Electronic Monitoring of Offenders Legislation Bill

When I last spoke about this bill, I described the framework that goes with the electronic monitoring of prisoners. I also spoke about the fact that on any given day there are between 20 and 47 offenders who have had their bracelets cut off, and that means there are 20 to 47 communities out there in New Zealand that are living under a bit of a cloud in terms of their safety.

Just in the short space of time that I have got left—one of the biggest issues that the Department of Corrections has is not so much offenders cutting off their bracelets, but the fact that our prisons are full to overflowing. One of the reasons that our prisons are full to overflowing is just the poor rehabilitation programmes that are going on. In fact, the department’s own annual report last year said on page 134 that the rates of some of the programmes reported are so small that they are below the level of statistical significance. That means, basically, whether an offender does a course, or does not do a course, there is basically no difference to his outcome.

I have asked written questions of the Minister around how many offenders are on a particular course. There is one where 319 offenders did one of the courses, and there is a rehabilitation quotient on page 41—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Relate it to the bill.

Well, it is related to the bill in that we would have less need for electronic monitoring if the rehabilitation programmes actually worked. This particular programme that I am talking about has a rehabilitation quotient of minus 2.2. When I asked the Minister how many people does this actually rate to, it came down to just a two-person difference. Whether they did the course or they did not do the course, there was only a two-person difference, and the cost of that course was some $5 million. So the taxpayer—

I am sorry to interrupt the member, but his time has expired.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this Electronic Monitoring of Offenders Legislation Bill. First of all, I would like to acknowledge the Minister, the Hon Judith Collins, for her support and her leadership on this bill. I would also like to acknowledge all the members of the Law and Order Committee on their contribution and, lastly, I would like to acknowledge the officials who supported us during the select committee process.

The main provision of this bill, the purpose of the bill, is to remove legislative barriers to the electronic monitoring of offenders released from prison sentences of 2 years or less and offenders sentenced to intensive supervision. It is very important to understand that we do not want offenders who are released into the community to reoffend. As the previous speaker, Kelvin Davis, just mentioned, the focus of this Government is to reduce reoffending and part of the Better Public Services target is to reduce that by 25 percent by 2017.

We want to remove the barriers to the monitoring of offenders, to help ensure the safety of the New Zealand public. Where offenders are back in our communities, we want to support them so that they stay away from the drivers of crime and so that we keep our communities safe.

The technology is advancing day by day, and this electronic monitoring can help to monitor offenders—show where their movements are. For example, if there is an offender who has been released into the community who has been a child sex offender, there will be restrictions in his release order that he should not be seen around schools. This electronic monitoring, which has GPS tracking, can help us to monitor the offender so that he is not around a school or anywhere nearby.

Traditionally, prisoners have been temporarily released under supervision from prison for reasons like funerals, medical treatment, or work experience from time to time. Electronic monitoring can help us to achieve this. Nowadays most prisons are working prisons, and they give opportunities to the prisoners to go out and work so that when they come back into the community they have some kind of skill so that they can earn their bread and butter and help their families. When we put bracelets on the offenders, we could easily monitor where they are going and what is the purpose of their visit. Another reason could be that the prisoners nowadays may be in an external self-care unit, where they go and live and try to get back into the community.

These are some of the issues that can be addressed with electronic monitoring. With these words, I commend this bill to the House.

I am pleased to support this bill. I have got to say that there are some law and order bills that the Government, from time to time, comes up with that are simply floss. They are designed to appeal to the electorate but they are not really effective. I have got no time for that sort of bill. I do not care which party introduces it. I think we are only misleading the public when we pass legislation that is all for show and has no effect.

So when I look at a law and order bill, I look at it, first of all, in light of whether it is going to be effective in meeting the purpose that it sets out to meet. I do not look at it in terms of whether it is a tough law and order measure or a soft law and order measure; I look at it as to whether it is an effective law and order measure. Secondly, I look at it in the context of what our responsibility is as a House to protect victims and potential victims and to ensure the safety of the community. On those two criteria this bill deserves to be supported.

From my point of view, I think that this House always has to be on the side of the victim and of stopping more people becoming victimised. Indeed, in the Parole Act and the Sentencing Act, which I passed as the Minister of Justice, the determining criterion had to be risk to, and safety of, the community. So I try to look at these things consistently, regardless of which side of the House is introducing the legislation.

