Enhancing Identity Verification and Border Processes Legislation Bill

I know you are on a high, Mr Bennett, but there is a process to go through.

on behalf of the Minister of Justice: I move, That the Enhancing Identity Verification and Border Processes Legislation Bill be now read a second time.

💬 Grant Robertson: Keep going.

Ha, ha! The changes in this bill uphold public safety and help to ensure that offenders meet the sentences or conditions placed upon them. The bill enables better information flows between key agencies so that offenders can be effectively identified within the criminal justice system and out to the border. This bill is part of the Government’s wider response to the inquiry into the escape of Phillip Smith/Traynor. This bill complements the implementation of better operational practices that has occurred across the justice sector following the event. I would like to begin by thanking the Law and Order Committee for its diligent consideration of this bill. The committee has recommended it proceed with amendments.

Before I discuss the bill and the changes the Law and Order Committee has recommended, I would like to remind you about how this bill came about. Phillip Smith was convicted of murder, child sex offending, extortion, and kidnapping in 1996 and sentenced to life imprisonment. In November 2014, while on a 74-hour temporary release from prison, he was able to board a plane bound for Chile, using a passport he had obtained issued under his birth name Phillip John Traynor. He had a ticket for onward travel to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, where he remained at large for 4 days before he was recognised and deported back to New Zealand. I want to reiterate that this is totally unacceptable.

The Phillip Smith inquiry was established in order to investigate the events and processes that enabled Mr Smith’s escape. In addition to highlighting some operational weaknesses in law enforcement and border processes, the inquiry identified a series of legislative gaps in the way that information, particularly identity information, is shared and managed between key justice sector agencies. The purpose of this bill is to address these legislative gaps and ensure that justice sector agencies can effectively and efficiently perform their functions related to law enforcement.

I would like to briefly touch on some of the key provisions of the bill. First, the bill allows specific agencies to share real-time information with one another in order to verify the identity of individuals who are subject to the justice system. The bill specifies the circumstances in which this verification can take place. These circumstances are key situations where identification is needed to ensure an individual complies with their sentence provisions and does not mislead public sector agencies—for example, the Department of Internal Affairs will be able to verify the identity of anyone who applies for a passport, by accessing identity information from Police and Corrections.

Phillip Smith’s use of an alias highlighted the need to anchor identity verification on unalterable information. This bill, accordingly, enables certain public sector agencies to collect, use, and share a wider range of information, including biometrics, such as fingerprints. A third key change contained in the bill will enable key agencies to access the driver licence database and information about births, deaths, marriages, civil unions, and name changes for the purpose of protecting the public and enforcing our laws.

I would like to now bring to your attention the changes to the bill that the Law and Order Committee has recommended. The committee has made recommendations relating to the collection and management of biometric information. The first of these is a recommendation that purposes for which biometric information can be collected be expanded to include the management of offenders and protection of public safety. This would be in addition to the two other purposes already included in the bill—namely, identifying offenders at the border and preventing offenders from leaving New Zealand without written consent from a probation officer.

The committee has also recommended expanding the scope of the bill so that offenders undertaking community work can be required to submit to the collection of their biometric information. Offenders undertaking community work are not subject to the biometric information provisions as introduced, but the committee found it logical to allow this collection in order to align treatment of all offenders serving sentences or community work orders.

The committee has also made recommendations relating to the management of offenders seeking to leave the country. The bill, as introduced, would require any offender serving a sentence of supervision to get written consent from the probation officer before leaving the country. This would require a border alert when any one of these offenders attempted to leave the country, so Customs could check that they had required consent. With around 8,000 offenders subject to supervision sentences at the end of last year, the committee considered that this would put too much strain on border processes and has recommended that this requirement be removed.

