Electronic Monitoring of Offenders Legislation Bill

I move, That the Electronic Monitoring of Offenders Legislation Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Law and Order Committee to consider this bill. This bill is really about improving the safety of victims and the public. It will do so by removing some of the legislative barriers in the Sentencing Act to electronic monitoring. It will make electronic monitoring available to the courts when imposing either of the following sentences as described in the bill before you: first, a prison sentence of up to 2 years with release on conditions specified by the court; second, a sentence of intensive supervision. Monitoring technology has continued to improve and give the Department of Corrections and the police opportunities to protect the public from certain offenders in the community. This bill recognises the importance of this objective.

The purpose of electronic monitoring is to detect and potentially deter non-compliance of offenders with conditions that relate to their movement. The Department of Corrections uses radio frequency as well as GPS technologies to do this. Where the condition is to remain at a specific address, radio frequency equipment has proven to create an electronic boundary, and it sends an alert if the device attached to the offender crosses that boundary. Many of these devices can now plot the offender’s location by GPS, and when he or she is allowed to leave the property or does so contrary to that condition, the condition instead prohibits entry to certain areas related to the offender’s risk of reoffending. I believe, and certainly I think it is a widely held view, that GPS monitoring is fitter for purpose.

The offender will wear a device around their ankle that will send an alert if the offender enters a prohibited area. Authorities also receive an alert in the event that the offender tampers with or tries to break the device or removes it from the monitoring equipment. There is quite a strong public interest in electronic monitoring as the most timely and reliable means of detecting these offences. Breaching these types of conditions can also sometimes be a precursor to more serious offending. Electronic monitoring gives us the opportunity to intervene swiftly, ideally in time to prevent harm to the public, should the device be tampered with. It also increases the likelihood of detection, and that should deter the offender from committing further offences.

Obviously, the benefits of electronic monitoring to public safety need to be weighed up with the fact that sometimes it is an onerous intervention, and in many respects it constitutes a search that interferes with the privacy of individuals. So you have got to balance those rights to make it necessary for the offender to wear a device. GPS monitoring devices also need to be regularly charged by the offender at regular time intervals, which some would argue actually impinges on their liberties and their freedoms. Some would argue that; I know that you do not, Mr Assistant Speaker.

I want to turn to some of the legislative barriers removed by the bill. The courts currently impose electronic monitoring on bail, for example, to verify compliance of the requirement to be at a certain bail address. They can also impose some of these monitoring devices, namely for community detention and home detention, and they prove quite effective in those examples. These sentences require the offender to remain at the address, which makes electronic monitoring necessary in those particular circumstances, but the courts are currently prevented from using these devices for the two populations that are clearly laid out in this bill. I expect members across this House—certainly I have had discussions with some members in terms of the bill’s genesis—to actually take up this bill and vote for it.

So let us look at the two categories in turn. First, we will look at the offenders sentenced to imprisonment for up to 2 years. These offenders are entitled to be released after serving the first half of their sentence. Their release is often subject to the conditions of release imposed at sentencing. But what we know about these types of offenders is that they have a higher rate of reoffending. On their release they do sometimes recommit crimes, and recidivism is certainly one of the Government targets that I am focused on as Minister of Corrections. There is a subset of offenders that could be managed better if they were subject to electronic monitoring.

One example of this is those who breach protection orders. Certainly, I have heard the debates in this House around the breach of protection orders, and I am sure members right across this Chamber will see this as an advance in the protection of those, particularly women and vulnerable people, who are subject to protection orders. Also, there are stalking offenders. These types of devices will limit the ability of stalkers who are released on conditions to go anywhere near the victims of their previous crimes.

Second, we have got offenders who are subject to intensive supervision. This is another highly problematic population, in my view, because they have some of the highest reconviction rates of our prison population. It is really in keeping with the rehabilitative purpose of intensive supervision to prevent certain offenders from entering certain areas out in the public domain. For example, it may be disruptive to the progress of an offender to visit areas where they have had opportunities, say, to sexually reoffend, or areas where there are members of their previous gangs, where they have gang affiliations, and they are prevented from going into those types of areas. Electronic monitoring would, of course, under the new rules, provide a pretty stern deterrent for them to enter those areas, should this bill pass.

One important detail in the bill is the requirement for the courts, before they impose a sentence, to take the advice of the Department of Corrections into account. It is certainly not mandatory to take that advice on board, but certainly it will have an impact on the courts’ ability to hand down sentences that are appropriate for electronic monitoring. I think this is another progression in this legislation.

Before I conclude I just want to touch on the section 7 New Zealand Bill of Rights Act report from the Attorney-General. I want to offer just a brief explanation for its apparent inconsistency with this Act. We know, from previous Government bills that have dealt with electronic monitoring, that this was an issue. Certainly, the Attorney-General’s report focuses on the electronic monitoring component of it. It is not concerned with the policy of the bill, which relates to the monitoring of offenders and the administration of those sentences. I would like to recommend to the select committee that it focuses on Part 2 of the bill and not on Part 1, in terms of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act report from the Attorney-General.

In conclusion, I want to say that the courts have a legitimate interest in requiring the electronic monitoring of offenders when imposing conditions of release from imprisonment for up to 2 years. I have laid out the reasons why. There are specific examples, clear examples, where this bill will have a beneficial impact, particularly on victims. Electronic monitoring can help considerably to protect the community from the risks of reoffending, where there are specific geographical areas that offenders certainly should not be moving into. I expect that the bill will improve the safety of victims and the general public, and that is why I commend it to the House.

The Labour Party has a long track record in supporting legislation that will enhance the safety of the public, and, in particular, legislation that will protect the interests of victims and prevent them from being revictimised. So our decision in respect of this legislation is initially to support it to the select committee. That is the normal step that we would take. The select committee deliberations give us the opportunity to listen to the pros and cons of the legislation, whether it goes far enough, or whether it goes too far. But, in terms of the objectives of the Electronic Monitoring of Offenders Legislation Bill, I have no problem with them if the legislation actually meets what the objectives set out.

The objectives are, first of all, to improve the integrity of the sentence. When a person is convicted and sentenced for a particular crime, we want to make sure that the sentence is carried out as it should be and that the offender complies with the terms of that sentence. That becomes an issue when the offender is out in the community, rather than locked up in prison. Secondly, if the bill is successful in safely managing offenders in the community, then everybody benefits. The offender benefits if they are discouraged from reoffending in a way that would see them simply being given a harsher sentence and leaves them with the prospect of spending more of their life locked up. Of course, the community and potential victims also benefit. Those are the thresholds that we are looking at. It is also important that the legislation works in a cost-effective way and in a reasonable manner. I think the Minister of Corrections himself talked about the balancing of the rights of the offender—and offenders do not lose all of their rights—and the rights of the community to be safe. We want to make sure that this legislation finds that appropriate balance.

Back in 2002, when we passed the Sentencing Act, there were provisions in that Act as it exists today that prevent the imposition of electronic monitoring in particular circumstances. Electronic monitoring cannot be used in respect of a sentence of supervision; a sentence of intensive supervision; a situation where somebody is released from prison, where the sentence has been 2 years or less; and where somebody is released from a sentence of home detention. People might ask why the legislation would stop the use of electronic monitoring. The reason that the Department of Corrections and the Ministry of Justice gave me at the time—and they are still giving it to the Minister—is that there is a danger when you bring in a new form of sentencing that a phenomenon called net-widening occurs. If the sentence is there it will be used, sometimes whether it is cost-effective or not cost-effective, justifiable or not justifiable. At the time the strongest recommendations were that electronic monitoring ought not to be used in these four areas.

