Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill, Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill and the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. These bills will enhance public safety in New Zealand. The Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill will do this by managing a small number of serious sexual or violent offenders who are at extremely high risk of reoffending. The Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill will manage high-risk offenders in the community with conditions proportionate to their risk.

I would like to acknowledge the work of my colleague the Hon Amy Adams in progressing the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill, and I also want to acknowledge the work of the Justice and Electoral Committee and the Law and Order Committee in considering the bills. I also want to acknowledge the work that the officials have done, both corrections and justice officials, in bringing about these bills in the House.

I will first discuss the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill. This bill deals with serious sexual and violent offenders who pose a very high risk of imminent reoffending if they are released from prison and are too dangerous to be managed in the community. In these cases, the High Court may make a public protection order for civil detention of that offender. The High Court can impose a public protection order only if the offender meets a clear threshold and then a stringent test.

In order to be eligible for the imposition of a public protection order, a person must be aged over 18 years and come under one of the threshold categories. The categories include being recently released from prison, being on the most intensive form of an extended supervision order, or being recently arrived in New Zealand after an overseas sentence for a serious sexual or violent offence. If the offending falls under one of the categories, the offender then needs to meet a stringent test. First, the court needs to be satisfied that they impose an imminent risk of serious reoffending. Second, they must display a severe disturbance in behavioural functioning. Officials estimate that five to 12 offenders over 10 years will be placed on a public protection order.

The purpose of this bill is to keep the community safe from near-certain harm by a small number of offenders. The purpose is not to punish offenders, and this is made clear in clauses 4 and 5 of the bill. Additionally, clause 5 states: “persons who are detained in a residence under a public protection order should have as much autonomy and quality of life as possible, while ensuring the orderly functioning and safety within the residence.” There are a number of other safeguards to protect the rights of individuals subject to a public protection order. For example, residents will be re-evaluated regularly by both a review panel and a court. If a resident no longer meets the test for a public protection order, they will be released and placed on a protection supervision order in the community, with the appropriate measures to ensure public safety.

The Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill complements existing measures such as preventive detention and extended supervision orders, and these current sentencing or supervision options deal adequately with the majority of high-risk offenders. However, public protection orders are able to address gaps and deal more appropriately with certain very high-risk offenders. These gaps include very high-risk offenders who did not receive a life sentence or preventive detention, or whose risk was appreciated only once they were imprisoned. Additionally, the bill covers offenders who have returned to New Zealand after serving a sentence for a serious sexual or violent offence overseas.

Sexual or violent offenders should not be released from detention if they pose a very high risk of imminent and serious reoffending, and this bill sets up a balanced regime that is a proportionate response to the serious and imminent risk posed by a very small number of offenders.

I now turn to the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill, the bill that I am actually responsible for. This will ensure that the public are protected from high-risk offenders who finish a finite prison sentence but do not meet the criteria for detention under a public protection order. This bill enhances the current extended supervision order regime in two ways. First, the amendments enable extended supervision orders to be renewed as long as they are needed. Second, the scope of extended supervision orders, which currently can be used only for child sex offenders, is expanded to include adult sex offenders and very high-risk violent offenders.

I want to commend the Law and Order Committee, which received four written submissions on this bill and heard from one submitter. Most of the submitters supported the objective of protecting the public from serious sexual and violent offending from a small number of dangerous offenders. Some of the submitters, as I stated in my Committee stage speech, commented on the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act implications of the bill. The Law and Order Committee carefully considered the issue, and considered that there were appropriate safeguards. These include the extended supervision orders being subject to mandatory reviews by the courts, and also the Parole Board being required to review the most stringent conditions every 2 years. This will mean that extended supervision orders are in place only for as long as the offenders’ risk of serious harm to the public warrants it.

The Government made some additional enhancements to the extended supervision orders via a Supplementary Order Paper, which I tabled in the House earlier this week. Any contact between offenders on extended supervision orders and children will now be strictly controlled. This bill will also encourage consistent decisions about the most appropriate order for high-risk offenders when applications are made to the court. Finally, interim extended supervision orders can be granted when special circumstances delay a full extended supervision order application.

