Enhancing Identity Verification and Border Processes Legislation Bill

I move, That the Enhancing Identity Verification and Border Processes Legislation Bill be now read a third time. This bill is designed to ensure that the agencies tasked with managing offenders and monitoring our borders have the right information at the right time. The bill will improve public safety by providing these agencies with real-time access to identity information that is unalterable and is up to date. Before I discuss the bill and the changes that the Law and Order Committee has recommended, I think it would be useful to remind this House 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 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. Of course, this is totally unacceptable.

The Philip Smith inquiry was established in order to investigate the events and processes that had led to Mr Smith’s escape. The inquiry found that there were some vulnerabilities in the system that had failed to prevent Mr Smith escaping. Many of these vulnerabilities were operational and have already been addressed through a sector-wide strengthening of processes. The remaining weaknesses required legislative amendments, which are contained in this bill. I want to recognise those who made submissions during the select committee process, and I also want to take the opportunity to thank, once more, the Law and Order Committee for its diligent consideration and the number of valuable recommendations it has made to strengthen the bill.

I want to highlight two of those recommendations in particular, as they relate to the way we support victims of crime. Under the current law a victim or their representative is notified if the person who offended against them escapes from prison or absconds from home detention. The committee recommended that the victim should also be notified in situations where the offender escapes temporary release. A second recommendation related to situations where a representative is to receive notifications on the victim’s behalf but cannot be reached. The committee considered that Police and Corrections should have the discretion to alert victims directly when their safety is at risk. These two clauses represent small but significant changes that we can make to ensure the safety of victims are duly incorporated into the bill.

I now turn to the substantive elements of the bill. It represents a move towards a single shared record of information about offenders for law and border enforcement agencies. This record will shift away from reliance on name and date of birth records as the principal records of identity verification and instead make greater use of biometrics, such as fingerprints, facial recognition, and iris scans. By taking a whole-of-system approach to offender identification and management, we can ensure that the right information is accessible to front-line agencies at every touch point in the criminal justice system and out to the border.

The bill is focused on enabling offenders’ identities to be quickly and accurately established by authorising specified agencies to collect and share this identity information. This will ensure that offenders will comply with the conditions of their sentences and do not mislead the public sector agencies or cross the border without authorisation. As an example, Corrections will be able to access biometric information, collected by police in real time, to verify that the person reporting for a community-based sentence is who they say they are. The same information can then be accessed again by customs to identify offenders, like Philip Smith, if they were to attempt to depart New Zealand. In addition, the bill will give key agencies access to births, deaths, and marriages information and the database of drivers licence photographs for law enforcement purposes. These forms of identity information are central to ensuring law enforcement officers can be certain they know the identity of the person presenting before them.

I want to emphasise the fact that the sharing of this personal information will be safeguarded by legislative protections built into the bill. The types of information that can be shared, the agencies that can access it, and the purposes for which it can be accessed are all for the purposes specified in the bill, to ensure that the agencies do not overstep their mandate. The Law and Order Committee also recommended that agencies be required to report annually on the sharing that takes place under the bill. This recommendation has been adopted to bolster agency accountability and public confidence.

I am pleased this bill has enjoyed widespread support as it has passed through the House’s stages. The changes contained in this bill are vitally important to ensuring public safety, and will significantly improve the quality and use of identity information across the justice and border sectors. I commend the bill to the House.

I rise to continue Labour’s support for this bill, the Enhancing Identity Verification and Border Processes Legislation Bill, in this, its third reading. As the Minister has just pointed out, the origins of this bill relate to the events concerning Phillip John Smith, or Phillip John Traynor, depending on which identity he wanted to use. It was the latter identity that he used to abscond from the custody of the Department of Corrections and take off, and he found himself in Chile before he was eventually detained by the authorities there and returned to New Zealand.

But I have to say, we have to be honest with ourselves and ask ourselves why it is that an event that happened nearly 3 years ago has had its ultimate conclusion in the House just today—the third reading of this bill—after events that, upon review at that time, led to a report that said: “There are gaps that need to be filled.” Here we are, 3 years later, now finally putting the finishing touches on filling those gaps.