The Department of Corrections, I presume in conjunction with the Ministry of Justice, has looked at this again and it has reiterated that in terms of two out of four of those categories the use of electronic monitoring is still not the right way to go. It says, in relation to a sentence of supervision, that this does not justify the expense of electronic monitoring and it is not justified by the risk that the offenders create for society. Supervision is actually low in the hierarchy of sentencing, and therefore why would you waste $3,500 on electronically monitoring somebody who has been sentenced to a relatively light sentence and is not likely to reoffend? It has also ruled out, for similar reasons, the use of electronic monitoring in relation to release from home detention. It says that a person who has complied with all their conditions through home detention constitutes a low level of risk, and it argued it could not justify the imposition of electronic monitoring, either in terms of its cost or in terms of the further infringement on the liberties of a person who has been released from the sentence of home detention. I accept those arguments in those two cases.

In the other two cases the department says there is an argument for the use of electronic monitoring. I think it is worth remembering that the electronic monitoring that is available today is quite different in nature from that which was available 14 years ago. In those days it was all radio technology with the bracelet. Now you have a phenomenon called global positioning system, which can tell you exactly where the offender who is out in the community has gone, and can alert you when the offender goes to an area that is prohibited under the terms of their sentence. I think that that makes sense. The first category is imprisonment for 2 years or less, and, sadly, when we look at every sentence, the sentence where there is the highest rate of reconviction is where an offender has been sentenced to a short sentence. It makes you wonder whether the short sentence is actually particularly effective in meeting the requirements that we expect from it. But there is a high rate of reoffending and there is an argument on that basis for allowing electronic monitoring of certain categories of people who have been sentenced to 2 years or less. I want to make it clear to the House that the electronic monitoring does not automatically apply to everybody in that category. It is still applied only at the discretion of the sentencing court. So we are relying on the discretion of the court not to over-utilise this but to apply it only in those areas where the court has reason to believe that this will protect the public and is required for public safety and the safety of victims.

The other area that this will apply to is where somebody is under a sentence of intensive supervision. This is a little more challenging. Intensive supervision means that the person has not offended to the degree that the court felt it worthwhile sentencing them to home detention but, nevertheless, the seriousness of the offending was such that ordinary supervision was not sufficient and intensive supervision was needed. In this respect I think there are some clear categories where electronic monitoring would be worthwhile. It is of real concern to members on this side of the House that domestic violence is increasing: convictions for domestic violence and, I believe, the occurrence of domestic violence are increasing. Protection orders are really only a piece of paper; they do not protect the victim in practical terms. So what electronic monitoring might do to an offender who has already offended against the victim is to alert authorities in real time if that offender goes near the home of the victim. That seems to me to be something that is worth doing and I would support that.

There are other instances where there are no-go areas imposed as a condition of the sentence. If a person was convicted for a crime because they had an addiction either to alcohol or to gambling, and you say we do not want that offender to go near the casino, then having electronic monitoring in real time or even having a record of it after the event does enable you to discourage the offender from going back to the cause of his or her offending. I have looked at the international evidence for this and the international evidence says that GPS does act as a genuine deterrent in those cases. Therefore, we would go along with that. The areas that will be targeted for electronic monitoring are the family violence cases that I have talked about, gang-related offenders, and high-risk sex offenders. I think that if we are targeting those specific groups, then there is a justification for what this bill does.

I want to touch briefly on the vet for consistency with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. This bill has received a negative vet. That means that it is inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. According to the Attorney-General, Mr Finlayson, it provides unjustifiable limitations on freedom of movement, search and seizure, and double jeopardy. But I think we need to dig a little deeper than that first analysis. Of course, there will be limitations on freedom of movement if the individual exercising that freedom is going to breach their protection order. I do not think that freedom of movement for a person who has been convicted and is still under sentence can be determined to be full freedom of movement. I think that is a matter of common sense. Unreasonable search and seizure, which is how they define monitoring—well, if the monitoring actually does mitigate against real risk to the victim and real risk that the offender will reoffend, that might also be justifiable. The last point is in terms of double jeopardy. It would be double jeopardy if this was being done for the purposes of punishment, but I believe that this is being done for the purposes of prevention. On those bases, Labour Opposition members will support the first reading of this bill. We will look at it closely at the select committee, and if it stands up to the analysis and the evidence presented to us, we will continue to support it after that point.

It is my pleasure to stand in support of the first reading of the Electronic Monitoring of Offenders Legislation Bill. I agree with the Hon Phil Goff in his concluding remarks that the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act is not that important for offenders, because the rights of victims are also to be protected. So it is very important that we have to consider what victims have gone through. Victims should not be allowed to go through the trauma again, and I hope that the select committee will be looking into these things and reporting back to the House when required. I would like to thank the Minister of Corrections, the Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga, for nominating the Law and Order Committee to consider this bill.

I would like to begin by outlining the benefits of electronic monitoring and how it can help in improving safety, especially for the victims. It is very important that we use the tools that are available nowadays. If that makes it easy for monitoring or looking after the victims, they should be used.

I remember the first time that I went out for a ride-along with the police. We visited a few houses to check whether the offenders were at home, following their bail conditions and their curfew orders. It was a real hassle. That night it was raining. The policemen went to the house in a heavy downpour to check out whether the offender was there. Plus, it was also a hassle for the offender. Knocking on their door at midnight was a real challenge, and I think that that was an undue hassle for the offender. The police were doing their duty, and there was no other way. But now, as this new system is available, we should make sure that the offenders have this equipment on their bodies so that they can be monitored. One monitoring person can look after many offenders to check whether they are following their bail conditions or not. The electronic monitoring will help to track the whereabouts of the offender. This means that an electronic boundary will be created. If an offender tries to cross the boundary, an alert will be sent out through the device attached to the offender, which will help in detecting his or her location.

We want to improve public safety, and this device will help. It will play a crucial role in helping this Government in reaching its goal of reducing reoffending. The Government has a target of reducing reoffending by 25 percent by 2017, and these are the tools we need to provide to the Department of Corrections and the police so that they can reduce reoffending. Electronic monitoring gives the opportunity to intervene in matters swiftly, ideally in time to prevent harm to the public or to those who are prime targets of the offenders. The increased likelihood of detection may also deter the offender from committing further offences. Through electronic monitoring, the authorities will also receive an alert if an offender tampers with or tries to remove the monitoring equipment, giving the authorities a chance to act in a timely manner. This is a very important tool that will help authorities to monitor the offenders.

National is working hard to ensure the safety of the New Zealand public, and we want to remove any barriers when it comes to monitoring offenders. Under the current legislation, electronic monitoring cannot be imposed as a condition of a sentence of supervision, a sentence of intensive supervision, release from a prison sentence of 2 years or less, or release from a sentence of home detention. Electronic monitoring is unavailable for offenders sentenced to imprisonment for, or up to, 2 years or for offenders sentenced to intensive supervision. The offenders sentenced to imprisonment for up to 2 years have higher rates of reoffending on their release than offenders serving any other sentence. Also, offenders sentenced to intensive supervision have higher reconviction rates. Electronic monitoring will thus help in providing the whereabouts and condition of such offenders, and will stop the offenders visiting areas where they can easily have an opportunity to reoffend.

National is working on preventing people from committing crime and on creating a safer New Zealand society. The main objective of this bill is to use technologies that allow the Department of Corrections to restrict the movement of offenders and prevent them from committing further offences. GPS monitoring will help in improving agencies’ ability to safely manage offenders, and also help support our law enforcement agencies. The department can then prevent serious reoffending through timely intervention and through prosecution before reoffending escalates. We have now got tools that help us to monitor offenders electronically. Without electronic monitoring, the department’s ability to perform its statutory duties is compromised. National is focused on providing support and rehabilitation services to the offenders who go back to their communities, so that they stay away from crime-related activities, by providing them with opportunities through which they can take better control of their lives.

Last week we visited a prison in Rimutaka, and we saw how corrections is trying to help the offenders to go back into society where they can have safe lives, and they can go back to their families and spend time with them. They are being trained so that they can have jobs over there. This electronic monitoring is another tool where they can send them out of the gate to work in society, and ensure that they have got jobs when they are released from the prison. This tool is very important.