Together, these two bills fill the gaps we have identified in managing high-risk offenders once there are no other custodial options. I commend the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill and the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill to the House.

If I was a gentleman, I would have sat down and let Jacinda Ardern take the call. The Labour Party is supporting the third readings of both of these bills. It does so after careful consideration and reflection on the need for them, and, indeed, the impact that they have on the rights of not just potential victims but people who are very likely to become victims, and those who are the offenders but who nevertheless may have completed a prison term. We call these cognate bills because they are parallel in their objectives, although they are different in the manner in which they achieve them and the consequences for those who are so affected. What they have in common is that they are—in both cases—dealing with individuals who have committed, and been convicted for, serious sexual or violent offending. What they have in common is that they are dealing with people at the time they have completed a sentence that is a finite sentence, and in the normal course of the events they would have been regarded as having done the crime and served the time and would be released into the community. The bills are different, however, in the way in which they operate.

The Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill deals, first of all, with probably the most serious group of people due for release but who are highly likely to offend. We are not talking about a large number of people; we are talking about maybe five to 12 people over a 10-year period, so we are talking about one to two people a year. These are people who have committed a serious sexual or violent offence. They are individuals who are regarded by the health professionals who have been working with them in prison as being of extremely high risk, and not only is that risk very high but they are regarded as being in danger of imminent offending. “Imminent” offending in the bill is defined as “the person is expected to commit such an offence as soon as he or she has a suitable opportunity to do so”, and, unfortunately, there are people who come within that category. In the normal course of events, if the judge has enough information in front of him or her at the trials of those individuals, they would have committed those individuals to preventive detention. That is an indeterminate sentence—that is, they can be locked up for ever, and if they are released at any point, they can be recalled at any time. But in these cases the judge did not have that information. I am not blaming the judge; sometimes that information becomes available only after the behaviour of the individual has been observed by professionals in a prison environment over a long time.

The fact is that we can avoid the consequences of these people re-offending, and that is what this bill is designed to do. There is a conflict of rights: offenders do have rights, and that should be recognised, but so too does the rest of society. In particular, I draw your attention to the fact that the most likely victims in the circumstances covered by both of these bills are our most vulnerable citizens, our kids, and we owe it to them to protect them. If the prospect is imminent and very high and the consequences are appalling, we owe it them to extend the protection to them against that happening.

The individuals concerned in the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill will be in secure detention, but they will not suffer the same loss of rights as other convicted criminals. They are still free to vote, they are free to have access to the media, and they are free to receive communications and visitors. They are free to work and retain their earnings, or they are free to get a benefit, and they would be eligible for a benefit. What that actually highlights is that this is not designed as a punishment; this is designed for the protection of the safety of the community. In that sense, what we are trying to do in these bills is very similar to what we do under the Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care and Rehabilitation) Act and the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act. These are cases where people are detained. They are not regarded as criminal, but they are detained because they are regarded as being of danger to themselves and to others.

The second bill is the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill, and that works slightly differently. It deals with a much wider group of people. It is amending an Act that has already been in existence, and it is being extended. Indeed, 10 years ago I passed the Parole (Extended Supervision) Amendment Act, and that was focused on one category of people: those who were serious sexual offenders against children. What it did was that when a finite prison sentence came to an end, it allowed extended supervision orders to be exercised that placed those individuals under close supervision thereafter. I know exactly why that bill was enacted, and if I had the same opportunity, I would have enacted that bill again. On the information that I then had as Minister of Justice, it was critical that we provided protection against individuals who had no ability to control their behaviour and had no empathy for their victim or understanding of the impact of their actions on the victim, and that makes the situation very dangerous indeed.