I think the Government is open to criticism, justifiably—a tired old Government that had this matter that was considerable, and that put victims at risk. It was a case of clear gaps in the management of prisoners and in the management of our corrections system, and it has taken the Government 3 years to fix it. It did not have to take that long. The primary conclusion of the report on the review of the failures of the system was that somebody from the Department of Corrections needed to phone up the person sponsoring the guy’s weekend release, and that would have brought the whole thing to an end, there and then. He would not have been released.

Anyway, we had the review. We had that glaring failure pointed out, and then we had the other systemic failures that the reviewer recommended be filled. We had all that within weeks of these events, and it has taken nearly 3 years to get them filled. So, you know, it is good that it is being done, it is good that the time of this House is being used, eventually, to remedy this problem, but, actually, a Government that had a sense of urgency and priority about the threat to victims of crime would have acted on this pretty much straight away.

We should have passed this bill, done its third reading, a good 2 years ago. We could have done it if we had had Ministers who were on the job. But they were not. They dragged the chain because they were not interested. They did not think they were under any pressure to do anything meaningful. Mr Deputy Speaker, as you will know from your background, justice delayed is justice denied.

In the time that it has taken us to review the events of Phillip John Smith, and do the review, and get this legislation up, and get to the third reading, there have been other crimes committed by people who have absconded and got through the very net that we are in the process of trying to close up. We had the case of Daniel Titcombe, a UK citizen who was working here, on a working holiday in Queenstown. He ripped off his employer to the tune of $3,000 in 2016. He was sentenced in December last year, 2016, and the very next day left the country. There was no border control advice. There was no requirement, as this legislation provides for, for Customs and others to have information about those who owe fines, have penalties outstanding, and ought to be restrained from leaving the country.

So because of the tardiness of this Government and the lackadaisical approach it has taken to this legislation, more victims of crime have been created and they have not seen justice done. The case of Daniel Titcombe in 2016 is just the latest of those. You ask Daniel Titcombe’s employer, Escape Quest in Queenstown, how it feels. Well, I know how it feels because the newspaper report made it pretty clear. His employer is stunned and gutted that that criminal got away with what he did, because this House, under this Government’s stewardship, has been too tardy in filling the gaps and remedying the problem.

In legislation of this nature, which cuts across the inherent rights to privacy and human rights, it is incumbent on this House to get the balance right between ensuring the safety and protection of citizens and victims of crime and ensuring that the powers of the State are such that it can properly do its job of providing safety and security to the community, without undue intrusion into innocent citizens’ lives. That was an issue that the New Zealand Law Society brought to the attention of the select committee considering this legislation, the Law and Order Committee. The New Zealand Law Society was concerned about any erosion of the privacy rights and privacy principles in the legislation. Nevertheless, as this House ought to do, it considered what the problem was that it was remedying, and even though the legislation does entail the erosion of those basic human rights, it is possible to contemplate that, if there are proper and effective safeguards in place.

The reason why the Labour Party will continue to support this bill in its third reading is that we believe that, by and large, it does get those checks and balances right. One is that Government agencies that will have the right to access information under this legislation will have to report in their annual reports the number of occasions on which they have done that, so that there is a level of transparency around that. They will also have to justify their actions for what would otherwise be a breach of privacy under the Privacy Act, ensuring that the purpose for which they are seeking information or providing information is for the purposes set out in this particular legislation.

So those checks and balances are right. This legislation adds a power that does not currently exist, and that is the ability to collect biometric information from prisoners, but also from mental health patients. That is about ensuring the safety and security of those patients, and so that the authorities are able to track the movement of people as they go through borders or through other places where their identity is required. It means the authorities can track people to make sure that the safety and security of the public is maintained to the best extent possible.

I would be remiss if I did not once again record the concern of the Labour Party in relation to new section 109F of the Privacy Act, which is provided for in clause 6 of this bill. That allows a schedule to the legislation to be amended or altered, and even to be completely replaced. That is a very, very large power to have in the hands of the executive without having to come back to this House, because of the principle that what this House does this House must be in a position to undo.