The Electronic Monitoring of Offenders Legislation Bill sets out that the offenders must comply with written instructions from a probation officer that are reasonably necessary for the effective administration of electronic monitoring, and that the offender may be required to have equipment attached to his or her body. Electronic monitoring will make offenders avoid areas where they are not supposed to be, and thus help in improving public safety.

This National-led Government is committed to delivering better public services, and we are working hard to further bring down the crime rate. There are a lot of prisoners who will be released to the communities, and, although we have been able to reduce the number of prisoners returning to prison, we want to ensure that they do not create still more victims, and are instead focused on reshaping their lives through the skills, training, and education they got during their imprisonment.

Section 93(2)(b) of the Sentencing Act 2002 explicitly prevents the courts from imposing electronic monitoring as one of the conditions of release. Removing legislative barriers could help in improving the ability of the department to keep the public safe, as offenders serving short sentences will be demotivated to reoffend.

Coming back to the technologies, safety can definitely be enhanced through the latest technology. Electronic monitoring is delivering one of the most reliable electronic monitoring systems, monitoring around 1,960 offenders and defendants: 1,299 via GPS and 661 via radio frequency. This is more than 50 percent of those who need to be transitioned to the new system. Reoffending is reducing under this National-led Government, and it is my privilege to commend this bill to the House.

Before I call the next member, I am going to remind the member who just spoke, and other members, of Speaker’s ruling 47/1. I think the member has now been here for nearly 4 years, and I think the exemption that is allowed to new members or Ministers introducing technical bills no longer applies to him. He actually spoke for about 3 minutes without reading his speech, and then appeared to revert to that. I just want to reinforce the rulings that have been given by other people in this Chair, and to remind people to have a look at Speaker’s ruling 47/1.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Can I take the opportunity to pick up on the words of my esteemed colleague the Hon Phil Goff in his mention of serious sexual assaults. I want to acknowledge our colleague Kelvin Davis, in whose absence I stand and speak this evening. I want to acknowledge his efforts in this field, and his hīkoi to the Far North.

I rise to take a call on the first reading of the Electronic Monitoring of Offenders Legislation Bill, and can I take the time to point out that Labour supports this bill. We support it going to the select committee, where I hope for—and I will certainly be encouraging—robust debate on this bill, to ensure that all people, researchers, advocates, perpetrators, and victims of crime, find a voice on such an important topic to all New Zealanders. We hope that this bill, after going through a robust democratic process, will enable electronic monitoring conditions to be imposed on those who have served a sentence of imprisonment of 2 years or less and are being released into intensive supervision.

It is the duty of a responsible Government to ensure the safety of all New Zealanders. It is with that in mind that I want to commend the Minister of Corrections, the Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga. I want to commend the Minister and this bill. Can I pick up the point, again, of safety for all: safety for all New Zealanders must be paramount. Therefore, a bill like this must consider the victim at the forefront of all discussions, must consider the victim at the forefront of any rhetoric around such a bill. But it must also consider the perpetrator, and I will pick up on that point again shortly.

Naturally, we all in this House want a system that is not only fair but also punishes crimes accordingly. New Zealanders can also expect to be safe as they go about their daily business. I asked myself, when considering this bill, what a safe system looks like. With the ever-growing and evolving technology in this world, one’s mind only boggles when we consider the future. This is not the first time I have spoken on a particular bill in this House, in my short time here, just around the advances of technology and the impact that it has on crime and on victims moving forward. Therefore, I ask what a safe system looks like. It is important that this country and all the authorities are well-equipped with the right technology. At this point, can I highlight just how fast technology in this field changes.

If you will indulge me, Mr Assistant Speaker, I have a short news article here. It is from Los Angeles, and is only as old as last year, 2014. It talks about this particular system being implemented over there. The report concedes widespread failures in the electronic monitoring of felons, in which probation deputies were deluged with meaningless alerts while offenders were untracked for days and weeks at a time. This is now a big concern to me. Although we support this bill, we want a robust system that will make sure that felons and perpetrators do not fall through the cracks of surveillance and, in the meantime, go unaccounted for. We can only imagine what they may get up to. I will talk about a body of research that was done that proves that this particular system deters further crime—but this is a concern to me, when I think about the system that we are looking to implement, or certainly to legislate through this House.

The report goes on to say that they lost track of approximately 80 felons while they were on electronic monitoring in 2013 and 2014—80 felons. Although that may be only a drop in the bucket in California, 80 felons are a heck of a lot of people here in New Zealand. This, of course, as I have already pointed out, is a serious concern. However, he also pointed out in this report the inadequate or non-existent training and policies. It is on this point I want to say to the Minister—and, of course, I will be encouraging debate on this as this bill progresses through the House—that technology is only one side of the equation. It is important that we have the manpower, or the people power, to ensure that the monitoring of felons, or the monitoring of those who are under GPS monitoring, is robust, sound, and timely. I say “timely”, because there is quite a point that has been made this evening about how this GPS will allow pinpoint accuracy that is of benefit to those who are monitoring where the perpetrators or where those who are wearing the ankle bracelet might head to, because they are zoned.

According to this particular report, they have had trouble with the zoning of these particular GPS systems because those who are let out under this type of surveillance or supervision model are still allowed to go out and about in their communities. We know that one of the purposes of this bill is to ensure that those people who are under such supervision or under such surveillance do not, or are not tempted to, recommit a crime by going back into the area. It reminds me of the old school adage that although we might pour all these fantastic things into a child, we just cannot help what happens when they go home. I say that because it is all fair and well to say that we are going to GPS monitor these people and we are going to make sure that its pinpoint accuracy will allow victims to feel safer within their communities.

Well, as this particular report has highlighted, there are flaws in this system. Why are there flaws? Because technology is constantly changing, and these criminals are getting smarter. They are getting smarter. We know that there have been cases over the past decade, since this type of monitoring has come into our country, where some clever person has been able to tamper with their ankle bracelet, and whether they escape the eyes of those supervising them for 1 hour or for 1 week, that is simply not good enough. However, it does go on, in this particular report, to talk about how, although they acknowledge that the zoning of such GPS monitoring is a good thing, it must also be unique to each offender. How you do that exactly I am not too sure, but those are the challenges that we hope to flesh out as this debate and this bill progresses through the House. Therefore, it is important that we get the system right to ensure that not only is the technology up to date—as I have already mentioned—but also that we have the people power to be able to resource it.

In terms of the other intent of this bill, I turn to the matter of rehabilitation. The Labour Party wants to see that proper measures that encourage rehabilitation and the reintegration of offenders back into our public life are a commitment made by this Government, and to make sure—as I have already mentioned, just like the child whom we pour all the stuff into at school who then goes home and we just do not have any control over what happens, like outside the walls of a prison—that this Government makes a commitment to the proper reintegration of prisoners back into our communities.

💬 Jacqui Dean: We’ve already done that.

Although the member across might say they have already done that, I invite her to come over to Ngā Whare Waatea Marae in my electorate, where they are seriously underfunded in making sure that the prisoner reintegration models that are being proposed by this Government are carried through.

There is indeed a body of research that supports that “sex offenders monitored by GPS”—it says here—“are found to commit fewer crimes”. If this is true—and the body of research certainly suggests that it is—then we on this side of the House will be supporting that. We think that is a great step forward and, like I said, if the research suggests it, then that is fantastic. This report, however, does advise caution. It advises that there are limitations with the system, and I hope that through the select committee we can address these issues. I do hope that this bill is part of a wider strategy from this Government in protecting all New Zealanders while also showing some commitment from this Government to the relevant programmes for the reintegration of prisoners. Tēnā koe.

It is a privilege to speak on the first reading of the Electronic Monitoring of Offenders Legislation Bill. I would just like to acknowledge the other speakers across the House who have spoken so far tonight, and thank them and acknowledge their support of the bill through its first reading so far. It is an important piece of legislation, as many people have already acknowledged, as it is putting victims at the forefront of the criminal justice system and trying to make sure that these people get a fair go.