Many of these individuals were of a low IQ. All of them were people who could not be given rehabilitation within prison that actually worked. Programmes like Kia Mārama and Te Piriti are excellent at dealing with people who are child sexual offenders, and, in most cases, they can deal with people and they can substantially reduce the risk. This is a category of people who will not be affected positively by engagements in those sorts of programmes. These people are not detained in prison. They are in the community, but they are under heavy supervision. Because these people are being dealt with under the criminal law, this law—again, as it did in 2004—breaches the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, according to the opinion of the Attorney-General. I never lightly support legislation that breaches the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, but in this case, again, I believe that the rights of the people who will almost certainly become victims come first.

The bill allows us to extend indefinitely supervision orders, if they are required. It also extends the category of people covered by it, from sexual offenders against children to sexual offenders against adults and very serious violent offenders. The largest numbers will still be those who commit acts against children, and, regrettably, we need it. Again, these people could have been sentenced to preventive detention. They were not, but if the judge knew what the prison authorities and the health professionals know at the end of the sentence when he or she made the order, the judge most certainly would have done that.

I think that both of these bills are necessary. We could have actually manipulated the system to try to bring in civil orders in this case. It would have had no impact in material terms on the situation that offenders find themselves in and, in the end, we neither had the time to do that, nor did we want to run the risk of changing a system that seemed to be working very well. There are safeguards. Judges have to make the orders. Health professionals make the assessment. The Parole Board reviews whether the orders should be continued. I think we have got the balance of rights correct. I think that both pieces of legislation are necessary and are important to protect the rights of New Zealanders and, particularly, our children.

It is regrettable that we do have to protect the most vulnerable members of our community from some people. It is regrettable, but it is also very necessary that we do that. It is not good enough, at the end of a period of supervision or a finite sentence, to simply allow some offenders in New Zealand whom we know are at imminent risk of serious sexual offending against, particularly, young children to go out in society, so I support the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill and the Parole (Extended Orders Supervision) Amendment Bill, which we are dealing with here, and it is logical to deal with them as cognate bills.

As these bills both deal with managing offenders on their release from prison, it does make sense to deal with them together, although one of them is a civil order and the other is not. One bill manages orders for community supervision that are already in place but that will begin expiring next year, so clearly, in order to protect children, in particular, these will need to be extended. The other bill introduces new orders that will keep offenders who pose a very high risk—and throughout the Committee stage and in other speeches in this House we have examined what “very high risk” means. It means of very high risk of imminent serious sexual assault or violent offending. We wish to have those people detained at the end of their sentence. So the extended supervision orders are currently used to manage a very small number of child sex offenders who pose a very high risk of serious harm to, particularly, young people after being released from prison. The public protection orders bill will empower the High Court to issue a public protection order that will allow for the detention of a subject, and that detention will be in a secure facility.

These orders are aimed at people who reach the end of a finite prison sentence and, as I said in my opening remarks, we simply cannot accept the idea that these people, at the end of their finite sentence or at the end of their supervision orders, can then go out into society when we know that there is a very high chance of their imminent reoffending. Less restrictive forms of supervision would almost certainly not prevent their reoffending, and therein is the nub of this argument.

These bills work as a package and need to be passed by this House—and I am pleased to be speaking in their third readings—to ensure there is a maximum management option, and that is the residential option available for very high-risk offenders who reach the end of their finite 1 year of intensive monitoring under an extended supervision order. But also, and in the context of some other bills and other matters that the Law and Order Committee has considered, they require the same judge to consider applications for public protection orders and extended supervision orders made for the same offenders so that there is consistency of decision making.

I am pleased that the House is supporting this legislation so strongly. I think there is a very good understanding of the need for these bills, and I commend these bills to the House.

My call on this bill will be reasonably brief. As the previous speaker Jacqui Dean mentioned, there is good support for these bills from Labour at least. That is not to say that we did not apply significant scrutiny to both bills, because we are essentially debating two quite separate orders this afternoon.