Giving the executive the power to make those changes to a schedule to the legislation through an Order in Council is a big step to take. I just record, once again, Labour’s ongoing anxiety about that particular provision. We will have to monitor that very carefully because it is not right that legislation passed by this House ought to be altered in form through processes that sit outside this House. We have to be alert to the erosion of that constitutional principle.

As I said at the beginning, the Labour Party will support this bill in its third reading. I do note, also, that one of the other changes it makes is in relation to victims’ rights. If victims of crime have notified the authorities that they have a representative who can be, and ought to be, the first recipient of information about the perpetrator of the crime against that victim, then the authorities are justified in communicating directly with the victim. If, in the case, for example, of an absconding prisoner, there is a real risk to the safety and security of that victim, the authorities can go directly to the victim, as opposed to the representative, if they think that they are justified in doing so. That is probably a sensible provision to have, without causing any concern to the victim. In the end it is about doing the utmost to ensure the safety and security of citizens.

Labour will support this bill in its third reading. We will monitor it very carefully around how the new provisions operate to make sure that innocent citizens are not victimised by it.

Thank you for the opportunity to participate in the third and final reading of the Enhancing Identity Verification and Border Processes Legislation Bill. This is an omnibus bill that has the ability to strengthen the Government agencies, including the justice sector and border control agencies, to effectively perform their functions related to law enforcement, including the detention of restricted patients, special patients, special care recipients, and other offenders.

This is, as the previous two speakers have mentioned, the result of the escape of Phillip John Smith, who escaped from prison and was able to cross the border. There was an inquiry, which resulted in recommendations, and some of the recommendations—most of the recommendations—have been implemented, but there are some loopholes, which this legislation will fix to ensure that no one can escape from prison or cross the border in due course. National is acting to keep the public safe from offenders through ensuring that high-risk individuals cannot leave New Zealand without permission or hide who they are through their multiple aliases. That is one of the loopholes. The bill responds to the legislative weaknesses around offenders and special restricted patient management, as identified in the Government inquiry into the matters concerning the escape of Phillip John Smith.

Some of the amendments that were recommended by the Law and Order Committee have been accepted by the Minister of Justice. First of all, the one that I would like to touch upon is the amendment of the Victims’ Rights Act 2002 to require Corrections to notify victims when an offender absconds from temporary release, not just after an escape from prison or home detention. This is important because the victims are the ones who are the most vulnerable, and we want to ensure they are informed immediately if there is any change in the circumstances.

This bill will also amend the Victims’ Rights Act to allow relevant agencies to contact victims directly to protect their safety, even if the victim has nominated a representative to receive notifications on their behalf. During the select committee process it was raised that sometimes the representatives are not contactable, and, in those cases, Corrections or the agency can directly contact the victim to inform them if the circumstances have changed again.

There are amendments to the Sentencing Act 2002, the Parole Act, and the Corrections Act 2004 to explain the purpose of the collection of biometric information, including allowing collection from offenders on community work and prisoners. This point was also discussed during the select committee: that it is important that anyone who is convicted, whether in prison or in community service—we should collect their biometrics so that we can identify them. These biometrics can be shared with the agencies.

There was another point raised during the process about privacy. That is why the agencies are required to disclose how much information has been shared among agencies and for what reason. That will bring transparency, and that was the reason why we recommended that. With these words, I would like to commend this bill to the House.

It was 3 years ago, on 6 November 2014, that Mr Phillip Traynor, also known as Phillip Smith, fled New Zealand on a flight to Chile while on temporary release. He is subject to a life sentence for murdering the father of a 13-year-old boy he had been convicted of sexually assaulting, being sentenced in 1996. Prior to this he was subject to a number of charges, and he was detained in Brazil on 13 November and returned to New Zealand on 28 November. That is the incident that set off the inquiry and essentially led to this bill being introduced into the House.

