paroled, and if we try to force them in a way that does not work to stay longer in prison, it is not going to work.

We applaud rehabilitation; we just hope that it is going to be properly resourced. We will be watching this bill very carefully at the select committee so that if we see genuine change that is going to support genuine rehabilitation, we will be open to it. But at this stage we are unable to support the bill. Thank you.

The Parole Amendment Bill is not just about cost. There are some very good things in this bill that relate directly to making the justice system just a little bit easier to negotiate your way through, especially for victims.

I am a member of the Law and Order Committee; I am looking forward to receiving this bill. It is a good committee. We work very well across parties. We have a very good chair in Jacqui Dean, and I am looking forward to receiving this bill. Thank you.

Talofa lava. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak to the first reading of the Parole Amendment Bill. This is an interesting bill but one that aims to determine clear changes to the current legislation. There is a saying that has been echoed twice in this House before, and that is that this country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a good place for all of us to live in. This bill is more or less aiming to achieve that for society, depending on how we are going to enforce it or how it will be enforced.

The main changes in this bill intend to make alterations to the nature and the process of parole hearings for offenders. The fundamental change in this bill relates to the interval between parole hearings, which the Minister of Justice aims to extend from 12 months to 2 years. Every offender will be able to apply for a parole hearing, and I suppose it is a good thing that this change is going to introduce some positive savings to our country. On the other hand, if an offender has been subjected to a postponement order, then he or she will have to convince the board, especially in one particular area, which is having to achieve significant changes, and to achieve those changes by eliminating “risk milestones”, which have been highlighted from the previous hearings.

I do find it rather odd that the term “risk milestones” is used in this context. I think it could be one of those things that perhaps the Law and Order Committee would like to consider. It could think of a proper or better word to use. Most of the prisoners are in prisons because they are either confused themselves or they come from confused environments, and the last thing we need is to use a term that could easily be interpreted in the wrong way. The way that it is written into this legislation at the moment, it can be viewed as achievement of risks associated with the offender, or a risk that the offender has been able to achieve, which is not exactly what it intends to do; or as that a milestone is the new extended definition of the work “risk”. Legislation should avoid creating loopholes that will raise flags or unnecessary barriers to its implementation. The postponement order must state the offender’s next parole hearing, and this date must not exceed 5 years from the offender’s most recent hearing. That is actually stated in clause 12, in Part 1 of the bill. Postponement orders are within the scope of this bill, and it is important that they are used and perceived as a tool to change the so-called risk milestones.

The main driving force behind this bill is to reduce the number of unnecessary parole hearings, and I suppose that 5,000 parole hearings is quite a large number to be conducted or to be carried out. That amounts to at least three hearings before release approval is granted. We see from the bill that currently one-third of offenders eligible for parole have four or more hearings. The Parole Amendment Bill requires the Parole Board to specifically outline when an offender will be next considered for parole. Furthermore, it enables the board to highlight and identify the so-called risk milestones if an offender is declined release. A risk milestone is currently being defined in clause 4 of Part 1 of the bill as “a milestone relating to the risk that the offender poses to the safety of the community”. I find that this definition is almost like a twisted explanation of somebody’s full understanding, or to that effect. But a key element of reintegration via the parole process is recognition of criminal activity by an offender, and a proven change in effort to correct his or her life. It is also important that the offender recognises the harm caused to victims of crime in the wider community, which is why the Parole Board must put the victim’s situation in the centre of this bill. Although the board may highlight and identify risk milestones, it is even more important that there are enough resources and support for the process of an offender taking reasonable steps to achieve their risk milestones.

A problem as outlined by the bill was the mention of the postponement orders lacking incentives for offenders to address their offending behaviour. This means offending plans for those eligible for parole, as current, are not working. That is the reason why this bill has been introduced to the House, because the current system is not working. I only hope the Minister can assure the communities of New Zealand that these so-called risk milestones will be the answer to that problem. One would see risk milestones as the mechanism that will also determine the length of time an offender will wait for their next parole hearing. For example, if an offender does exceptionally well and achieves his or her risk milestones, then he or she will have their parole hearing set at an earlier time. Although New Zealand First encourages achievement by an offender to achieve the expected outcomes, again it is necessary to reiterate that these milestones, as outlined by the Parole Board, must ensure that the offender is no longer a risk to the communities. We know all too well of many cases where offenders were granted parole and reoffended. In some extreme cases the result was often death. The system fails its communities in these cases where offenders should not have been released on parole in the first place. The Minister cannot afford to release any offender who may pose a serious risk or danger to any member of the public.

New Zealand First supports measures and mechanisms that will promote community safety and ensure that offenders are taking reasonable steps towards changing their offending behaviour. New Zealand First does not believe that the safety of the public and the communities should be compromised. Community safety is an essential part of our daily lives, and this bill will ensure that the Parole Board is more flexible, effective, and responsive. It is no secret that the Parole Board is responsible for granting release to offenders, but there is a need for the board to consider community safety as a priority in its decision making. It is common knowledge that the Parole Board determines the steps that need to be taken in order for an offender to be released on parole, and in order for the board to diligently carry out its duties and responsibilities it will require legislative changes to improve the way it operates.