So what does this bill do? First of all, it removes legislative barriers to two areas where offenders were previously excluded from monitoring. One is that area of offending where the sentence is less than 2 years, and the second area is where there is a sentence of intensive supervision. There were two other areas that were also excluded, and the Government clearly looked at these as well and decided that monitoring of these sentences was not justified—that is, supervision and release from home detention. The reason why those areas were not included was, basically, that these are at the lesser end of sentencing. You could not justify the expense of monitoring—I think it is about $3,500 a year—given the low level of risk, and you probably could not justify the intrusive nature of monitoring for those particular offenders, but for the two areas that we extended it to, you can.

When you are sentenced to less than 2 years, you are automatically released after serving 1 year in prison. Regrettably, the level of reoffending by that category of offender—it might not be at the worst end of offending, but it is serious enough to put you in prison, and the high level of offending meant that there needed to be another tool to manage the person who had been released after 1 year and who still had 1 year on parole. So it is really important that we were able to act in this area to try to reduce that high level of reoffending.

The second area is the sentence of intensive supervision. That is obviously less than an imprisonment sentence—in fact, it is less than a sentence of home detention—but there were a lot of people in that category where it was useful for justice and corrections officials to be able to keep a watchful eye on the offender. Sometimes it was the sort of offender who, because of addictions to alcohol or gambling, ought to be prevented from going to those areas that would contribute to reoffending, and it makes sense because a GPS system tells you exactly where that offender is.

I suppose—although usually the sentence would be greater than this—it could be potentially useful for keeping a person who was at risk of sexual offending away from an area. But, most particularly, for those who commit domestic violence offences—you can get a domestic protection order, but that is a piece of paper. It does not provide the protection that the victim or the potential victim of reoffending needs. Having a person on a GPS system who has been sentenced for domestic violence—again, the sentence would be helpful in that regard.

For these two areas—less than 2 years’ imprisonment and intensive supervision—monitoring is not automatic. It is still a decision by a judge in a court who independently decides in which particular cases the additional instrument of electronic monitoring is needed.

I want to put a caveat on the question of electronic monitoring. It is not a guarantee that the person will not reoffend, and I think the Government also needs to look at the level of breach of electronic monitoring that is currently occurring. You know, since 2008 there have been 15,500 cases of people on electronic monitoring who have breached the order. Sometimes it is a minor breach; sometimes it is a major breach. But 15,500 breaches is a serious breach of a sanction that is not working as well as it should, and I think the Government needs to look more closely at that.

In fact, we heard from the Department of Corrections last year that at any one time there are between 20 and 47 offenders out in the community who have removed the electronic monitor and are at loose in the community. To put that in context, to be fair, that is 20 to 47 out of 3,300 people who are on electronic monitors at any one time. It is not huge, but it is still significant. And it is significant to know that in 23 percent of home detention cases and 19 percent of community detention cases, people are at some point in breach of those conditions. That is not a tolerable level of breach for a court order designed to keep the community safe.

I can think of the case of Tony Robertson. Tony Robertson actually would not have been covered by this bill. He is the man who murdered Blessie Gotingco. It was an appalling murder. Everyone in this House would have had their stomach turned by the nature of the murder and the rape of an innocent victim by this man. At the time that he committed these awful offences, he was on a GPS monitor. That is evidence that the GPS monitor by itself does not prevent a person from offending, and if anybody in the House thinks that all you have got to do is monitor a person and that will protect the community, they are wrong.

The monitoring is useful only if it is backed up by the sort of supervision you need from your probation officer and by a programme for rehabilitation dealing with the cause of the offending. So the only thing that happened in the Robertson case was that of course they could convict him because they knew exactly where he was, and he was where the victim was and where the victim’s body was dumped, but that is hardly a consolation to the family of that poor woman. So yes, this legislation helps, but it is not sufficient in itself.

You know, one of the things that appalled me, I have got to say, was when I went to see the corrections officials in the place that the monitoring was occurring and I asked “Why is it so easy to remove the electronic bracelet?”, do you know what they told me? They said: “Well, if it was hard to remove, what if it got caught in a piece of machinery and it put the offender at risk?”. Frankly, that was a load of nonsense, and I am glad that, finally, the Department of Corrections and the Government have moved to make it harder to remove the bracelet.