I think there were initially some concerns from some members of the Law and Order Committee when you look at key aspects of the bill. It inserts into six Acts a definition of biometric information that includes photographs, fingerprints, and iris scans to identify identity. It amends the Parole Act 2002, the Sentencing Act 2002, the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act 1992, and the Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care and Rehabilitation) Act 2003 to allow for the collection of biometric information from offenders, special care recipients, special patients, and restricted patients. When you look at that, it just seems really, really broad and all-encompassing when it was actually to do something very small—a released prisoner who was somehow able to get a passport and went overseas without any red flags at all at our borders.

The bill also amends the Customs and Excise Act 1996 to allow the New Zealand Customs Service to collect, use, and disclose biometric information about persons arriving in, or departing from, New Zealand. The other two key things in this bill are that it amends the Births Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Act 1995 to authorise the disclosure of birth, death, marriage, civil union, and name change information with specified agencies for law enforcement purposes and then it inserts new Part 10A into the Privacy Act 1993 to authorise agencies to access and use identity information, which includes biometric information that is held by other agencies, to verify the identity of individuals.

This insertion of new Part 10A, by clause 6, did raise quite a lot of questions in the committee and, certainly, by those who made submissions. Some argued that there were already existing arrangements by Government agencies for sharing information. The concern that was raised there was that this bill seemed to avail extensive powers to a number of Government agencies.

In the end, I am pleased and happy that the select committee did agree in unison that one way of ensuring that there was accountability was to ensure that new Part 10A was amended by inserting new section 109EA, which would require agencies to report annually on the operation of the sharing provided for in the schedule. I think that was critical for gaining unison from committee members, because if we did not have that oversight, I think some of us would be very nervous about the extensive powers that we were granting to a number of organisations.

The Minister has made reference to a number of changes that the select committee recommended, one being to the Victims’ Rights Act 2002, which requires the Department of Corrections to notify victims of specified offenders, or their nominated representative, when an offender escapes from prison or absconds from home detention. There is currently no such requirement if an offender absconds from temporary release. I did not realise how a small matter still required legislation to specify and enable that power. That is the one thing that I learnt through this particular committee. So the committee recommended that we amend the Victims’ Rights Act to require the Department of Corrections to contact victims of specified offences, or their nominated representatives, when an offender absconds from temporary release. It is so minor, but significant, and so that change was made.

Also under the Victims’ Rights Act, a victim may appoint a representative to receive notifications on their behalf, and victims might nominate a representative because they do not have the capacity to fully understand notifications, or because contact regarding the offender could re-traumatise them, and under current law, where a representative is appointed, information must be provided to the representative, rather than the victim. Again, I did not realise that you needed formal approval for an agency to make direct contact with the victim if their representative could not be contacted. So again, it was minor, but still quite important. And so the bill was amended by the committee to provide that victims who had nominated a representative may be notified directly where the relevant agency believes it is necessary for their safety.

The point I am making is that by and large the Labour Party supported this. They were changes that were required—minor but necessary. And I suppose, despite the concerns that were raised by many of the submitters and raised by some of my colleagues on this side of the House as well, it was important that you have that further accountability so that there is a requirement made for agencies to report on an annual basis.

The final point I want to make is that the incident involving Phillip Traynor happened in 2014. This bill was introduced 3 years ago, and I am still baffled as to why the Government dragged its feet on this bill, which we are now passing, very, very late—2 days before Parliament rises. It is a concern, because when you read all the reports that were provided by the officials, this was an urgent matter. This was of serious concern, and my thought was: “Why did they not move quickly enough? What if something similarly happened?” What if there was an escaped prisoner, either on release or temporary release, and somebody’s life was lost? Who would be at fault? Who do we then blame for that? Ultimately, it would be all of us.

But I would say, if anything had happened, everyone on this side of the House would be pointing a finger directly at that side of the House, because those members have the legislative agenda and they have the power and the resources to either move this quickly and pass it or drag their feet, as they have done.

