Parole Amendment Bill

I am pleased to rise to speak to the second reading of the Parole Amendment Bill on behalf of New Zealand First and on behalf of my dear friend and close colleague Mahesh Bindra, in whom we are fortunate to have a member with lengthy experience in and a deep working knowledge of the corrections sector.

Although I sat on the Law and Order Committee, which considered this bill, this is the first opportunity I have had to speak to it. New Zealand First supports this bill because we believe it is a good bill, a necessary bill, and a piece of legislation that will tangibly improve the lot of people who have been victims of crime. Under existing parole arrangements they are forced to be revictimised, entirely unnecessarily, every 12 months and have to undergo the unpleasant and sometimes wholly traumatic experience of reliving the crime they were subjected to, as offenders who have no realistic, let alone deserved, chance of gaining early release are granted parole hearings at regular and frequent intervals simply because that is what the law as it stands prescribes.

There are some aspects of this bill with which New Zealand First is not entirely happy, but it would be churlish of us to oppose it on those grounds. As with much of this Government’s approach to law and order issues, we feel there are aspects of this bill that do not go far enough. New Zealand First takes a strong line on law and order. We are not soft on crime in the way that some parties in this House are soft on crime. I am not accusing National of being soft on crime, I should say to members opposite—not at this point, anyway. I cannot guarantee, however, that no such accusation will be levelled at any juncture throughout the 51st Parliament.

National does have a bit of a track record of going a wee bit wobbly at the knees, when push comes to shove. When the big stick needs to be waved, and they can see the whites of the criminals’ eyes, they do have a bit of a tendency to pull their punches, to be a wee bit sensitive. It is our job to keep them on the straight and narrow. New Zealand First will be the voice of the people, when the National Party’s conscience fails them, when their collective stomach shows signs of weakness.

There will be opportunity for some aspects of this bill to be improved during the Committee of the whole House, and it is probable that New Zealand First will suggest some amendments by way of Supplementary Order Paper. We hope that the National Government will be open to the genuine and impartial consideration of these proposed changes. They will be reasoned and reasonable. We are like that. New Zealand First is a reasonable party. We are reasoned in our thinking. This is the approach that we believe is appropriate for constructive opposition. Members opposite and the general public may be assured that we will be just as reasoned and reasonable in Government.

We have a caution with regard to this bill, and that is that its name implies things that may give the general public cause to believe that the bill has aims and intentions that are, in fact, very much outside the scope of this bill as it has been formed. People could be forgiven for assuming that a bill named the Parole Amendment Bill might be a bill intended to correct all that is wrong with parole. It is no such thing, of course. This bill will correct a singular deficiency of the parole system, and that we both salute and support, but it will not address the numerous other concerns that ordinary people have regarding the application of parole in New Zealand. It will not address the fact that far too many people are granted parole when they patently and obviously still pose a danger to the public. Far too many of them go on to commit further heinous crimes whilst on parole, and innocent people are robbed, beaten, raped, and murdered by criminals who, ordinary common sense says, should still be locked up.

As much as with the ongoing deficiency of the bail system, inherent faults in the mechanisms by which parole is granted in New Zealand continue to be the cause of far too much unnecessary crime and far too much real and irrevocable suffering on the part of far too many innocent people who do not deserve a bar of it. New Zealand First urges the Government to revisit the issues of both bail and parole as a matter of urgency, as soon as is practicable in the new year. We accept the fact, although we do not like it, that it cannot be done this year, but to undertake a complete overhaul of bail and parole laws is a matter of priority to ensure that these systems are able to protect innocent people, to preserve justice, and to keep ordinary folk safe from the actions of criminals.

I know that many of these same concerns are shared by members on the Government side of the House, because they were expressed by submitters during the consideration of the Bail Amendment Bill and the Corrections Amendment Bill by the Law and Order Committee of the 50th Parliament. The concerns of submitters found a sympathetic reception amongst some of the Government members of that committee. This is a matter of real importance, and it is a matter of profound relevance to a great many New Zealanders. We very much hope that this Government will take these concerns on board and will respond proactively to them.

This bill is a step in the right direction. It is a step along the right road. The changes that it will bring will be positive and beneficial, and they will be appreciated by ordinary law-abiding people. We support it in that light. But it could be better. We will be making suggestions as to how it could be made better. We encourage the Government to consider our suggestions when the time comes, as part of a commitment to improve corrections outcomes overall and to enhance the safety and security of our people and communities. New Zealand First supports this bill and we look forward to improving it during the Committee stage. Thank you.