I want to begin with the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill. This bill was first promised by Judith Collins and John Key back in 2011. It would have been useful, I think, and would have aided the passage of this significant piece of legislation had Opposition parties been engaged at that time in the passage of that bill. That did not happen, and that was disappointing. I would like to thank, though, both the former Minister of Corrections Anne Tolley and the Minister of Corrections, Sam Lotu-Iiga, who took a different approach for the second bill that we will be debating. But with the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill that did not happen. That was disappointing, because these are significant changes that we are debating.

As has been outlined by Phil Goff, we have a spectrum of orders, which allows flexibility in terms of dealing with prisoners who are at significant risk of reoffending and who have already demonstrated that the areas in which they offend are of a particularly grievous nature—child sex offenders, sex offenders, serious violent offenders, and the like. If you look at the spectrum of options available at sentencing, of course you have the ability to apply an indeterminate sentence via preventive detention. What that intends to do is very much in the name. It gives the flexibility to the Parole Board in the future to make an assessment that a particular offender is simply still at too high a risk to release back into the community, basing that judgment on the Parole Act, which deems that you must always make an assessment as to the risk to the community. That assumes that at the time of sentencing, the judge has enough information to determine that risk.

It became apparent to Phil Goff when he was the Minister of Justice that there were offenders who were about to be released back into the community who perhaps, had the judge had the appropriate information at the time of sentencing, may have been considered as appropriate candidates for preventive detention but were not. What do you do in that scenario? That was a significant and very real concern that Phil Goff faced. There was a particular prisoner at that time, I believe, who was about to be released, and he had to consider how the justice system would deal with that known risk. Out of that came extended supervision orders. It was a 10-year order, it was very narrowly framed, it was for child sex offenders, and it expired after 10 years. That was the spectrum of orders available to enable us to assess risk and to act accordingly.

But what if someone who was coming up for an extended supervision order actually needed more than just monitoring in the community? There was a need for there to be the ability to not even allow them back into the community. There was no real option there, and so I can see why the Government looked at public protection orders. They cannot be used as punishment, though. It is a step too far outside the realms of our justice system to try to relitigate a finite sentence that has been ordered by a judge and the judiciary.

We also need to ensure that when these orders are used, there are appropriate checks and balances. I think the Justice and Electoral Committee made some good recommendations to put those annual checks in to ensure that the orders are still being applied appropriately. Given it is a civil not a criminal regime, and given it is not an extended punishment but a form of protection, that is incredibly important. I want to implore Parliament to continue to take a role in oversight over these orders. They are significant, they extend well beyond where our justice system has gone before, and although we support them, we are very, very committed to making sure that they are only ever used in the appropriate circumstances and that the magnitude of risk justifies the use of the orders.

We then come to the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill. The orders under this bill are not residential orders; they are orders for supervision within the community. These, in one sense, even though they were considered a greater breach against the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act than the public protection orders, are actually at a lower level because they allow monitoring within the community. This is an extension of what Labour had already brought in—an extension in terms of who was eligible for those orders, and removing the 10-year time lapse on them.

Again, I would implore this Parliament to maintain oversight over these orders to ensure they are appropriately used, because they are taking us well beyond where our previous conventions have taken us. Internationally they are not used widely either. We do accept the need for these orders. We do accept the need for flexibility to manage serious offenders who continue to pose a risk to the community, but we also ask that we take our role very seriously in ensuring their appropriate use and their frugal use.

💬 David Clendon: Mr Speaker. [Interruption]

David Clendon.

David Clendon. I apologise profusely. The one person in the House whose name I was not worried about.

Apology accepted, thank you. Shall I begin? No, just kidding. I am pleased to take a call in this third and final reading of these cognate bills. As there is the opportunity at the third reading to do so, I would like to not only reflect on the content of the bills but also say a bit about the social and, indeed, the political context from which they have emerged.

Just to reiterate, the Greens will be supporting the extended supervision orders legislation. It is a strong response and a strong intervention to extend the period over which people can be subject to supervision orders, but we see it as an appropriate and measured response—responding to the existence of a small number of very challenging people who, for their own benefit as much as for the broader social and community protection, need to be continually monitored in order to overcome their predilection for particular forms of offending, in particular sex offending, violent offending, and the like. So although we acknowledge that it is a very strong intervention, it is an appropriate one.