I was amazed, when I was involved in the Department of Corrections, that many of the prisoners were often being called to Parole Board hearings every 6 months. There is a lot of work that goes on when a Parole Board hearing is being held. It is not just about having the prisoner being prepared, and taking the right rehabilitation programmes for them to address their offending behaviour. It is also about the community and those who have to assess their behaviour and their achievements. That means that psychologists are often involved. What I found when I was there was that there was a long list—always a long list—of prisoners awaiting psychological assessments. I sincerely hope that this bill will activate the importance of offenders being engaged in suitable and effective rehabilitative initiatives, in order to achieve risk milestones. Reducing the number of unnecessary parole hearings does not increase the length of time offenders spend in prison. That is a good thing, and it leads to savings. It gives the board greater flexibility, and reduces the stress and trauma that is often caused to the victims.

This bill will provide offenders with a reality check for them, when it comes to reintegration, which they need to meet as part of the parole milestone requirements. It also gives a reality check to this Government that our parole process is an integral part of rehabilitation, reintegration, and reduction in reoffending. There are too many falling through the cracks of legislative loopholes. I believe that this bill deserves to go to the select committee. This is what an investment approach is all about. It is what this bill is trying to achieve. New Zealand First would like to support the bill at its first reading. Thank you.

I advise the House that this is a split call.

This is just a very, very brief call. I can assure Jan Logie that she will get her opportunity very, very soon to make a contribution on this Parole Amendment Bill. Labour does support this bill being sent to the Law and Order Committee. The Parole Amendment Bill amends the Parole Act 2002 to increase the minimum time between parole hearings, from 12 months to 2 years, for offenders serving indeterminate sentences or sentences of 10 years or more. The maximum time between parole hearings increases from 3 years to 5 years. Hearings will also be aligned with the completion of core milestones in an inmate’s offender plan, and this is estimated to reduce the number of parole hearings by 800 per year.

Labour looks forward to the discussion and the debate at the select committee, and, I am sure, to the many public submissions. With that, we commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. The Green Party will, at this stage, be opposing this bill, the Parole Amendment Bill, although we are interested in the conversation that happens. I am happy to take a brief call on the bill at this stage.

As previously stated, I will restate the purported goals of this bill, which are to reduce unnecessary parole hearings for offenders who do not acknowledge offending and have made little or no effort at rehabilitation. The mechanisms that we are being told will encourage them in rehabilitation will be by increasing the maximum time between hearings from 12 months to 2 years, increasing the maximum time between hearings from 3 years to 5 years for those offenders who are serving sentences of 10 years or more, and aligning hearings with the completion of core activities and goals to reduce that offending.

There are several points that we would like to raise briefly in relation to this bill. We are yet to see any evidence—and we have had a briefing from officials on the bill—that this bill is going to make a difference or increase people’s chances of genuine rehabilitation. That evidence has not been provided for us. Concerns have been raised by us, within the justice sector, that it may lead to people, who are not at that place of actually recognising they have a need for rehabilitation, entering courses just to be able to access parole at an earlier level, and to go through the motions. This will fundamentally change the dynamics in those courses, and quite potentially limit the learning of the others on those courses because the seats will be filled by people who do not have an honest intent to change or rehabilitate. It could affect the learning of everyone on those courses, and that we have quite real concerns about.

Also, the courses are not necessarily available to everyone. There are a significant number of inmates who are illiterate, and a significant number of rehabilitation programmes that require reading ability. So if we are going to limit somebody’s access to parole and tie it to those courses that they are not actually entitled to access, I think we have a fundamental issue in terms of justice in this area. We will be very keen on hearing from submitters and exploring whether that is real or not, though it has been raised with us already. It has also been raised with us by Kim Workman, who said that he is concerned that it may encourage inmates to lie, to say that they are ready for rehabilitation, when in fact they are not, and that the rehabilitation programmes, such that they are at the moment, are really struggling. We know many of them have waiting lists, and they may be inundated and not resourced to be able to cope.

Our hope with this bill is that it may actually provide a spur for a change in focus, force the prisons into improving access to those courses, and increase the provision. That would indeed be a great outcome because it is, I think, a terrible waste when people identify that they want assistance and they want to change, and they are not able to access those services. So that is something that we could potentially support.

Other concerns we have with this bill are that we have been told that part of the reason for it is to be able to take the stress off victims. That, of course, is a very important consideration. However, we are aware that only 5 percent of victims attend parole hearings and we have been told that their attendance actually has very little impact on the parole decisions. So it does seem potentially a bit disingenuous to try to present this as something that is going to be increasing its focus around victims’ rights. We are also worried that there may be unintended consequences, but we look forward to exploring the real issues and the community’s perspective in the select committee.