Before I call the next member, I would like to refer members to Speaker’s ruling 47/1 and say that three out of the four speeches—and I will exempt David Clendon—that we have had on this bill today have breached that Speaker’s ruling.

I am almost too frightened to speak. I do want to comment on the bill, but I also want to comment on a couple of other things that led up to the bill. In the last Parliament we had the opportunity as the Law and Order Committee—and it was a very valuable opportunity—to visit some parole hearings, and in the course of visiting those parole hearings, it gave us a very clear view of why we needed to do what we did. I am not sure whether the previous speaker, Richard Prosser, had the opportunity to visit those parole hearings, and I am not sure that I share all of his views, but I do eat red meat and I know that he does too.

I also think that this bill is a very specific bill, dealing with one particular piece of the parole process, I guess. It gives the victim some peace from attending repetitious hearings and also gives the criminal, or the person who is eligible for a parole hearing, an opportunity not to have to be heard when they know clearly that they are not going to get the opportunity to get a result at that parole hearing. So it is all about efficiency. It is about protecting the victim. It is also about taking the pressure off those prisoners who know clearly that they are not going to get the opportunity to get out of prison as a result of that hearing.

I think the bill is certainly worthy of support. It certainly does not deal with a broad review of the parole system, or anything else. I think our parole system is working very well, and I also think, from the observations we had in the last Parliament as a result of those Law and Order Committee visits, that a large amount of the stuff that goes on in this sector is very good. Unfortunately, like everything else we have in this country, there are one or two things that slip through the process, and that is what gives the parole system its challenges. It is what gives our Department of Corrections a lot of its challenges.

I think that this bill goes a long way towards making things easier for a few people in the system, and I certainly fully support that. When you go and visit corrections facilities, parole hearings, and courts, you get a very clear view as to why the work that has been done in the last 5 or 6 years by this Government has led to some changes in the law and order system and in the Department of Corrections, which I think have done a great deal of service to New Zealand.

So that is my lot. I have got no problem supporting this bill. I think it is a good little piece of legislation. Thank you.

It is my pleasure to speak briefly on the Parole Amendment Bill. I had the pleasure of sitting on the Law and Order Committee, which considered this bill. Obviously, as would have been set out by previous speakers, this is an amendment to the Parole Act 2002, which by and large I think was an extremely good piece of legislation. It was introduced by Phil Goff. The primary foundation of this legislation is that when the Parole Board considers any offender for parole, its primary consideration is the safety of the community when determining, really, the reintegration of a prisoner back into society. That is the board’s primary driver. Of course, in order to assess whether or not that is the case for an offender, there will be a series of points at which the Parole Board will meet with an offender, will have someone from the corrections service alongside them, and will assess their suitability for parole. They will receive a significant amount of information when considering parole although, as we have learnt, not necessarily all the information that they need, and I will come to that later on.

But that does mean that if an offender comes up for eligibility, it does not necessarily mean they are ready for release. You could say that someone like Phillip Smith may have been an example. He had come before the Parole Board, and it had determined that he was not ready for release. That happens frequently. Someone who has a life sentence may come before the Parole Board many times. So what this bill tries to address is the fact that an offender who is not ready for parole, who is coming back before the Parole Board frequently, can actually re-traumatise a victim. If they are on a victims’ register in order to be notified of Parole Board hearings they basically can find themselves in constant preparation for Parole Board meetings, and that is a significant driving force behind this piece of legislation. There is the ability to defer Parole Board hearings already, but what this bill does is allow that deferral period to go from 3 to 5 years for offenders who have an indeterminate sentence or a sentence of 10 years or more, those who are on preventive detention, and those who have life sentences because that is indicative of the severity of their crime and the fact that there may be longer periods between those meetings and that might be appropriate. But it also allows the Parole Board to make a recommendation that a maximum time between parole hearings moves from 12 months to 2 years.

There are some things that the select committee considered that I want to raise in the House. Actually, it was my assumption that every offender would want the opportunity to go to a hearing and have their opportunity to make the case for them to be released. That is actually not the case. I have visited a number of prisons and actually sat in on Parole Board hearings where, in one case, an offender actually said: “I do not want to be considered for parole. I am not ready.” They were working through a release-to-work programme, they wanted to make sure that they finished a rehabilitation programme they were in, and they themselves determined they were not ready for release. That might be an example of where a deferral of 2 years from their previous meeting may have been a good thing to do. So that was one assumption that I had challenged during this process.