I want to finish on the question of inconsistency with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. I see that the Attorney-General is in the House, though I do not know whether he is taking a call. I know that he does not personally decide whether a bill is in breach—he is advised by his department—but to say that extending supervision by electronic monitoring is an unjustifiable breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act cannot be right. It is a limitation on freedom of movement, it is classified as search and seizure, and sometimes people say—wrongly—that it is double jeopardy, but of course it is justifiable if it is helping to keep the community and victims safe when a person is regarded as being of sufficient risk to be electronically monitored. I would just ask the Attorney-General to have a look at how the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act is working in that regard, because it defies common sense to say that this bill is an unjustifiable limit on the freedom of the offender.

Having said that, with all of the qualifications that I have made on it, this bill is worth supporting, and the Labour Opposition will continue to support it through the remaining stages.

It is an honour to be able to speak in support of this bill. I would just like to acknowledge the Minister of Corrections, who is here and who leads this bill; the select committee chair; and the other members of the committee from across the House. This was one of the first pieces of legislation that I had the privilege of being a part of on the Law and Order Committee, and I want to acknowledge many of the remarks made by Phil Goff. I was on that visit to Auckland when we visited the facility that monitors the people who are out in the community on electronic monitoring. I have got to say that it was a much more sophisticated set-up than what I had envisaged. When you take into consideration the fact that you have got about 3,000 to 4,000 people on electronic monitoring at any one time across the country, 24/7, and you have got the ability for any one of those people to breach their conditions, it is a pretty dedicated staff, I think, in the facility in Auckland who are monitoring and keeping in contact with the Department of Corrections and the police on a regular basis.

Just a bit of background as to why this bill was necessary. We know that under the Sentencing Act, the Parole Act, and the Bail Act, respectively, they all have various conditions set out where electronic monitoring can be used. So within the Sentencing Act it can be used as a condition of home detention or community detention, under the Parole Act it can be used as residential restrictions, and under the Bail Act it can be used as a condition of bail. But one of the things that it could not do was that for prisoners who were released after 2 years or less there was not the ability to be able to impose electronic monitoring on those people, nor was it there for people under intensive supervision or people going into post-detention conditions at the end of their home detention.

This bill is really an extension of what already exists within the legislation. It is a pragmatic step, because what it does is it enables people who have served sentences for less serious crimes than crimes that warrant over 2 years’ imprisonment to be able to get out of the prison system a lot quicker and reintegrate into the community, and for the Government to be able to use these people and for them to be able to take advantage of some of the reintegration tools that exist within the community already.

What it also does is it enables people who are in prisons to go out on work to contract positions. For example, in Milton prison, where there are 22 people in this position where they are in contract-to-work parties, they are out across the South Otago region on a daily basis, providing support to council or community organisations or whoever. These guys—it is a high-trust model. They are obviously out in the community; they could be doing anything, but now what this does is it gives the Department of Corrections the ability to slap on a bracelet and to be able to monitor these people more intensively. Also, Milton prison, under Jack Harrison’s management, has 28 prisoners who work on the prison farm, a vast piece of land basically offsite from the prison. This bill gives the ability for the department to be able to monitor these people out in the workforce as well. So it will enable us to help reintegrate these people into the community and provide training while still monitoring and managing their integration back into the community. It is an honour to be able to support this bill.

Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I am proud to support the Green Party, which will be supporting this bill that will electronically track more offenders. I will tell you why. [Interruption] I will tell you why we are supporting this bill before you start cheering too much. This could be a good tool. This could be a good tool for a better justice system, and, absolutely, good technology should be part of the way forward in any system, especially in a better justice system. That is part of the reason why we will be supporting this bill, but it will not be without concerns and without wanting to review and closely monitor whether this bill will achieve what it is actually set up to achieve, which is a better justice system. That is why I stand to support the bill, but because we are the Green Party, I do have to be very clear in this House on what we are actually aiming for when it comes to a justice system, because this is not a solution to lower reoffending—not in and of itself.

It is, perhaps, a tool to keep more people out of prisons, and that is a positive, because we certainly know that prisons do not reduce reoffending. On that matter, it is also important for why we are supporting this bill. Māori and Pacific people are absolutely overrepresented in prison and also in offending, and so it is important that I, as spokesperson for both Māori affairs and Pacific peoples, stand up to make sure that my lens with those portfolios is passed over this legislation. I want to say that yes we are supporting this bill, but this bill is not about true restorative justice, which is what will really keep our communities safe. This bill is a tool—the electronic monitoring of offenders is a tool—but the Green Party would like to see true restorative justice. I am deeply concerned about safety for all people in our community, and that is actually the side I am on. I am on the side of a safer community. It is not necessarily about saying that I am on the side of victims or that I am on the side of offenders. I am on the side of truly safe communities, and that actually takes more equal societies. More equal societies are the cohesive societies with less crime and less offending.