We believe that the public protection orders bill goes too far. We think it is excessive. We think it unwarranted. We think it ignores other options that could achieve the same ends of enhancing community safety without compromising our commitment to human rights, both domestically and, indeed, in the context of international law and international convention. So we have, in a sense, a dollar each way on these cognate bills. We will vote for one and against the other.

The Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill and some other legislation we have seen passed in recent decades reflect, I believe, the fact that lawmakers have been more of a mind to inflict a punitive regime than society, the general community, has been. All the evidence is that although people might spontaneously react to particular crimes, to particular high-profile offences, if one scratches an inch below that surface you find that the general population can be persuaded by evidence, by dialogue, that actually these knee-jerk punitive responses are unlikely to deliver public safety, are unlikely to positively affect the long-term behaviour of offenders, and are unlikely to reduce recidivism or achieve any of the other goals and objectives of our justice system.

Part of the difficulty facing political decision-makers, I would argue, is that the media are complicit in sensationalising crime and offending. There is a distinct over-reporting of crime. All the evidence is that we do have an over-reporting of crime. It is easy news. It is something that always grabs attention. The old phrase “If it bleeds, it leads.” is nowhere more real than in terms of the reporting of crime.

This is significant because it creates a perception in the communities that crime is increasing, when, in fact, for at least two decades the trend both in New Zealand and internationally has been a reduction in offending. Our communities are not more dangerous than they were 20, 30, or 40 years ago—the opposite, in fact. But much of the response, or the success, I would say, of a very vocal minority—indeed, as a consequence of the over-reporting and inappropriate reporting of crime—has led to a public perception of there being a much more dangerous society. That creates an environment where these extreme measures are more likely to be accepted and acceptable than they need to be.

What we want are responses that do not have recourse to excessive imprisonment, that look for non-custodial sentences. We want therapeutic approaches. Let us heal these people who are damaged in ways that cause them to offend. Tougher sentences are not a solution. There is no evidence anywhere in the world that tougher sentences, longer terms of imprisonment, actually reduce crime. It is quite the opposite. They simply impose costs, both social and economic.

There is some useful work being done. I would have to put in a wee plug for an organisation called JustSpeak. It is a youth justice organisation that has recently published a couple of very relevant and very helpful documents, one of which is entitled—if I can find it—What Do I Have to Do to Change Your Mind? It is a document that highlights that we do have an issue in terms of bringing public understanding and, hopefully, political decision-making to a position that is based on much better evidence. It is important that we look at the quality and level of information available to us when we are making decisions about appropriate penalties for offenders.

We need to consider the genuine fears and frustrations and uncertainties in the broader society, in our communities. We can achieve that by debunking some of the myths that surround crime and punishment issues. Ultimately, we need to engage and encourage ourselves as political decision-makers to rely more heavily on evidence, to consider more cross-party agreements and multi-party approaches, and to take some of the political risk out of looking at positive alternatives rather than the old and failed knee-jerk punitive strategies. So I would hope that some of the alternative methods are actually considered and applied much more in our legislation and our decision making over time.

To speak more specifically to these bills, the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill, which, as I have said, we do support, is a measured response. It does acknowledge the need to enable ongoing monitoring and supervision of a small number of very difficult individuals who would almost inevitably reoffend if left to their own devices, which would not do the community any good. Clearly, it would victimise individuals and, ultimately, would not be a good thing for those offenders. It is better to enable them to live, as near as possible, a normal life outside of prison, outside of detention, but at the same time ensure that they no longer offend.