The other is that the Parole Board does not play just one role. It is not there just to determine whether someone is ready for release. It sets out guidelines for what it would like to see the corrections service do to prepare an offender for release. This is a bit of a concern because if we remove that check and balance, who then is assessing whether corrections is ensuring that the programmes that its Parole Board has recommended are being fulfilled? That is an issue that came up a number of times. The Parole Board will often make recommendations around rehabilitation programmes it wants in place or work that it wants done that corrections is not always fulfilling. We discussed ways and mechanisms to ensure that that would happen and that is something I would like to ask the Minister to address in her next speech to the House: how she can ensure that if that Parole Board is not acting as that mechanism, there is another way to ensure that come the next meeting, if it is 2 years away, corrections is fulfilling the requirements of the Parole Board. I think that is really important.

Otherwise, I will use my other opportunities in the House to traverse some of the other recommendations made by the select committee, because they were numerous. Otherwise, this is a bill we support. We do think it will better support victims and, ultimately, could be beneficial to offenders in their rehabilitation also.

I apologise for missing the call before. I was distracted by reading Speaker’s ruling 47/1, I believe it was, and will attempt to, where possible, not read from notes. I will compensate by making this a short call to just restate the reasons why the Green Party will not be voting for the Parole Amendment Bill.

There are three reasons. First of all, the select committee process failed to assuage our concerns that the costs in terms of fairness and justice here would not be offset by the reduced costs and deficiencies.

Second, a number of people have said that the stress is on the importance of protecting the victims of crime, and the families of victims, from the trauma of having to go through repeated parole hearings. But we know that at no time are victims obliged to engage with offenders. We have also observed that the Parole Board manages the needs and the sensitivities of these people as they go through that process.

Third, and finally, we understand and we believe that the Parole Board currently has existing tools and mechanisms in place that essentially render this legislation unnecessary. So for those three reasons primarily we will be voting against the bill. Thank you.

I rise to support this bill in its second reading. I am proud to be part of a strong National Government that is building a safer New Zealand. We have embarked on a comprehensive programme of reform to protect communities, reduce crime, and put victims first. I am proud to be part of a strong National Government that is putting victims at the heart of the justice system and delivering on our promises. I am proud to be part of a strong National Government that has plans to reduce unnecessary parole hearings for offenders, which will reduce stress for those victims of crime.

The purpose of this bill is to amend the Parole Act 2002 to implement National’s post-election action plan to reduce the number of unnecessary parole hearings where the offender has little prospect of release. The Parole Act will be changed to extend the maximum interval between parole hearings from 1 to 2 years, and extend the maximum postponement period for offenders serving indeterminate sentences and determinate sentences of 10 or more years from 3 to 5 years.

Yet again, National is delivering on its promises. National is delivering on its promise to reduce unnecessary parole hearings. Victims of crime should not have to face the very stressful prospect of parole hearings year after year when an offender is clearly not safe to release into the community and has made little or no effort at rehabilitation.

Each year there are about 5,000 parole hearings. On average, offenders have three hearings before being granted parole. Our changes will provide a strong incentive for prisoners to address their offending behaviour. They will also provide greater flexibility for the Parole Board to set hearing dates to align with the completion of rehabilitation programmes. The changes will save an estimated $700,000 per annum. National is putting victims first. Thank you.

I just say to the member that he is better at reading his speech than he is at reading Speakers’ rulings.

The member opposite Alastair Scott has just said that there are 5,000 parole hearings a year, and I believe that this bill will reduce that number by 800 and, as I have just heard, save $500,000 in the process. I think that is a commendable part of the bill. I would like to see those resources that are being saved actually going to address the issues that David Clendon raised, in that one part of this bill is to incentivise prisoners to address their offending, the causes of their offending, and possibly move their parole hearings forward a bit so they can get released. Yet, the member David Clendon raised a really good point: if all these prisoners are motivated to have their parole hearing moved forward, will there be enough resources, enough money, to actually support the Parole Board to make that happen? I thought he raised a very good point there about the lack of resources to support this whole process to happen, but over here we are hearing of a saving of $500,000, with 800 fewer Parole Board hearings, and I can see how that cost, if the Government is willing, can actually be transferred to what David Clendon was addressing.