It is public knowledge, and has been known now for my entire time that I have been in Parliament, that I am a victim of child sexual abuse. This electronic monitoring tool is absolutely not the thing that would have kept me safe in the first place. So I do want to be very clear about that as I continue to debate the concerns that the Green Party will keep putting up in light of this legislation.

We want a better justice system. True restorative justice is actually about truer accountability than what we get when we send people to jail. I do want to state clearly in the House that that is actually what we would prefer investment and pūtea to be put into if we are really serious about justice in our society and in Aotearoa. True restorative justice actually has a better effect at reducing reoffending than imprisonment, and even more so than the tools that support the current system, which is punitive. However, again, we will be supporting this in the hope that it is a tool that can be effective towards a better justice system.

One final point, I think, Mr Assistant Speaker—because you are listening?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I apologise for being distracted by the Attorney-General.

Thank you. One final point is that I do take note of Kim Workman’s concerns about whether this legislation will be put in place—whether electronic monitoring will be put in place—at the cost of investment in proper reintegration programmes. What organisations like the Salvation Army have pointed out in their submissions on this bill is that the electronic monitoring will possibly allow people to be reintegrated into their communities without the proper, strong programmes around that reintegration. The Greens will certainly be wanting to keep a check on whether this electronic monitoring tool is going to be at the cost of something that will create sustainable, true safety for our communities.

Just to finish off, the Greens will want to review how this goes. We will be looking for this to be an effective tool for safety and a better justice system. We will want to hear more about other reintegration support programmes in our communities. We will want to check who is being monitored and whether it does breach the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and other human rights standards, because once we have lost our human rights standards, we lose everything. We will want to keep pushing for more equal societies, because that is actually what creates safer societies for all of us. Kia ora, thank you.

I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on the Electronic Monitoring of Offenders Legislation Bill. The intent of this bill is to make provision for the courts to stipulate electronic monitoring for those offenders who have been judged as being under intensive supervision conditions and those offenders who have served, or are likely to serve, less than 2 years of imprisonment. This is in addition to provisions for offenders to be on home detention, community detention, extended supervision, parole, and release-to-work schemes, or for those who are bailed with specific conditions.

This provision will also cover the offenders involved in family violence who pose a very high and serious risk to the victims. This provision may apply to any prisoner serving 2 years or less and who, in the opinion of the Department of Corrections, requires electronic surveillance to forbid them from entering or remaining in specified places or areas at specific times, or at all times, which used to be known as the whereabouts condition. This, in our view, will contribute towards enhancing public safety only as long as it is an additional condition, and not the only condition, for such a release.

At the moment, as the Hon Phil Goff mentioned, there are about 40-odd offenders who are at large who have violated their conditions and breached the electronic monitoring system. With this legislation coming into force—I will quote from one of the submissions. Mr Kim Workman, who represented the Robson Hanan Trust, said “the bill would expand monitoring to an additional 5,800 prisoners serving less than two years in jail without proper consideration of what that would entail.” He further said: “Electronic monitoring allowed people to be released without a proper reintegration strategy and support. The effect, over time, would be that jurisdictions using it would ‘slack-off” in rehabilitation and reintegration strategies as they came to rely on electronic monitoring.” So this would result in over-reliance on a system that has failed 15,500 times in the past, since 2008.

Also, funding is the other thing that we are worried about. There is nothing in the Budget to provide for the 5,800 extra offenders who will be covered under this new legislation. On the contrary, $3.4 million has been reduced, under the heading “Sentences and Orders Served in the Community”. This category is limited to the management and delivery of sentences and orders served in the community, and electronic monitoring of people on bail. We fail to understand how the agencies or the contractors or the department that are responsible for monitoring these offenders on the electronic system will cope with 5,800 more offenders with $3.4 million less. That is the risk that we see in this. The system has already failed. It has proved to be a failure and still we are over-relying on this system, and then we claim that the communities are going to be safer by relying on this system. We think that this is a disaster waiting to happen, as happened in the case of Blessie Gotingco. Tony Robertson was on electronic bail—not only was he on electronic bail; he was on conditions for the next 10 years. Within 5 months of his release, he reoffended. The result was that an innocent victim was raped and killed. So this system has again proven to be a failure.