As I said, our opposition to the public protection orders is that they go too far. We have heard this constant litany that the public protection orders do not impose punishment. I reject that. It just does not stand up. My Concise Oxford Dictionary gives me a definition of the verb “to punish”, which is “to cause an offender to suffer; to chastise; to inflict penalty for offence”. I will not reiterate them, but in an earlier reading this week, the previous reading, I worked through some of the provisions of the bill and the extent to which people who are subject to them will be denied their liberty, denied freedom of association, denied everyday access to communications, telephones, internet, and so on, and will have very limited access to news media. Any of their correspondence, be it personal or otherwise, will be censored, with a few exceptions. These are seriously punitive elements. This is undoubtedly a regime of punishment. We punish people for offending. In this instance we will be punishing people for the possibility that they may offend, and that is simply a step too far for the Greens.

We believe there are alternative means we can try and that we can in fact rely on to be effective in a way that these public protection orders are unlikely to be. That is as much as I think we need to say at this point. I do believe that the public protection orders are a reflection of a set of understandings—a belief system, if you like—that are no longer valid or relevant, either socially or politically. I think we need to constantly rely on evidence, both internationally and locally derived. We need to invest a great deal more in finding out what does work and to acknowledge what fails and has been proven to fail over time. We believe the extended supervision orders regime will succeed and will achieve its goals and its objectives with significant but acceptable levels of intrusion into people’s rights. The public protection orders regime, we believe, is doomed to fail, and for that reason we will not be supporting it.

The Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill makes two main changes, both of which are common sense. It allows extended supervision orders to be renewed as often as is needed, and it will mean that the Parole Act will now cover high-risk sex offenders against adults and also very high-risk violent offenders. It clarifies the criteria to ensure that only the highest-risk offenders are eligible for these orders, which would allow them to then live in the community but under strict supervision but also with the protection of mandatory court reviews.

Clause 12 of the bill lists behavioural characteristics of an eligible violent offender, indicative of what is called severe disturbance in behavioural functioning. New Zealand First supports this, so that the courts will have the guidance needed in making an order, noting of course the specific context for an extended supervision order as distinct from a public protection order. Overall, these are very good amendments to the Parole Act, and New Zealand First supports that bill.

New Zealand First will also continue to support the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill. It achieves a very difficult balance between protecting citizens from serious sexual or violent harm by people who are likely to reoffend following release from prison and, of course, the rights of those affected by the order to be subject to the least restrictive form of detention that might be practicable. It also ensures adequate oversight of detention through regular reviews by a review panel in the High Court, independent inspector and ombudsman visits, and an annual report to Parliament.

These orders observe the four important principles that are set out in the legislation. Firstly, public protection orders are not about further punishing offenders, and the offence is to be only one of several factors that are relevant to assessing whether there is a very high risk of imminent sexual or violent offending. In this respect, I would have to disagree with Mr Clendon, who says that if a person is released from prison and might be found to be capable of reoffending for the same sort of offence, then they would be being punished again under this legislation. That actually is not true. The reason they are being detained is to protect them and the public from that likely reoffending. I would draw a comparison, for example, with a prisoner of war. These people are detained but they are not being punished; they are simply being detained because they are to be prevented from rejoining the fight. So they are not being punished. There are reasons for detention other than punishment, and this is one of them. That reason is to prevent reoffending, which is actually for the benefit of the offender, as much as of the public. So I think Mr Clendon and the Greens have got that wrong and they need to perhaps give that some more thought.

The second principle is that a protection order should be imposed only if the magnitude of the risk posed by the respondent justifies that. Thirdly, an order will not be imposed on a person who should be detained under the mental health legislation. Most people who are in this sort of position will probably be detained under that legislation and not under a public protection order. There are likely to be very few who will need to be detained in that way.

The fourth principle is that persons who are detained in a residence should have as much autonomy and quality of life as possible, and that is, of course, consistent with the proposition that they are not being punished; they are simply being detained for their own good and for the good of the public.