The bill does amend the Parole Act 2002 and it does increase the maximum time between parole hearings from 12 months to 2 years. Why would we do this? Quite simply, there are some prisoners who have little or no prospect of being released at a parole hearing—as many members have described today. Why would that be? The offender, possibly, has taken no steps to address their offending, they have not acknowledged the offending or the harm that they have caused to the victims, and they still pose a risk to the community. If this is obviously the case, then there seems to be little point in holding a parole hearing for no reason when the conclusion is all but foregone. It seems a much better idea to meet with offenders who have addressed their offending and have a chance of being released. The hearings, we have heard, cause undue stress to the victims.

Also, listening to what David Clendon said, only 7 percent actually put in a written submission and 3 percent front the offenders. All the same, knowing that your offender is going to come up for a parole hearing with little chance of him being released will still cause undue stress and anxiety in the victims. It is bad enough experiencing the crime in the first instance without having to relive it emotionally every 12 months for no apparent reason—in particular, if the offender has no chance of being released. For many, reliving the events every 12 months is as bad as the actual crime itself. So the bill includes a process to motivate the prisoner.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

We are debating the Parole Amendment Bill. We have heard some really interesting arguments here. Most of the members of the House support this bill; the Greens do not. I listened to David Clendon’s arguments and I understand them. What was really interesting to hear was the point made by the previous National speaker that there are 5,000 parole hearings heard a year. This bill is going to reduce that number by some 800 parole hearings a year, saving some $700,000 in the process. It would be great to see that $700,000 used to actually allay the issues that the Green member David Clendon raised around the number of inmates who will be so motivated by this bill that they will want to meet the conditions and they will want to have their parole hearings moved forward so they can get released. David Clendon’s concern, though, was that there would not be the resourcing available to support that process to happen, but because we hear that $700,000 is going to be saved, it would be great to see that money used for that purpose.

Again, just to go over things, the bill amends the Parole Act 2002 and it increases the maximum time between parole hearings from 12 months to 24 months—to 2 years. It does this simply because there are some prisoners who are not going to get paroled but who still have to go through this annual process. One of our concerns is for the victims, who, every year, as the parole hearing for the perpetrator of the crime against them comes forward, is going to have their anxiety, their angst, and their stress levels raised unnecessarily, when we know that, quite possibly, that perpetrator will not be granted parole. It seems to be a waste of time, a waste of resource, and a waste of emotional energy from the victims. Why is this? Possibly because there are some prisoners who have taken absolutely no steps to acknowledge their crimes, to rehabilitate, and there is still a risk of them reoffending; therefore, they are not really going to get parole, as they should.

As we say, if this is obviously the case, then there seems to be little point in holding a parole hearing and going through the motions simply for the sake of going through the motions. It seems a much better idea to meet with offenders who have addressed their offending and have a chance of actually being released. As I have said, the hearings, or the impending hearings, when the hearings do happen, cause undue stress on the victims, even though, as we have heard again from the Green member, only 7 percent of victims actually put forward a written submission to the Parole Board and only 3 percent actually attend the Parole Board hearings. There is no burden on them to actually front up to the offenders. However, just the whole process, as I have said, creates stress and anxiety for the victims, and often that is unnecessary. So the length of time between parole hearings has been extended to 2 years.

The bill includes a process to motivate a prisoner to address their offending and address the reasons for their offending by including a process for bringing their case forward when milestones are achieved earlier than expected. We do not want prisoners who are fit for parole to actually be denied that opportunity to seek parole when releasing them would be better for both the prisoner and their rehabilitation and social integration, and also better for the criminal justice system and the community. Like I say, it is better for the justice system that 800 fewer Parole Board hearings are likely to be heard because of this bill.

We must work to support and protect the victims of crime; that goes without saying. They should be in the forefront of our thinking. Victims, as I have said, can feel this unnecessary stress from having to prepare for the pending Parole Board hearings. Labour’s vision is for a New Zealand that guarantees civil and human rights, provides equal and full access to justice, and achieves real public safety rather than just delivering immediate and punitive measures. It gives us pleasure to support this bill. We hear and understand the reasons why the Green Party does not support it, and I respect those members’ views. But we in the Labour Party believe this is a good bill, which is going to help victims. It is going to help offenders address their offending and it is going to be better for all of New Zealand. Kia ora.

Kia ora. I have listened to the sound reasoning, debate, and arguments that have gone on with this bill over the debating period. Really, there is only one thing left for me to do. This final task is to commend the bill to the House wholeheartedly. Thank you.

Amendments recommended by the Law and Order Committee by majority agreed to.