We want electronic monitoring extended to those offenders currently serving a custodial sentence who have to leave the secure confines of a prison for any reason. This will enhance public safety in a scenario where a prisoner escapes custody during an outing but is not able to cut, remove, or otherwise tamper with the electronic monitoring device. Public safety relies more on surveillance than on just electronic monitoring. It has proven to be effective in some instances. However, at no stage has this system been foolproof. Even the Minister has admitted that even after these changes this is not going to be a foolproof system. So why are we relying overly on a system that has failed 15,500 times?

The other thing that comes to our mind is the one instance where it can actually work, which is the outing that has been declined for some Māori offenders in the past. This has been for two reasons: one, they were high security prisoners, and the other reason is that they could not be handcuffed on a marae. We think that the Department of Corrections can actually think about this as an option. This is an operational matter for the department, and this is my suggestion: if it looks at it, it can actually make the system work by sending those offenders to a tangi with only the electronic bracelet. This is because if the offenders can be sent into the community without handcuffs—with just electronic monitoring—then the offenders can actually be sent on a marae with just an electronic bracelet with two officers, as is the practice now. But that is something that the Department of Corrections will have to see as an operational matter.

On the one hand, this legislation may be helpful in providing some relief to Māori prisoners. Other than that, we do not believe that this system is going to make any changes in the safety of the community at present. Having another 5,800 offenders monitored under this system, which has been proven to be a failure, is not going to be supported by us. We do not support this bill. Thank you.

How disappointed I am to hear those comments, when every other party in this House supports this bill. We are not surprised—we are not surprised—that New Zealand First does not stand up for the rights and protections of the public in this case. It is outrageous.

This bill does gather support all around this House because it puts the public first. Although I also heard what the member from the Green Party said, I disagree strongly that there are not strong rehabilitation and reintegration practices put in place by the Department of Corrections, because I know that there are. Recidivism has reduced significantly because of the educational opportunities given to inmates in our prison system. The ability for them to work and gain a trade skill is quite phenomenal. The Law and Order Committee has visited a number of prisons and has seen the great work that the Department of Corrections is doing to assist prisoners in their reintegration and upskilling of their education, which not only affords them a better way of life when they return to society but also protects our society because those people are more fulfilled and more focused.

What this bill does is very important. It is utilising electronic technology to better monitor prisoners when they are released, whether that is on a work programme, whether that is to go to a funeral, or whether that is on probation. What it does is it enables the Department of Corrections to monitor that prisoner to the point where if they violate or breach their conditions the department is made aware of that far sooner. The person who wears an electronic bracelet knows that. That in itself creates a deterrent for breaching. Without having the electronic bracelet, people can breach their conditions with nobody knowing, and so what that does is it just encourages bad behaviour and encourages breaching. What this bill does is it brings accountability far sooner to those people.

I believe that this is a very good bill. As we know, right across this House, with the exception of New Zealand First, parties are supporting this and we are thankful for that. Thank you.

I am pleased to take a brief call on this bill. In part, I will reiterate what my colleague Marama Davidson has already said. In respect of this bill, the Greens are supporting it. I think repetition is no bad thing. From my teaching days I know that some students are slower than others to absorb information. Although some of our friends on the National benches are charming people, they might be in that category on occasion and take a little longer than others to understand evidence.

Technology is a wonderful thing, as we know. This is an instance, I think, where legislation is to some extent catching up with technology. The electronic monitoring tools that we have are exactly that—they are tools. The Greens are supporting this bill because it gives another option to parole boards, to sentencing justices, and to people making decisions about bail. Often it may be the case that electronic monitoring enables a person to not undergo a custodial, or a further custodial, sentence. So, in that sense, it makes sense to use technology in this way.

But we ought not to confuse this management tool with a long-term solution, because that it is not; that point was made very strongly by Kim Workman in his, as ever, reliably excellent submission. May I just divert for a moment to acknowledge and put on the record in this House the Green Party’s congratulations to Mr Workman on the award of an honorary doctorate recently. That is something I am sure that even those who might disagree on occasion with Mr Workman would acknowledge is a well-deserved honour and one he merits very strongly. The point is made that although this is a management tool, it is not a long-term solution for offending.