I stand in support of the Enhancing Identity Verification and Border Processes Legislation Bill in its third reading here today. This bill is in the name of the Hon Amy Adams, and it comes about as the result of an inquiry into the matters raised around the escape of Phillip John Smith or Phillip John Traynor, who did manage to find himself a passport, acquire for himself a passport, and leave New Zealand while he was on temporary release from prison.

Out of that inquiry it was found that there was inadequate sharing of information between various agencies—as well as that some of the operational processes were a wee bit lacking. And so this gentleman was able to find himself free of the country. So the inquiry made 39 recommendations, which were accepted in full by the Government—the majority of those recommendations—and it came to support the 13 recommendations that were also enacted immediately after the incident happened. Corrections moved very quickly to adjust its processes so that these temporary releases were made more rigorous and filled the gap that was obviously found wanting.

This is an omnibus bill and it amends a variety of Acts and strengthens a variety of requirements that must now also be made before a Minister can make Orders in Council. The bill also streamlines how the agencies must work together to identify these offenders and ensure that their sentences are carried out properly. It moves away from simple name-based recognition, and into a variety of other details called either the biographical or the biometric information. Biographical information means simply the name, address, date of birth, place of birth, and gender. Biometric information includes either a photograph, a visual image such as iris scanning, and some of the technology that is becoming more regularly used in other jurisdictions. It also includes other distinguishing features such as tattoos, amputations, and birthmarks, etc. Those agencies now are required to share this information, and those agencies that are called accessing agencies are the Department of Corrections, Department of Internal Affairs, Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, Ministry of Health and district health boards, New Zealand Customs Service, and New Zealand Police. And the holder agencies are all of those agencies including the New Zealand Transport Agency.

The public does expect their Government to be able to share this information for the purpose of keeping everyone safe and for preventing these types of abscondments from justice. We are aware now that the border alert processes are significantly improved as a result of the tightening-up of some of the processes, and there are now 11,000 more people under the management of Corrections who are to be stopped should they try to leave the border. This bill contributes to this Government’s policy of delivering better public services by reducing crime and reoffending, and I have great pleasure in commending it to the House.

I am pleased to make some brief comments on this bill. Sadly, I need to disrupt the unanimity of support for this bill by saying that the Greens will continue to oppose the legislation, as we have done throughout. I would certainly acknowledge that the bill is in better shape than after its first reading. The Law and Order Committee did a good job and entered some new provisions that are useful and amended some of the provisions in it. It was a good committee, but it did not quite deliver a bill that the Greens could come to support.

Could I, in passing, just acknowledge the chair of the committee, Mr Bakshi. I always admired his calm and respectful approach to chairing that committee, which sometimes was marginally volatile, and he also was very reliable in the provision of biscuits and refreshments, which is always an admirable quality in a chair. He was an excellent chair, and I do acknowledge that.

We have heard many times that this legislation was in response to Mr Phillip Traynor/Smith’s escape to South America. Oddly enough, I see very little in this bill, actually, that would have contributed to preventing that fellow from escaping the country. The fact that he was able to get what was, in essence, a legal passport illegally procured, but actually a passport in a legal name, was due to a bureaucratic blunder going back many, many years. I am not by any means convinced that anything in this bill would prevent that sort of human error from recurring. His escape could have been very easily prevented had the Corrections department followed its own processes.

Maureen Pugh, in her comments, made the point that Corrections has adjusted its processes. It has a little; she is entirely correct. But, actually, if Corrections at the time had simply complied with existing checks and balances; had they bothered to listen to the advice of their own senior police officers, who were very sceptical of the trustworthiness of this fellow; had they bothered to make that one phone call, which I think Mr Little mentioned, to the sponsor, who actually had no idea that Mr Smith was being released—so Corrections made a series of errors.

At any point in that chain of errors, this escape could have been prevented, and an unfortunate consequence was, initially, the complete ban, the halting, of the temporary release, release-to-work programme, and even now that programme is not back to the volume it previously was at. That is most unfortunate, because release-to-work particularly, and temporary release, does provide a staged transition of offenders back into the community that has proven to be very positive. Simply being in prison one day, released to the community the next, is actually less ideal in many cases than having these people able to have a staged return, a managed return, back to the community.