I thought it was timely to acknowledge the Department of Corrections chief executive, Ray Smith, who was acknowledged in the Trans Tasman’s sixth annual departmental review for his personal performance and also for the performance of his department. Both he and his department have been ranked second. I think that acknowledgment is pretty timely, really, when we are listening to what some of the Opposition members have already acknowledged about making sure that we are integrating our services and making sure we have got the manpower to implement the technology that this bill puts in place. It is a credit to Ray Smith and his team for the resilience and hard work that they have put into improving the corrections system over the last couple of years under his leadership. I am very much looking forward to him presenting to the Law and Order Committee over the estimates so we can acknowledge him in person and thank him for the efforts of his team.

As we have heard tonight from the Minister of Corrections, this bill is aimed at removing the barriers to monitoring offenders, and it is around trying to improve the safety of those who are victims of crime and who are the most disadvantaged and vulnerable in our society. Electronic monitoring can improve public safety by making authorities more aware of the offenders and how they have failed to comply with conditions of their release out in the general community. Without electronic monitoring, the conditions can be difficult to enforce, as we know.

I come from a provincial electorate where we have a number of people who are out on probation. Simply trying to track somebody down from your branch and trying to discuss an electorate issue can be difficult, let alone trying to track down someone who does not want to be found. So GPS and electronic monitoring will play an important role in the future strengthening of our justice system. We have already heard that the areas that will be most targeted by this new technology will be offenders in family violence, sexual offending, and seriously high offenders. When I was doing a bit of research for this we looked at the number of sentences in order by area, and I am just going to talk about two particular areas that traverse parts of my electorate. For Otago we have currently got 1,012 individuals out on sentences in the community who are doing part of their rehabilitation back in the community and 338 who are out on sentencing orders in the community.

In Southland and in part of Jacqui Dean’s electorate, Central Otago, we have got 691 who are currently serving part of their sentences in the community and 229 who are operating under orders in their community. I think that is quite important. They are quite large numbers for quite small areas, and I think most members of the general public would not quite appreciate how many of these people are out in their society.

If you look at the percentage of those who are serving these community-based sentences, a fair majority of them—well over 50 percent—are between the ages of 20 and 35, which indicates that if these offenders are not already on their second or third offence, the chances, statistically, that they will reoffend by the time they have finished their sentence are quite high. So I think we have got to do everything in our ability to try to prevent them from reoffending. That is part of what this bill enables: it helps to prevent those who may have been put into prison for gambling, alcohol, or drug-related offences from falling back into the same traps that saw them put in prison in the first place. By being able to monitor and control their whereabouts when they are in the community, we play an important role in their rehabilitation, not only in support of the victims, who are the most heavily affected by these individuals, but also for themselves.

If we look at the percentage of people currently serving community-based sentences, in order of most serious offence, 23.5 percent of them are serving sentences for violence-related offences, 3.1 percent for sexual offences, and about 10 percent for drug and antisocial offences. These are quite significant numbers when you look at the general make-up. These are pretty dangerous individuals who are in and around our communities right now as we speak. If you look at the general prison population of around 8,500 prisoners as well, most of these people—certainly not all of them—will be back in communities eventually, whether it is in 6 to 12 months’ time or whether it is in 20 years’ time. They will be somebody’s neighbour, living across the road from somebody, or living across the road from a family, and they will be integrated back into society eventually. So we have got an obligation as a Government to do everything that we can to ensure that their smooth integration back into society is as seamless as possible to prevent them from reoffending and getting back in the criminal justice system.

As we have heard from a number of other members, up until now, these people have been in the communities and we have been able to track them through some form of radio tracking, but it is quite difficult to actually tell exactly what they are doing, where they are, and whether they are in places that they should or should not be. Response times from police can sometimes put victims in danger as well. We have heard from the Minister that it is a synchronised response, and the reason why it has taken a little bit longer to roll this legislation out across the most serious of offenders is that we wanted to make sure that, from a correctional perspective and also a police perspective, there is the capability and capacity to actually administer the roll-out of these services.

The second point that I want to touch on is the fact that offenders serving short prison sentences are reconvicted at a higher rate than any other prisoner. I think that goes back to the point where the majority of these people who are serving community-based sentences are of the age of between 20 and about 35. Most of these people—all of those who are willing and able—are of working age and of working ability. So whether they are in the community or whether they are traversing back through the correctional facility, if they do not have a qualification or a set of skills that they can apply to the workforce already, then it is in everybody’s best interests that they do so.

I want to talk a little bit about the Otago Corrections Facility, which is just out of Milton, in my electorate. I want to acknowledge the manager there, Jack Harrison, who manages just over 200 staff and ensures the security and the locking up of about 415 prisoners. Jack was kind enough to give me a tour around his facility a couple of months ago, and took me through the various units that they have got there, right from high security to medium security, to drug and alcohol rehabilitation, to low security, and then into their community integration wing.

The important part about this is that almost all of these prisoners, whether they start off in drug and alcohol rehabilitation or in high security, work their way through that system back to integration. Almost all of these people who have committed serious offences, although they are an incredible danger to the community now, will eventually be released back into society. The point that he made, which has stuck with me—and this has actually been the most valuable electorate visit for me as a new MP—is that while they are in prison, all of these people, no matter what they have done or what their background is, are still human beings and they have got rights, albeit not as many rights as those who are on the other side of the bars.

But when they do go back to society, it is in our best interests to make sure that they are equipped with the skills and capabilities to function in everyday life. An example of the work that the Otago Corrections Facility is doing towards this is that it has got 16 current prisoners working in a carpentry training workshop, which will enable them to get hands-on training in the theory and practice of construction. Part of that course is that they have to partially build a house. By the time they have completed that course, and while they are working in prison, they will have gained a National Certificate in Building, Construction, and Allied Trades Skills at level 2, and then a National Certificate in Carpentry at level 3, if they progress to the next level. This is a practical skill, and most of these people have not even completed National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 1 or level 2 at high school, let alone thought that they would gain a trade. While they are in a facility like this, it is in our best interests to help them try to gain their skills so that they can be participating members of society.

Just on that note, that is why I would like to speak in support of this bill, and I would like to acknowledge, again, the Opposition parties that have already committed to supporting it through its first reading. This is an important part of corrections. Thank you.

I am pleased to make some initial brief comments on this Electronic Monitoring of Offenders Legislation Bill. It could scarcely be described as a bold bill. It will not change the world, but it makes some useful and positive incremental changes to the Parole Act and the Sentencing Act.

This bill is largely a response, I guess, to improvements in technology that enable some variations in the sentencing and parole management of prisoners, which do provide alternatives to prison. For that reason alone, the Greens would support it, and, indeed, I should stress that we are supporting this legislation. It will come as no surprise to anyone to know that we are no great fans of prisons as an alleged solution to offending and crime. The Minister of Finance, the Hon Bill English, has quite accurately described prisons as a moral and fiscal failure in the 21st century. I think that awareness should underpin a lot of our work as we progress with considering how best to deal with matters around crime and what is appropriate in terms of imprisonment or not.

As we have heard, this legislation would allow some alternative sentencing to the paroling of people sentenced to less than 2 years. It deals with sentences of intensive supervision and enables electronic monitoring in those situations.

I should just make the point that the regulatory impact statement and other documents around the bill do highlight the fact that there are issues around the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act with regard to this legislation. That has been a conundrum, and that has been the reality with many of these Acts that now allow for extended supervision orders, and the like. These are not trivial matters, and we will be paying some quite close attention to that in the course of the select committee conversations, because the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act is something that we ought not to tamper with or compromise readily, without some really serious thought and evaluation of the cost and benefits. So that is something we will engage with at the appropriate level, as I say, in the select committee process.

I mentioned that the nature of technology has changed. Historically, electronic monitoring has really been an electronic leash, if you like—something that tied an individual to a particular address—and, OK, it had some value in that. It was, again, often a better alternative to imprisonment. But it was very limited technology. It had somewhat perverse characteristics, given that it operates on a radius from a given point. Very few of us live in perfectly round properties, so it made it possible for people to do some strange things like jump the fence and visit the neighbour, but not actually be able to go to the full extent of the property that they were allegedly confined to. So it is imperfect technology, but it has got better.