I am very reluctant to politicise a tragedy, but the sad and tragic business of Blessie Gotingco’s very preventable death has been raised in this debate. I would make the point that the person who perpetrated that wretched crime had been monitored. I also make the point that he was 8 years in custody. For 8 years his every movement was controlled by the State. In those 8 years, we are given to understand that he had seven sessions of psychological counselling. At the completion of those seven sessions the psychiatrist said that he ought to be given time to reflect, to demonstrate that he had absorbed something, and that his behaviour was moving, and then a more intensive programme of counselling, of whatever it took to change that man’s attitude, to change his thinking, and to change his perception, could be undertaken. That follow-up never occurred, and I think all of us, collectively, need to take responsibility for that.

That is a clear and obvious failing of the in-prison rehabilitation. If such a serious, high-risk offender is not getting adequate, or even barely adequate, attention while he is serving that long, 8-year sentence, then we need to look very hard at what is happening inside our prisons. We cannot simply point the finger and say: “Well, the bracelet should have been the solution.” It clearly was not, and it cannot be, in any case.

The bill makes some useful contributions, as I have said. I sat on the Law and Order Committee. One of the decisions of the select committee was to insert a statement of purpose into this bill so it was very clear what the point of it was. It is an obvious thing to do but it is something that we saw was lacking in the bill as it was originally drafted, so that was put in there. The bill enables, as I said, decisions to be made. For example, inmates might be allowed to be released from prison, be it for humanitarian reasons, to attend funerals or important family functions, or, importantly, for Release to Work. Unfortunately, one of the overreactions to the case of Phillip Smith’s unauthorised expedition to South America is that Release to Work has almost ceased, despite the incredible value to the offenders, the very observable and observed improvement in behaviours, and the likelihood of them not reoffending. Release to Work was a very successful programme that has been largely abandoned by the Department of Corrections, or at least a much higher bar is set. That is unfortunate.

I think we need to, if need be, use the electronic monitoring to enable a return to a much more widespread use of the Release to Work programmes, because they are a means of reintegrating people, to give them just a little bit of freedom—a little bit of opportunity to earn the trust of the community and to make some useful contribution while they are doing that. If technology can assist that, that is a good thing; the Greens will support it. Kia ora.

Fa‘afetai malo lava le soifua. It has been really interesting listening to some of the debate and reading some of the background information on this in the second reading of the Electronic Monitoring of Offenders Legislation Bill. I am not on the Law and Order Committee. I am part of the justice team within the Labour caucus. I was really fascinated by the Law and Order Committee’s commentary on the bill, which was all about—and I will read it: “This bill would effectively restate and facilitate the existing ability to impose electronic monitoring as a condition of an extended supervision order (ESO) on released offenders.”

The reason it was highlighted was that the Attorney-General said that this piece of legislation would place unjustifiable limits on offenders’ rights and protections under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, and the “rights affected are those of freedom of movement, against unreasonable search or seizure, and against double jeopardy.” The reason everybody has become interested in that particular impact of the legislation was around Tony Robertson and his offending when he was on extended supervision and, obviously, the rape and murder of Blessie Gotingco. I cannot not, in this contribution, acknowledge Blessie and her whānau and the impact of our justice system on their lives. There was an inquiry report that has just been released and, within that, it said there were issues in terms of the rehabilitation this young man did or did not receive at the time. So there are implications from that legislation and that experience within our justice system for New Zealanders, and I think it should be acknowledged.

The ability for people who are released from prison on a prison sentence of 2 years or less to now be eligible for electronic monitoring has actually quite a big implication for our justice system. We currently have 4,000 people who are under an electronic monitoring regime, and there will be another 5,800 people who, post this piece of legislation, will also be on an electronic monitoring regime.

This is an opportunity, I guess, to share what some of the submissions were to the select committee. I too want to highlight Dr Kim Workman’s submission and acknowledge that he received a doctorate of literature on 19 May this year from Victoria University and that he is completing a book that is titled Criminal Justice, the State and Māori: 1985 to 2014 and Beyond. He actually, on behalf of the Robson Hanan Trust for the Rethinking Crime and Punishment project, did have some concerns. He said electronic monitoring is the fashion, and his concern was about the rehabilitation opportunities for people who were in prison and then were transitioning out of prison into the community.