The final recommendations that I would like to highlight relate to how and when a victim of the offender is alerted, should an offender escape. There is a legislative requirement that when certain offenders escape from prison or abscond from home detention, their victim, or a representative of that victim, be notified for their safety. The committee has recommended that this requirement be extended to instances where an offender absconds from temporary release, like Phillip Smith did. The committee has also recommended that where a victim has nominated a representative to receive those alerts on their behalf, and that representative cannot be reached, Police and Corrections should be able to alert victims directly, where their safety is at risk.

I am happy to support the committee’s recommendations regarding the bill. They strengthen the ability of justice sector agencies to verify, identify, and ensure that an incident like the Phillip Smith escape does not happen again. I would like to thank the committee for its work throughout the consideration of the bill. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you for the opportunity to contribute in the second reading of the Enhancing Identity Verification and Border Processes Legislation Bill. First of all, I would like to thank the officials for their support during the select committee process. There were a few issues that were raised at the Law and Order Committee that—as the Minister has just alluded to—had to be tested to make sure that the recommendations were made. What is paramount in this bill is the safety of people, and that is what we have been doing in the past 8½ years. National is strengthening how the front-line agencies verify the identity of offenders and share the information across the public protection agencies.

There was an inquiry after the escape of Phillip John Smith. He escaped from prison and escaped to Brazil, and then he was tracked down from there and brought back. Then a Government inquiry was started, and this bill was introduced to Parliament to fix some of the issues that were raised in that inquiry. The bill contributes to the Government’s priority of delivering better public services by reducing crime and reoffending. This is, again, part of the Safer Communities work that this Government has been doing. This omnibus bill aims to strengthen the ability of the Government agencies to perform their functions related to law enforcement, including the detention of restricted patients and special patients who are under special care and serving their sentence also.

I would like to highlight some of the recommendations that were made by the select committee, so that we can understand why these recommendations were made. First of all, I would like to touch upon the collection of biometric information from offenders on community work. The bill as introduced did not include the provision that offenders serving community work should have their biometrics collected. But we found it would be consistent for the management of the offenders to make sure that when an offender comes up for community work, the person is the right person, not somebody else who is presenting for their service. That is why the select committee thought it would be important that people who are serving their sentences through community work should be entitled to give their biometrics.

Another point that came up during the select committee process was that if somebody resists giving their biometric samples, it can be considered an offence. Three months’ imprisonment is the maximum that can be imposed and a maximum $1,000 fine can also be imposed in cases where a person is not ready to give his biometric samples.

There is the collection of biometric information from prisoners for the wider purpose, as I mentioned. The identification and the management of the prisoner are equally important for Corrections. This amendment would ensure that prisoners use the same standard, and I would also like to say that it standardises the types of biometric samples collected at all stages. This amendment would ensure that the prisons use the same standard of identity verification, so that it is used in other parts of the criminal justice system. It will be consistent and there will not be any difference. So when a prisoner arrives at the police station or at the prison, the same kinds of biometrics are collected at all stages.

I would also like to highlight a recommendation from the select committee. When somebody is trying to travel overseas, particularly when they are on community service, they do not have to go and ask for permission to travel overseas if the probation officer gives permission. We understand that it is unnecessary and inefficient to include in the border alert process the offenders who pose as a low risk of flight. In practice, probation officers prohibit only a small portion of offenders on supervision from leaving New Zealand. For an offender to be prohibited from travelling, they would need to present a risk, such as issues caused by absence from a drug and alcohol rehabilitation programme. A probation officer can give permission to travel if he feels that the prisoner or the convict is fit to travel and there is no major risk in any manner.

We also recommended that information sharing between the agencies—the judiciary, the Police, and border customs—is also important. They should be on the same page, so that they have information about everyone who is trying to go overseas. If a person has been convicted for any reason, they should be able to identify the person and it can be alerted to Corrections that this person is trying to escape from New Zealand, unless they have got permission.

These select committee recommendations were recommended by majority. The Green Party had their own minority view. They had some concerns about this. But, overall, the majority of the members of the select committee were—

I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to leave the Chair.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 6 p.m.