This new technology, the GPS technology, is much more enabling. It does allow people a level of freedom of movement, subject, of course, to their staying out of identified exclusion zones, and that is very positive. It means that people can be subject to monitoring, subject to limitations on their movements, but it does allow them to perhaps go out to work, to go out to be educated, and to go out and be involved in positive social activities, such as allowing them to do their shopping, or to develop these life skills that, unfortunately, a lot of our long-term inmates, particularly, simply do not have, or they lose in the period of their imprisonment. It is a positive aspect of the proposed bill in that sense—that it is more enabling. It enables people to be participants but fairly carefully monitored, to endeavour to limit the likelihood of them offending.

I think we have to understand that the monitoring is a very limited tool, albeit better than the old technology. It is a tool for managing but it is not a cure. It is not a treatment. It will not in and of itself assure us that these people will stop offending in the long term. Of course if somebody is wearing some sort of an electronic tag that enables people to be monitored, either in real time or for them to leave an electronic trail, if you like, of their whereabouts, that is going to discourage people for the period they are wearing that bracelet or subject to that monitoring. In and of itself it will not change people’s behaviours. It will not change their attitudes. To me, this electronic monitoring is a useful tool to keep people a little bit on the straight and narrow while we are investing heavily in actually changing their attitude, changing their behaviours, and changing them in a long-term sense.

If anybody was unsure of the power, value, or potential of rehabilitation they would have done well to join the Law and Order Committee last week. Some members of that committee visited Rimutaka Prison. We had a very compelling hour or so getting a presentation from two young men, two young inmates—and they were young men, in their 20s, perhaps early 30s—who had been on a violence management programme for about 12 months. It is a very intensive programme and one that they found very difficult. It has changed those young men for the better, undeniably. Their stories were different. They had no connection prior to prison. But, unfortunately, there were some very obvious and common characteristics to their backgrounds: very early exposure to drug and alcohol abuse, dysfunctional families, the gang became the safe haven, the refuge, and their sense of identity was embedded in gangs and all the violent behaviours associated with that. These men were put into an intensive programme for 12 months, and at the end of that year they have broken through some barriers. Their level of self-awareness is what came through to me. They now understand that their offending hurt other people as well as themselves, that it was not a way to live their lives, that it did not enable them to stand proudly as parents, as fathers.

So rehabilitation can work if we invest in it, if we put the right programmes in place, and if we sustain those programmes over time. It is no good having a programme in the community for 12 months or 18 months, and then can it through a lack of funding. We need to identify programmes that work for rehabilitation and reintegration, invest in them, and sustain them over time. It takes a long time for somebody who has 20 years, 30 years, or 40 years of offending. You do not turn those people around in 6 months, a year, or even 2 years. These technologies are useful in providing a means of transitioning out of the prisons, which to my mind is often the worst solution, into community-based treatment and programmes. Given that you cannot offer or expect a level of trustworthiness with some of these offenders who have proven themselves untrustworthy, the electronic means, the technologies, do enable us to just keep them on the straight and narrow for a little while. But we must not confuse monitoring, electronic technologies, with long-term solutions. These are a means of enabling that transition to deal with the deep-seated causes of offending that have been embedded in their lives over time.

We are happy to support this legislation, albeit, as I say, with some ongoing concerns about the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act implications of it. We look to, obviously, minimise those, and to see what best we can do with that. I think we must recognise that technologies are useful but of themselves are not a solution. We need to continue to invest in the long-term solutions and look for reintegration patterns.

I am always reminded of Anne Opie’s book, From Outlaw to Citizen, where she makes the very clear and obvious statement, which I think is perhaps not that obvious at times, that as well as offenders needing to change and be willing to come back into society, society needs to create a place for these people to come into. That is a shared responsibility for all of us. We will support this bill. We look forward to engaging with the submitters and with our colleagues on the committee. We hope to come out with something at the end that will be fit for purpose. Thank you.

I take pride in rising on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on this Electronic Monitoring of Offenders Legislation Bill. Like most other things, this bill is not perfect. However, it is a step in the right direction, we think, and we will provisionally, at this stage, support this bill provided there is enough done to remove the anomalies and ambiguities within this piece of legislation.

This bill removes barriers to the electronic monitoring of offenders who, firstly, are released from a sentence of imprisonment of 2 years or less, and, secondly, are sentenced to intensive supervision. What that actually means to us is that the courts will now have the ability to impose these electronic monitoring conditions on bailees and those offenders who are released from a sentence of 2 years or less.

We like the intent of the bill but we do have some reservations about the way the final product will be delivered, and whether the intent will actually be translated into outcomes that make our communities safer. Although we will support this bill at this stage, we would like to have the ambiguity around administration removed, and our questions answered during the select committee process.

We suspect that not enough has been said about the victims of crimes. One basic question that comes to my mind now is whether there is a possibility that electronic monitoring will be used to free up prison beds and whether there is too much of a dependence on the electronic anklet, which is far from perfect. There have been instances where the offender has tested the monitoring agency by setting the alarm off and then measuring its response time. It has also happened that the offender, within that response time period—which is calculated by the offender by repeatedly testing the response of the responding agency—has committed offences, and then gone back to the premises where they were meant to be earlier. Time and again it has been proved that the monitoring system is actually not foolproof. We can have all the technology and still fail. As I say, iPads and iPhones do not prevent crime; good policemen and prison officers do.

When it comes to the safety of our communities we cannot afford loopholes and a trial and error approach. Just recently, the offender who is alleged to have been involved in the mindless, callous murder of Ms Blessie Gotingco was said to be on some kind of electronically monitored release conditions. Although I cannot comment further on this horrendous offence, clearly in this instance the system failed. The system failed in protecting Blessie and her family. The system failed in keeping our communities safer. Our concern is how far this bill actually goes in filling the holes and strengthening the related legislation, which is the Sentencing Act, the Parole Act, and the bail conditions legislation.

We will support this bill to the select committee, provided the anomalies within this piece of legislation are addressed. We will not give a blank cheque like the support parties have been giving to the ruling party.

I am speaking to the first reading of the Electronic Monitoring of Offenders Legislation Bill. It seems that this bill will enjoy the support of the House through the first reading and into the select committee stage. Having sat on the Law and Order Committee in the last term and a half of Parliament, I see this as another step in improving the criminal justice system. I share the concerns of the previous speaker, Mahesh Bindra, about this bill not being the answer to keeping communities safe, and I know that David Clendon also raised the same issue. Although this is a step forward in terms of electronic monitoring—and I will talk about that in a little while—I do not think that it was ever intended to be the silver bullet, if you like. But I do believe that this is another step in a suite of legislative changes that have been through this Parliament, and previous Parliaments, to make sure that prisoners are kept where they need to be and are kept under control while they complete their sentences, and to focus on keeping our communities safe. The previous speaker did mention a victim of serious crime, and the member is absolutely right: it is so hard to protect vulnerable people in our society.

I will not stray too far from this bill, but I will go back a little bit and talk about our work on the Bail Amendment Bill, which sought to make it safer for society when people who are out on bail for crimes of which they have been accused go on to commit further crime. That is the nature of what we are dealing with, is it not? It is about people who have committed crimes at the expense of innocent victims. I think that around this House and around New Zealand there is certainly widespread support for additional measures to keep everybody in our society safe. I think back to the discussions on electronic monitoring that we had in the Law and Order Committee in the last Parliament. We made amendments to that bill, and it was at a time prior to GPS technology. It is a very new technology, and it is revolutionising the way we monitor prisoners and people out under intensive supervision.

The issues back then, only just a few years ago, were around electronic monitoring. The perimeter would be a round circle, so you would have an offender on home detention with electronic monitoring wearing a bracelet or an anklet, and, of course, there would be a field around them that was the perimeter of the electronic monitoring. In one or two cases, they could not even go to the letterbox, because it was in the corner of a square section. Now, with GPS, this is another step forward in terms of what we can do to monitor people after a prison sentence of 2 years or less. In this case, the amendment is to the Sentencing Act and to the Parole Act in order to allow offenders to be released with conditions. We are talking about pretty serious offences—pretty serious repeat offending—that require people to be sentenced to incarceration for a period of 2 years or less.