If the extent of the rehabilitation and support offered to those people is “Now you are monitored and you have a probation officer who will monitor you in the community.”, actually, I think there may be unforeseen consequences with this piece of legislation. What we do need to ensure is that anyone who qualifies under this regime actually receives the support they need—drug and alcohol support, other forms of counselling—and that part of the intent of this legislation actually should be to reduce recidivism. I am not sure whether that has been thought through as fully as it could have been.

I am hoping this not just a cost-cutting mechanism so that under this legislation we do not have the release of 5,800 people who should still be in prison, but what I am reassured by is that on our side of the House, we have a former Minister of Justice, the Hon Phil Goff, who has been monitoring this piece of legislation. So because of his experience and his guidance for some of us on this side of the House, I too stand in support of this piece of legislation. Thank you.

I will take a brief call on the Electronic Monitoring of Offenders Legislation Bill in its second reading, and I just wanted to agree with my colleague from the Greens, David Clendon, very briefly, on Mr Workman.

💬 Todd Barclay: What?

Yes, unusual, Todd, is it not? He is an interesting character, and he does make a great contribution to the justice system, whether we agree with him all the time or not. I think it is important that he is acknowledged because he does do a great deal of work for this system.

I want to just speak briefly about, I guess, the reasons that this piece of legislation comes to the House and the reason that the Law and Order Committee pretty much, with the exception of New Zealand First, unanimously considered and sent it back here. It is just one little cog in many, many cogs that successive Governments have put in place to try to improve our justice system. This piece of legislation just gives an opportunity to monitor and assist people from prison back into mainstream life in a manner that gives them, I think, a much better chance of success as they reintegrate and also gives us the opportunity, where there is risk, to monitor that risk and ensure that the justice system has some controls over those people’s behaviour.

I just wanted to talk about a couple of things the Hon Phil Goff talked about, because I think there could well have been some misconceptions in the issues he raised. It is important to note that the thousands of breaches that he talked about are not about the removal of ankle bracelets; they are about any kind of breach that could occur. It could be a breach of the boundaries that those people are monitored within. It could be any number of things, such as alcohol being consumed when they are on an alcohol prohibition order. There are many, many ways that breaches could take place; they certainly are not all the removal of anklets.

I also want to talk about the reason we have a large number of bracelets about and the number of people detained on home detention. It is not a statement of new risk, because we never knew before we had these electronic monitoring systems in place whether or not they breached their conditions of bail or their conditions of release, so the monitoring system has enabled the detection of a whole lot of breaches that we never understood the workings of before. In terms of there being a potential 5,200 people who may come into the system, I think it is extremely unlikely that there will be anywhere near that percentage of people coming into the system once this legislation is passed.

I think it is just worth commenting very briefly, before I finish, on the Government’s contribution to giving people a better opportunity to integrate back into the mainstream after their offending. In the last Budget there was some $20 million put in to support offenders as they leave prison. This bill and the addition of that kind of input will make a big difference to them. It is also worth pointing out that there was some $356 million more given to the Department of Corrections to assist to reduce reoffending. That includes in-prison courses—education and smoking, drug, and alcohol rehabilitation courses—and all sorts of measures that the department is taking to reintegrate people into mainstream life.

Whatever we think of our prisoners, we really need to give them every opportunity, where possible, to reintegrate into mainstream life and make a contribution to the New Zealand community. I think this bill, although it is a very small cog in a very big wheel, is well worth it. It will do a great job and I have no trouble commending it to the House.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. E muamua la‘ava ona si‘i le‘veiga ma le mamalu mo lenei aso u‘amafai ai ona tatau ma‘futa fa‘atasi.

Thank you for allowing me this contribution. My Samoan is amateur at best, but I thought I would take this opportunity to acknowledge Samoan Language Week. Thank you, once again, for this opportunity to contribute to this particular bill.

There have been some great speeches across the House where they have talked about some of the sad outcomes of poor decisions made, or perhaps poor monitoring, or perhaps poor legislation. I think this is a good opportunity to come into the House this evening to look at this particular bill to work out, does it actually meet the intention? Is it going to do what it says it is going to do? Furthermore, how will this affect New Zealand moving forward, both on the side of the offender and also the community at large?

The House has already spoken about technology catching up with legislation, and I think that is a great step forward. In fact, it has been a long time coming. I would argue that probably by the time that this bill actually passes through into law, the technology is going to change again and leave it behind again, and we will probably be back some time in the near future to debate this particular bill or make some particular amendments to this bill. But we commend the step forward.

