Victims of Crime Reform Bill

Part 3 of the Victims of Crime Reform Bill is a very straightforward part, so I want to take only a rather brief call on it. It is an important change. It ensures that victims are informed about an offender being considered for release on parole and that victims are well informed about how they can participate effectively in the parole hearing process. Actually, these were rights that were originally in the Parole Act but were inadvertently removed in the Parole Amendment Act 2007. It is a pity that no one on either side of the House picked it up at that point. So it remedies a gap. There are a couple of things to be said about that. A number of members in the last month have sat in on parole hearings. It is a rather unusual right for anybody who is not connected with the offender to be able to do that, but I think those of us who sat in on those hearings gained a much greater appreciation of how the parole hearings work and the consideration given by the Parole Board before an offender is released. I think that for many of us it was quite reassuring to see how that process worked and the common sense of the justices and the laypeople who serve on the Parole Board.

One of the interesting factors about this is that only about 7 percent of all victims actually apply to make submissions on whether the offender should be given parole. Perhaps the Minister in the chair, the Associate Minister of Justice, would like to suggest why he thinks that level of participation by victims in parole hearings is as low as it is, because one would think that the release of the person who offended against you in a serious way was an important factor in your life, and maybe there are still obstacles that discourage victims from participating in the process. Alternatively, I guess, Minister, you could say that a lot of victims just want to put this behind them and perhaps do not want to be revictimised by the process of sitting—although they do not actually sit in on the parole hearing, but they are heard by the Parole Board. It seems to me that that is quite an important right. I would like some assurances that the system is good enough to ensure that all relevant victims are informed about their ability to do that.

The other thing, Minister, that I think is really important because this bill has been around for so long—coming up for 3 years now—is whether this bill is consistent with another piece of legislation before the House, which has gone to a different committee, and that is the Parole Amendment Bill, which is currently before the Law and Order Committee. I wonder whether the Ministry of Justice officials—and I presume that they have, but because this is to repair a stuff-up that was made because officials and members of the House did not pick up a past inadequacy—have carefully gone through the provisions of this bill to see that they are consistent with the Parole Amendment Bill, which is before the Law and Order Committee, and vice versa. I think it is really important that there is that coordination and we have that assurance; otherwise, we may be back here in another 12 months because we are repairing something that officials had overlooked and members of the Committee had not picked up on.

So those are the two major issues. It is about the low level of participation of victims in parole hearings—having their voice heard by the Parole Board—and whether the Minister is absolutely convinced that victims are fully informed about their ability to participate in the process, and that they know, for example, that if they want to participate in this process, they do not have to go face to face with the offender, which most do not want to do, and know that they also do not have to go to the prison in order to be heard by the Parole Board. The Parole Board, in normal circumstances, will meet the victims outside the prison environment. So I think the Parole Board is doing a really good job. In fact, Minister, you mentioned the Sensible Sentencing Trust and its failure to follow up on the offer to sit in on restorative processes, but even the Sensible Sentencing Trust, with its sometimes rather extreme views, acknowledged that the Parole Board under Justice Gendall now, and under his predecessor Justice Carruthers, is making a real effort to make sure that the victims feel comfortable with the process and that they are treated with respect. I think that is worth putting on the record of the Committee—that our Parole Board is acting effectively in that way. I think members on all sides of the Chamber would be pleased to know that the Parole Board, which quite often comes under a lot of flak because occasionally, being human, its members get things wrong, consistently has been regarded as doing its job conscientiously and taking into account the concerns and the feelings of the victims that it is dealing with.

So the two things again, Minister, just so you have got them clearly in your mind—just briefly—are these. First, are we absolutely sure that this legislation is now consistent and vice versa with the Parole Amendment Bill, which is before the Law and Order Committee but not yet reported back? Secondly, is the Minister really assured that everything that can be done to make victims aware of the process and comfortable with the process is being done?

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 424 in the name of the Hon Judith Collins to Part 3 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Part 3 as amended agreed to.

Part 4 Amendments to Sentencing Act 2002