On the other hand, as another member has mentioned—I think it was one of the National members—all prisoners, bar a very few in the criminal justice system, will be returned to society eventually. Long gone are the days when a term of imprisonment came to an end, the door creaked open, and a plastic bag filled with belongings was given back to the person and it was a case of “Good wishes go with them”, only for them to go out into society and reoffend because they could not find their way or could not find their feet. I hope that those days are long gone in New Zealand. I know that successive Ministers of Justice, Ministers for Courts, Ministers of Corrections, and Ministers of Police have given an awful lot of time and have brought through legislative changes and changes within our prison system to make sure that these days prisoners do not simply come to the end of their sentence and be released back into the community with high recidivism, a high rate of reoffending. It is a serious issue that we have tackled quite consistently and with great success over the past 4 or 5 years. The rate of reoffending is dropping in New Zealand, and that is something we should all be proud of.

Our working prisons are, of course, transitioning from being places of incarceration and punishment to being places where there is an opportunity, actually, to provide education and improvements in health. Many prisoners who end up in prisons all around New Zealand have poor oral health, poor mental health, or low rates of literacy and numeracy. Those issues are being addressed in our prisons, increasingly so, year on year, Budget on Budget. Further to that, the extent of training now being provided in prisons is growing, again, year on year and Budget on Budget. We now have, from recollection—I am no longer on this committee—four working prisons in New Zealand, and the plan is to increase that number over the next few years so that all prisons in New Zealand are working prisons.

Why? Well, the benefits are pretty obvious, are they not? I would say that the major benefit is that those prisoners, as we know, are going to be returned to society and will become our neighbours once again, and we are giving them the best chance of not reoffending, of finding their feet back in society, where they may never have had a job or a permanent home or pride in themselves. A working prison can give those prisoners the opportunity to gain the skills that they need, so that when they go back into society, they can do so with the greatest chance of success. As I said, this Electronic Monitoring of Offenders Legislation Bill catches up legislatively with the modern technologies of GPS tracking. What that will do is allow prisoners to be tracked in real-time. I am sure that when the committee meets to discuss this bill, those aspects of the deterrent effect will be pointed out.

Again, I will be interested in this debate as it goes through the House in the months to come, when it is returned for its second reading and the Committee stage. Several members have pointed out deficiencies in the bill. The New Zealand First member did. I think the Green member did. Well, I am interested to see what those deficiencies are, because from what I can see in this bill, it is, on the face of it, a relatively simple, straightforward bill that takes into account new technologies and their applications—where they were expressly forbidden to be used previously. Prisoners released on conditions after a prison sentence of 2 years or less and offenders serving sentences of intensive supervision were expressly forbidden to go out using GPS. This bill catches up with modern technology and modern practice and with modern treatment of policing.

I am unclear, from the speeches of the members opposite, just what they were referring to when they were talking about deficiencies in this bill. I think it is a good bill. I think that it is another step on the way to addressing the issues of reoffending and the number of wasted opportunities and wasted lives that we have in the New Zealand corrections system. I too have visited a number of prisons in my time as chair of the Law and Order Committee. It was very heartening to see a young man who was very busy—I think he was a bricklayer in Auckland; I think it was Mt Eden Prison—doing a bricklaying apprenticeship, which was going to be very useful. He wished to get away from his gang-affiliated friends and associates in the Auckland region. He wished to move down to Christchurch in the future and, for a start, to get a job constructing letterboxes out of masonry. This guy was looking forward to a future. It is very inspiring to talk to people like that and to see that although they are paying their debt to society, they are also looking forward to a better life for themselves. This is a good bill, and I commend it to the House.

The next call is a split call. Catherine Delahunty—5 minutes.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare ko tēnei pō. I would like to take a short call on this and acknowledge the other speakers. I think there have been some really interesting contributions. The last speaker, Jacqui Dean, asked what flaws there could possibly be in the bill. I think one of the issues is the fact that this is relatively new technology, and although we are supporting the bill to the select committee and looking forward to it being a constructive, enabling tool for a better justice system, there is evidence from other jurisdictions and from the use of technologies of these things not always being followed through and having problems with surveillance. So I think it is not good to become romantic about technology and think that simply because we put the system in place, it will automatically work the way it is intended. So I think those are the kinds of issues that will probably come up during this debate.

I have also been thinking a lot, as our human rights spokesperson, about the human rights aspects of the bill, and that is the human rights of everybody, including the human rights of victims, who are often terrified by the return to the community of people who caused them serious harm. So if there is a flexible but firm boundary around that person, which means they cannot return to stalk their victims, then that is a very good thing. That is something we would support, and we recognise that anything, particularly for women in the community who are feeling unsafe, that makes it safer in that way is a good thing. But the human rights issues, as highlighted by section 7 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act report, do have to be taken seriously and we will be, as my colleague David Clendon said, looking at those at the select committee. We can never lightly set aside any concerns around human rights.

In fact, at the World Congress on Probation that was held in Europe a number of issues were raised. I would just like to quote from some of its findings: “Over the years many understandable fears have been expressed by European probation services, and civil libertarians more generally, in relation to the surveillance implications of tagging and tracking technologies. European experience to date has shown that EM can indeed be a useful form of offender supervision, within a framework in which other programmes may also be applied. The key question is; is this how it will remain in the future?”. So it said it is really important that there must be “a debate about best practice, and … an understanding of what must be done to ensure that the worst does not come to the worst, as it so easily could with this technology.” That was a quote from the findings of the World Congress on Probation last year, because the issues of human rights and civil liberties are not simple, and technology does not solve them automatically.

Technology is not, as my colleague and others have said, the solution to reoffending, recidivism, or risk to the community or, indeed, risk to the person who has come out of prison. It is actually really important that we not only invest in rehabilitation within the prison system for everyone but also rehabilitate our society and its attitudes towards crime and people who have committed offences. I am thinking here of the late Celia Lashlie and her extraordinary work in this regard, and I am also thinking of Kim Workman—people who have actually dedicated their lives to thinking about how we make things safer for all of us. It never really works when there are severe restrictions on human rights to the point at which the person becomes dedicated to overcoming the rules to find an opportunity to further offend. It is much more effective when there is buy-in. What is clear about electronic monitoring is that there does have to be a level of buy-in, because people have to charge up the electronic monitors.

So monitoring is important, and technology should be of service to justice, but we also need to keep thinking about the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and what it is that we mean by “human rights”. We need to make sure that, actually, this is enabling and makes people feel they have a reason to stick within those boundaries rather than to try to circumvent them. We will be looking at this very carefully and making sure there are no unintended consequences, because one of the things about the surveillance State that we are now developing in this country for many other people, not just criminals—I myself have been a victim of the surveillance State, and I know just how random, inefficient, badly managed, and sometimes prejudicial the surveillance State is towards people who dissent. So we want to make sure that it is applied in the right place, to the right people, and in the right way so that it betters everybody. Thank you.

I call Poto Williams—5 minutes.

It gives me pleasure to rise and take a short call on the Electronic Monitoring of Offenders Legislation Bill. During this first reading we have traversed quite a few of the issues that I hope the select committee and the submitters will pick up once the bill does get to the select committee. I think it is really important to just reaffirm a couple of those issues that we in the Labour Party want to ensure there is some resolution for. We do support this bill going to the select committee.

It is really interesting, because the reasons for this bill are to bring the electronic monitoring of offenders into the modern age, to keep up to date with modern technology, and to provide an opportunity for the discretion of judges when they are sentencing people whose offences carry a sentence of less than 2 years’ imprisonment to use this as an option. I think this is one of the things that the select committee really has a role in bringing some light to, in respect of what those offences might be, because it is not going to suit everything that may come out of that pot. There are some things where it might be useful, and we have already been talking this evening about domestic violence, family violence, and sexual abuse cases and the possibility that community-based electronic monitoring might be useful in those cases.