There must be a thorough assessment as to whether a person is likely to offend again in terms of sexual or violent reoffending. It has to be found that the application is supported by at least two psychologist or psychiatrist reports, and the court may call for an additional report. The respondent also can call for another report. Those, I think, are very good safeguards. It means that the court will have very good information upon which to base its decision. The crux is that there must be proof as to whether an order is necessary. The court must not find that there is a very high risk of further offending unless it is satisfied that the respondent exhibits a severe disturbance in behavioural functioning established by evidence of specified characteristics to a high level. So this is a very high bar to reach in evidential terms.

Concerning the review provisions—a court reviewing a public protection order must consider whether the subject still poses a very high risk of imminent sexual or violent reoffending, taking into account the reports that would be provided to it. If the court finds that the person no longer poses a very high risk, it must make a finding to that effect. The court must then cancel the public protection order and, if justified, impose a protective supervision order on the person instead. Clause 80(1B) would require the person to be released from detention as soon as practicable after a protective supervision order is imposed.

I am also gratified to see clause 124B, which inserts paragraph (ca) into section 4(1) of the Legal Services Act 2011. That would make any proceedings under the Act a specified application, which makes it easier for the person concerned to access legal aid than it is for standard civil proceedings. At the select committee I was very keen that that be put in the legislation, because I felt that if a person was to be subject to an order of this kind, then it was essential that they could easily get legal aid with which to defend themselves and that therefore the balance between personal rights and those seeking to detain that person would be well preserved.

Another welcome addition to clause 31 would allow visits from permitted persons, subject of course to appropriate restrictions. New subclause (1A) would permit a visit to be unsupervised if the residence manager considered that that would assist in rehabilitation. But new clause 56(1A) requires a residence manager not to allow a person under the age of 18 years to visit unless, again, it can be shown that that would assist the person’s rehabilitative needs. Rehabilitation is also an important part of this.

One of the most important new sections is new clause 124A, which adds new paragraph (bb) to section 120(1) of the Crimes Act, making it an offence to escape from the residence when subject to a public protection order. The bill also provides for inspections of residences, and an inspector can arrive unannounced at any time for that purpose. But the bill also confers jurisdiction on the court to order that a person be detained in a prison instead of a residence if it is satisfied that the residence detention would pose an unacceptably high risk to the person or to others. Again, there is a good balance there.

Overall, New Zealand First welcomes the legislation, which we think fairly and effectively fills the gap in the law to prevent very dangerous people—and there would be very few such people—from being free to reoffend upon release from prison. I want to emphasise once again that this form of detention cannot fairly or properly be regarded as a form of punishment. It is only if it is really necessary for people who are so dangerous that they would be a threat not only to themselves but more particularly to the public at large. There have been cases of that in recent years. This is a gap that needed to be filled, and this legislation does it.

I rise to speak on the third reading of the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill. I am going to restrict my comments to that bill, which we will not be supporting, rather than speak on the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill, which we will be supporting. I just wanted to start by responding to some of the comments from the New Zealand First member, Mr O’Rourke, in comparing people who are under public protection orders with prisoners of war, as a justification that this is not punishment but is detention. I suspect that the prisoners of war who built the bridge over the River Kwai would argue with the point that while they were being detained they were not being punished. I suspect the same would be true of those who are still in detention in Guantánamo Bay. But l know that this legislation does contain a number of safeguards that are designed to ensure that these detainees, these people who are subject to these orders, do not suffer the kinds of punishments that those prisoners of war did. It is good to know that people who are subject to these orders will not be waterboarded.

I do accept that these individuals do exist. I accept that they pose an extremely serious risk. I also want to respond to some of the things that Phil Goff said in his comments, both in his speech this time and also in the second reading, where he talked about the conflict of rights. I just want to acknowledge that I appreciate that that has been seriously considered and that they considered their position, made that choice, having seriously considered the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. But as my colleague David Clendon said, we do believe that the public protection orders bill is a step too far.