Technology plays an important part but I want to flip this on its head, because I think that one of the parts in commentary on this particular bill—“Prisoners have for many years been temporarily released or granted escorted absences from prison for several recognised purposes, such as funerals,”—I want to just touch on briefly. I wonder how technology would keep up with the vast metropolis of Mitimiti in the far north. If I understand it correctly, this particular piece of technology will allow GPS to monitor where this offender is at any point in time. I wonder if that will happen in Mitimiti where there is no—

💬 Hon Member: Internet.

There is no internet. There is no cellphone coverage and—

💬 Paul Foster-Bell: Satellite coverage.

I cannot see anything in this particular legislation that says we are going to now be commanding satellites to follow these things. Because I can tell you, I say to the member across the way, that even when you drive out there, you look at your iPhone and you have punched in there “Mitimiti”—I can tell you that just past Waihou, near Pānguru, it cuts out. It is not going to work. It loses you in the system—it loses you in the system. So, although I acknowledge that technology has a part to play, you cannot beat human supervision. In instances like that I think it is really important for us to remember that. Let us applaud the advances in technology in this particular bill that will keep up with it, but you cannot beat human supervision for most parts.

Because the other part of that argument is, actually just very recently, only on Monday, I was at a tangihanga—or a hui mate we call it in Ngāpuhi; Māori 101—of a kaumātua by the name of Hoterene Tīpene, or Bossy Tīpene they called him, a great kaumātua for Tāmaki-makau-rau. His son had his troubles with the law. Bossy was kept in Auckland long enough for his son to be released from prison so that he could farewell his father before his father made the long trek back up to Tai Tokerau, Ngāti Hine, Tau Henare Marae, named after—not young Tau Henare—old Tau Henare. Anyway, it was interesting because when they brought my uncle, the offender, into the marae, or the church, where we congregated, they refused to remove the handcuffs. Although I take the point from Mahesh Bindra, who said that at times like that, where there is only one entry and one exit into this particular congregation, into this particular building—but I thought that a bit of compassion could have been shown. By all means let us have the supervision there at hand ready to do their job—I agree with that—but allow this particular person the opportunity to grieve for a short time before being taken back into prison. In a very pragmatic way, which is how this side of the House operates, I volunteered my services and the offender was handcuffed to my hand, as a family member, and I was able to lead him through to pay his respects.

There are several arguments here, but I guess this is part of the vagaries around some of these bills, and we want to make sure that we get it right, make sure that the intentions of these bills are actually met. It has been mentioned in this House about rehabilitation and proper reintegration. We argue on this side that in order for this to happen, quite a lot of things actually need to take place. It is not as simple as clipping on a monitoring device and making sure that you can track this person by GPS, because I think just as important to allow the reintegration is actually to make sure that the community of Aotearoa New Zealand is familiar with these types of bill, and this bill in particular. Because the perception of the community, regardless of how strong electronic monitoring might be and the advances of technology, is that that person is still an offender. I wonder then if this actually is proper reintegration to make sure that the communities feel safe, to make sure that the communities can go about their daily business, and also that the offender can reintegrate successfully into society.

We have heard the sad case this evening being talked about by many of the speakers in the House. To see that repeated again would absolutely be tragic, and I hope that this particular bill can go some way to fixing that, to make sure it does not happen again.

As mentioned, we will be supporting this bill, but in my short time in Parliament we have passed quite a number of bills by this Government that tinker around the edges. What we have noticed with a lot of these bills, and this one is no exception, is that the pressure is now being placed on the front line. It is great to have this great technology advancement, but somebody has got to monitor it, somebody has got to sit there, and somebody has got to make sure that the technology actually performs its role—the effective monitoring of offenders. It still requires a human capacity.

In the recent Budget, sure, there was a little bit of money for rehabilitation stuff—some might call it a slush fund; a bit of a fund that is available for some of the rehabilitation programmes—but, essentially, we need more capacity at the front line to make sure that the type of monitoring that the community in Aotearoa New Zealand expects from bills such as this actually happens, to make all and sundry feel safe.

Finally, just in conclusion, we do support this. I believe that most New Zealanders—I repeat, most New Zealanders—do not actually understand the implications of this bill. So it will be the responsibility of the members out in the wider community, but, more importantly, in this House, to share that message, to make sure that they are able to fully understand this so that reintegration works for both sides, the community and the offender, moving forward. On this side of the House we will be supporting this bill.