I just want to refer to some of my own experiences, having worked in the refuge movement. We used to say in our particular refuge that we had six women and a piece of paper—that was our protection order—to protect victims. What I do not want to see occurring is a situation where there is a piece of plastic and an electronic ring to protect victims. What we have here is an opportunity to get this right. Electronic monitoring can be very useful as a community sentence. It can be very useful to ensure that we are not filling our prisons with offenders who do not need to be there, and options can be useful in the community. But we have to make sure we get it right, and we have to make sure that when we do not get it right, our backup systems can actually assist us.

In our current options around the use of protection orders, I am not sure that we always do get it right. Our backup systems do not always protect the victims. They do not always support those people who should be protected under that piece of paper, or the protection order. So what we should be ensuring, when this bill goes to the select committee, is that we are also talking about having adequate police resources to monitor whether those devices are actually working appropriately in the community. I remember sitting on a bus a couple of years ago, glancing across the aisle, seeing a young man wearing his ankle bracelet, and wondering what the heck he was doing on a bus heading into the middle of town. I know that technology has changed and now we have a GPS system that is likely to go into place, but even then—I do not know whether you, Mr Assistant Speaker, have had experience of this—there are some very clever people who can manipulate the system and the monitoring devices.

I am really comfortable about our position in support of taking this bill to the select committee. I would really urge that we get a range of submitters who would think about the options where the monitoring may not be entirely foolproof, that we have good systems in place to back up the system should it fail, and that we ensure that those people who should be protected in our society are given the full weight of our consideration in this matter. With regard to that, I do commend this bill to the select committee. Thank you.

I call Ian McKelvie.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. You got it right this time. It is a pleasure to get up to take a call on the Electronic Monitoring of Offenders Legislation Bill—[Interruption] That is not what I meant. The bill removes legislative barriers to the electronic monitoring of offenders released from sentences of imprisonment of 2 years or less and offenders sentenced to intensive supervision.

I want to talk a bit about one or two of the comments that have been made around the House tonight, because I think it is interesting that every party in the House supports this bill, I think, in one form or another. I think some of the points made, particularly by Catherine Delahunty, are quite interesting, and some of the challenges that the select committee is going to have as it puts this bill through its paces, so to speak, will be interesting. I guess if you look at electronic monitoring, it is something that is relatively new to the world and to New Zealand, and it is something that we need to test in all sorts of communities. One of the challenges that the select committee will have is in understanding how this might work in remote parts of rural New Zealand, where, of course, we do not have the same types of connectivity that they have in the cities. That will be one of the issues, of course, that affects it. The other one will be the remoteness of some of those locations and the places that some of these people choose to live.

There are some significant advantages to this bill. I guess that if you look at it in the broadest possible manner, it is supposed to—and will, I am sure—assist the lot of victims, in that it will keep a much better track of people who have committed crimes, and it will, hopefully, ensure that the victims are protected from those people where necessary. I think it will also make a difference to the rehabilitation of those people who are the beneficiaries of this electronic monitoring, because it is quite clear from the results of the last few years that everything we do in corrections to improve the reintroduction into our community of prisoners or people who have committed crimes makes a difference to how they, I guess, react, and it also makes a difference to the success rate in reintroducing them.

The Government has had some pretty significant success in this area in the last few years. I think it was David Clendon who talked about visiting Rimutaka Prison a couple of weeks ago, and it was really a very interesting visit. I had the good fortune, or otherwise, to visit that prison a few years before with a previous select committee, and it was really interesting to see the changes that have happened even in the 2 or 3 years since we had been there last. There are some pretty amazing things happening in our corrections sector. I think of the retraining and the work that is done around drug and alcohol counselling and the work that is done with violent offenders. David Clendon did mention the progress that was made at Rimutaka Prison, and we did get to talk to a couple of people who had been through the programme. The result that the programme had got with those two people was pretty amazing. I hope they were not unusual, and that that result is able to be achieved with more people than just them.

There is obviously all the work around the Release to Work programme, and that is where this electronic monitoring comes in, to some extent, because Release to Work enables these people to be released and the Department of Corrections to keep track of them and understand what is going on. It also protects those prisoners, to some extent, because it protects them from, I guess, making the same mistakes twice. Well, hopefully it does, anyway.

The other thing that I found really interesting in the corrections sector is the way that parole hearings have changed and the way that staff pay so much attention to where prisoners who are being released on parole are going to be released to, how they are going to be released, where they are going to live, where they are going to work, and what they are going to do when they are not working. It is a very good process, and I think we are making some really good progress in that area. Actually, it has led to a significant change in the number of reoffenders we have. Since 2011 there are some 1,850 fewer reoffenders than we had prior to that. There is the stabilising of the prison population—I think there is a population of about 8,600 in prison right now, which is a pretty good result. The figure in 2008 was estimated to be 10,500 by this stage, so clearly at that time there was a significant increase in the number of people going to prison and in the number of people committing crimes. We have, of course, had a significant drop in the number of crimes being committed, too, and I will get on to that in a few minutes.

💬 Chris Bishop: I can’t wait.

It will be very good, Mr Bishop—it will be very good. In fact, as I said a minute ago, we were up in the Hutt Valley just last week or the week before inspecting some of the work that has been done by the Department of Corrections.

💬 Chris Bishop: Great part of the country.

There was not a lot of sun there. In the last few years the Government has passed a lot of law that I guess, to some extent, is playing around the edges a little bit, but that is where we are at with a lot of this stuff. The more small adjustments we can make to legislation that impact positively on both victims and prisoners, the better off we will be. In the last year or two I can think of the Parole Amendment Act and, particularly, the Bail Amendment Act that have had a significant impact, particularly on victims.

The Government has a Better Public Services programme in place and some very ambitious targets have been set to be achieved by June 2017, and this goes a long way towards achieving what we have been talking about in respect of the Electronic Monitoring of Offenders Legislation Bill. By 2017 we are hoping to have 600 fewer prisoners, 4,000 fewer community reconvictions, and 18,500 fewer victims of crime. If that can be achieved, there is some significant progress being made. That is an overall reduction in reoffending of some 25 percent and, of course, this bill goes a little way to assist the Department of Corrections to lessen the amount of reoffending that goes on. I think that is really positive from our perspective, very positive for the Government, and it has got to be good for New Zealand.

The effects of the bill are, as I said earlier, twofold, really, in that it gives more protection to victims and it enhances the opportunity for offenders to be successfully reintegrated into society and to successfully find work and a place they can live where they are not tempted to get back into their old ways. Peeni Henare, in his talk on this bill, talked of this issue, and he also accused the Government of failing to spend enough on rehabilitation. Well, I would take him up on that, because I think that the Government is doing a great job in respect of the rehabilitation of prisoners. There are so many programmes in place; there are so many opportunities for us to get prisoners trained, as Jacqui Dean said earlier, while they are in prison, and, consequently, when they are trained to work they can then find gainful employment when they leave a prison.

In my electorate, Rangitīkei, I have, obviously, Manawatū Prison, at Linton, which has about 260-odd prisoners, and very close to my boundary is the Whanganui Prison, which has about 500, who all came from somewhere else, of course. The thing about Whanganui Prison is that it has a number of programmes where it is training people in nursery and concrete work—all sorts of stuff like that—and it makes a big difference to these people. They can get out and get jobs either in timber mills or with roading contractors in the district. For them to get out and be able to do that—to get out and work—while they are in prison, they are released to work, and then these monitoring systems, if necessary, can be utilised at that point.

So I think that this bill has got a lot to offer the people that it concerns. It will be very interesting to see it go through the select committee process, because there are a number of issues, even in a small bill like this, that will arise during the course of the select committee process. A number of them have been raised around the House tonight, so I think members have done a pretty good job of that.