I mentioned the bridge over the River Kwai. Another movie that I will refer to is called Minority Report—a Tom Cruise film set in the science fiction world, in which psychics were able to tell of crimes before they occurred and lived in this fantastic kind of crime-free society where the cops would raid people who were about to commit crimes because this particular group of psychics were able to detect that they were heading in a crime-erring direction and so were able to make an early intervention and take them to prison before the crime was committed. This, of course, was an ideal scenario except that it raised the argument that if a crime has not been committed, should people be locked up? This is obviously not that kind of extreme, but the principle stands. In our system of justice, as we have it, when you do the crime you do the time, and when you have done the time you are released. You are a free person—at least in theory.

The reason I am curious about the public protection orders bill is because I wonder how necessary it is that we introduce an additional piece of legislation in addition to all of the pieces of legislation that we already have when the Law Society itself has said that it is unnecessary; when you consider that we are designing a piece of legislation to deal with perhaps one person a year; and when we have the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act, the Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care and Rehabilitation) Act, and we are about to pass the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill. By definition, these people who pose this kind of risk have severe dysfunction. That is written into this bill. Surely, if they are that mentally impaired they are already covered by one of the other three or four pieces of legislation that we have.

I just wanted to echo a theme that Mr Clendon made in his comments, which is that there is pressure on lawmakers to be seen to be doing something in a media-driven society. My sense is that this bill is one of those pieces of legislation. Because the Law Society has said it is unnecessary, because these people are covered by existing legislation, and because it transgresses the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and the international convention on human rights, it is a step too far. It is erring in the direction of populist law and order, rather than a proper justice system. With that, thank you very much.

I rise to take a brief call in support of the third readings of the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill and the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill.

Firstly, I will speak on the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill. This bill has been through the Law and Order Committee for due process, and the select committee introduced a number of amendments to ensure that the bill is more appropriate. I would like to commend the select committee members for their work and I would also like to thank and acknowledge the Minister of Corrections, Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga.

The Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill aims to ensure that a small number of very serious offenders can be given public protection orders, which allow them to be detained in a secure facility. Public protection orders are targeted solely at convicted offenders rather than being more widely applicable to individuals in the community who display similar characteristics. Phillip John Smith is a case in point on exactly why legislation like this is necessary, and it is unfortunate that the Government did not get around to making these changes before he escaped earlier on. Mr Smith, a convicted murderer, a paedophile, and convicted of other offences including aggravated robbery and extortion, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1996 for murdering the father of a young child whom he had molested. His history of criminal activity is long and violent, and he should not have been allowed to apply for, and subsequently receive, a passport while he was an inmate in a prison facility.

Mr Smith was born Phillip John Traynor. He did not even legally change his name to Phillip John Smith. It is just unacceptable that he was able to leave New Zealand, fly to Chile, and then on to Brazil, carrying over $10,000 in cash—taxpayers’ funds, as it turns out, as he was able to dupe our tax system out of over $50,000. Given his high-risk profile, Smith should not have been put on a temporary release. His eventual capture was only by fortunate identification by a staff member at a hostel overseas. It was an unacceptable lapse in our justice system that allowed Smith to escape, putting at risk his former victims and the public in general. There is a need for better monitoring of high-risk violent offenders and sexual offenders like him.

This bill seeks to protect the public from almost certain harm by a very small number of serious sexual and violent offenders. The proposed bill would do this by creating a new legislative regime allowing the High Court to make public protection orders, which would allow detention of a subject in a secure facility.

I turn now to the second bill, the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill, which amends the Parole Act of 2002 as it relates to extended supervision orders. Under the current law, extended supervision orders can last only for a period of up to 10 years, and this cannot be renewed. The Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill is needed because the 10-year period for some of the people who were the first recipients of extended supervision orders will expire soon. Extended supervision orders were established to protect children under the age of 16 from a small number of convicted child sex offenders who are considered to be a high risk of seriously reoffending at the end of their sentence. The sexual and violent offenders to whom the extended supervision orders would apply are likely to be those with behavioural and intellectual challenges who cannot remain in the community unsupervised. The current estimate is that this will apply only to a small number of offenders. Approximately about 29 to 41 such offenders will be placed on these orders.

Labour supports and commends both the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill and the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill. Thank you.