I want to comment on just one other thing, and that is about the Ministers of Corrections. I think that our current Minister of Corrections is doing a great job, but, interestingly, in the House I think that there are probably six Ministers of Corrections. You could have an old boys’ or old girls’ society of former Ministers of Corrections. I notice one over in the back row on the other side—he has probably forgotten he was the Minister of Corrections. But it is, obviously, a pretty important role. With those few words I have a great deal of pleasure in commending this bill to the House, and I look forward to the process as it goes through.

I have to admit that I was not really feeling the passion from Mr McKelvie in that speech, yet there was a real opportunity there, I felt, that perhaps was missed by the speaker when he took his chair. He did reach one of his goals, which was giving a 10-minute speech. Beyond that, I am not sure what was achieved, necessarily, with that contribution. You would have thought that the National Party would be briefed—

💬 Jacqui Dean: That’s just mean.

Oh, he can take it in his stride. I imagine that there are these briefings that go on in the National caucus that go something like this: “Look, team. We know from Crosby/Textor that there are two big issues that we need to hit when times are rough and the PM’s popularity is taking a hit.” Those issues are crime and immigration. They are the go-to issues. They are the go-to issues in Australia. In fact, I was not surprised to read that just a year, roughly, before Tony Abbott took over the lead of Prime Minister in Australia Mark Textor was writing: “Australians have an uncertain outlook when it comes to the future. They believe the country is facing continuing challenges that directly impact their daily lives: jobs, cost of living, [and] boat people,”. I mean, are boat people affecting their daily lives? Lo and behold, suddenly the Prime Minister’s popularity takes a dive. What do we see him doing? We see him declaring that boat people are on their way to New Zealand.

Someone on a boat saying that they are heading to New Zealand is akin to someone saying they are heading to Paris. Just because they said it, it does not mean they are going to get there. I have to remind this House that boat people have always been saying that they are heading to New Zealand. In fact, under Labour I recall—[Interruption] It does not mean they are going to get here. [Interruption] It goes to the two key goals of the National Party—crime and boat people. That is how it is relevant. I recall a similar threat when Labour was in office. Our concern was that people in Indonesia wanted to head to New Zealand—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order!

I will just finish this sentence. What did the Immigration Service do? It put out a pamphlet, saying that if you try that you will perish. That was the advice then. Now, suddenly, apparently we need to set up detention centres, because everything has changed.

Coming back to the crime strategy, the Electronic Monitoring of Offenders Legislation Bill, which we have before us tonight, does certainly have, though, some things that are worthy of consideration by this House—it does. I will concede that point. The special conditions imposed by the Parole Board—I have to say that that element, the amendments to section 15 in clause 4, do appear to simply be clarifying a provision of the bill. But in respect of the electronic monitoring under the Parole Act 2002, the bill provides that the offender “must comply with written instructions from a probation officer that are reasonably necessary for the effective administration of the electronic monitoring”. Instructions might include, for example, requirements that the offender regularly charges the monitoring equipment.

When you have a provision that has that much specificity to it you can assume that there has been some existing issue within current legislation that has required that that occur. That is a bit of an indication. I would be very keen to hear at the select committee examples of where this has been an issue. But how do we ensure, for instance, that an offender is complying with a regime where they are required to keep their electronic monitor charged? How do you define when the breakdown of equipment, for instance, or the loss of coverage of monitoring is equipment failure—because we know anecdotally that there have been issues with equipment failure—versus a failure on the part of the offender to recharge said equipment? That is the level of detail we are required to get into, because if you are going to have further penalties attached to a provision like this, we need to make sure that we are able to differentiate between those two issues.

I am also—just a heads-up to the Minister—very keen for us to explore the effectiveness of the equipment in question. We know that some of the contracting for and provision of this equipment has changed. There have been whispers in the street for some time that there have been significant failings. This is a contract that has been delivered via 3M—that is my understanding. We need to ensure, if we are extending provisions like this, that we have reliability in the technology that we are using.

One of the next significant provisions is the pre-sentence reporting for sentences of 20 months or intensive supervision. The bill, and I see it states this in the Bills Digest, consequently amends the Sentencing Act 2002, which currently specifically excludes electronic monitoring as a possible special condition for a sentence of intensive supervision. I have not gone back through Hansard, and it may not have been raised specifically in the House, but the Ministry of Justice should be aware of why Parliament specifically excluded electronic monitoring from intensive supervision. Parliament will do that only if there is good cause. It has given that issue consideration. It might simply be by omission, but to specifically exclude it speaks to something else. I would be interested to hear more on that, and we will be raising it at the select committee.

I also want to raise, as my colleague Poto Williams has raised, that generally electronic monitoring cannot be seen as a substitute for other checks and balances. She rightly used the example of domestic violence and so on, but equally at the moment we do have provision for probation officers and the police to have a role in one-to-one contact with offenders, and that has other spin-offs to it. Simply relying on technology to play that role means that we will lose out on that ongoing relationship that we need an offender to play with their probation officer. So I would not want to see those checks reduced—that one-to-one engagement reduced—simply because we have extra conditions that are able to apply for electronic monitoring.

The area I want to spend most of my remaining moments on is the provisions around offenders sentenced to imprisonment for short terms. At the moment there is a prohibition on the imposition by the court of an electronic monitoring condition in respect of sentences of less than 24 months, but only in respect of a whereabouts condition and not a residential condition. I think it is right that we reconsider that provision because, as has been raised in the House, there are examples, perhaps, of issues of harassment, of stalking, and of domestic violence where it would be useful to have the ability to put these electronic monitoring conditions in place. My question is: why does the bill not specifically set out a set of relevant offences rather than specifying a time frame? Rather than saying “24 months or less”, why are we not being sentence-specific? We do this in a lot of other areas—for instance, extended supervision orders and so on. It is not unheard-of to say, well, if we are mostly concerned that this is a provision that affects domestic violence situations, why not be specific about that? That might stop it from being overused, potentially, in the courts, if that is indeed a concern. So I would like to explore that at select committee as well.

We are also very mindful of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act assessment by the Attorney-General. Under that New Zealand Bill of Rights Act report this bill fails, but it fails on counts where we have failed before. Extended supervision orders already test the boundaries of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, and because this bill relates again to the use of electronic monitoring for extended supervision orders, it is natural that it fails, too. But we in this House should never—never—be complacent about New Zealand Bill of Rights Act failures. It is our obligation to make sure that we truly believe that it is warranted, and that is a test we need to maintain at select committee.

My final point is that if some of these provisions are intended to assist, for instance, with domestic violence situations, they still rely on an offender, a perpetrator, entering into the criminal justice system. Yet we know presently that changes in Crown Law’s Prosecution Guidelines mean that we are not seeing as many offenders being arrested. We are seeing, potentially, the poor use of police safety orders. In all of those cases, the flow-on effect is that, because funding follows a sentence or a court process or a referral through a court process, we are not necessarily seeing some of those mechanisms being used. This is another mechanism that relies on an offender going through the criminal justice system, so we need to be mindful that that means that we may not be picking up everyone who would potentially benefit from such monitoring in those cases.

As a member of the Law and Order Committee, I am pleased to stand and speak on the Electronic Monitoring of Offenders Legislation Bill in its first reading. It is good to hear that other parties across this House are going to support this bill to select committee. I believe that is good judgment. I failed to hear passion in the voice of the previous speaker, Jacinda Ardern, as she agreed to that point, but I am sure that as we go through the select committee process, we are going to hear lots of very interesting submissions.

Just last week a number of us from the Law and Order Committee were able to visit one of Her Majesty’s prisons.

💬 Chris Bishop: Where was that?

We went to Rimutaka Prison, here in the Wellington region. Many people were surprised that they let me out, but they were certainly very keen to see me go. A lot of people out there just think that prisons are where criminals go and are locked away, but you would be surprised at just how passionate the people who work in those corrections facilities are to rehabilitate the people who find their way into those places. It is quite surprising to feel and hear the passion and the genuine concern they have to see people rehabilitated.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.