Mr Little also made the point that this bill has been 3 years in the passing. Arguably, it has been rather a slow progress through the House, but, in a sense, we have had the worst of both worlds. If you read the advice to the committee from the Justice officials, the early analysis of the problem, the framing of the apparent solution, the drafting—it was all done in considerable haste, and that is made apparent in the advice from officials, who have made it quite clear that this was the advice, the best analysis, they could offer in the time that had been given them, and, implicitly, if they had had more time, they may have presented a much broader analysis of what the issues were and suggested some solutions to them.

We are under no illusions. We entirely agree that there is an issue around information sharing within and between agencies—not least of all in the justice sector. I know that there are some very hard barriers preventing exchange of information between the Family Court and District Court, which, on occasion, has had the effect of actually endangering people, for example, when a protection order is being applied for in the Family Court, but they are unable to access information about other matters being dealt with in the District Court. That is entirely unhelpful, and there are many other examples of that. I have heard from lawyers, from the judiciary, from stakeholders that we need to do better in that space. We do need to find solutions where we can ensure that Government agencies that legitimately need particular information and can apply that information to improving or ensuring public safety—we need to enable those flows and those connections. We also need to find those enablers in a way that does not compromise people’s reasonable expectation of privacy in information that they give to multiple Government agencies.

So, on balance, while we agree there was an issue here, and there continues to be a problem around information sharing, we are not convinced that this bill provides the solution to it, and therefore cannot support it. Thank you.

Madam Temporary Speaker.

💬 The TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Ah, Mr Bindra.

Madam Temporary Speaker King, this is your first call, I think, and it is to be given to a small Opposition party member, so congratulations on that. Now, it is Mr Deputy Speaker in the Chair.

I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to take this very brief call on the Enhancing Identity Verification and Border Processes Legislation Bill. I first acknowledge the hard work put in by the Law and Order Committee members, from both sides, and also the able assistance given to us by the select committee staff and also by the advisers.

Maureen Pugh has been a very valuable member of the select committee. However, I do not agree with her when she describes Phillip John Smith as a gentleman. He was far from it. He is a hardened, manipulative criminal, and that is what he deserves to be called. So we call a spade a spade, unless it is a shovel.

Coming back to the bill, we note that we had a few concerns and we had a few queries, and we were quite satisfied with the explanation that we got for those queries. One of those was on the validity of the information that would be shared by various agencies, and we were assured that the agencies that will be coordinating with Corrections will be able to hold that biometric information for only the period of the sentence of that criminal. So that was one thing that convinced us to support this bill.

The other thing is also that when Maureen Pugh said that Corrections acted very quickly, I think that was a bit too generous. Corrections took 24 hours to realise that the criminal had escaped all the way to Brazil, then it took a further 48 hours to inform the police—that much we have been told—and then the police acted on it only after the criminal was found in Brazil. So he was brought back, after it had resulted in international embarrassment for us. We were thoroughly embarrassed in the international arena, and then this Government took about 3 years to fix that fault.

So, after 3 years, this is what we see now. It is a reasonably sound piece of legislation. We have contributed to it. We have supported it in its various stages, and we will continue to support this bill.

I am very pleased to stand and support this very important piece of legislation. As we know from previous speakers, this bill came about through that event when Mr Smith/Traynor escaped the jurisdiction of New Zealand. That sparked an inquiry because, of course, it was of great concern, and, as the member who previously spoke, Mahesh Bindra, said, it was something that we did carry some sensitivity about in terms of our Corrections and our border control systems.

It is good to know that when the inquiry came back and highlighted some vulnerabilities that needed to be addressed, there was a very quick response from the Government. The Government accepted in full the majority of the 39 recommendations and then a number of refinements across agencies were already under way prior to that report coming back. So there was attention, and even though this bill has taken a number of years to come through the House, probably people would say “Rightfully so.” because, in terms of monitoring and biometric data, we have been very careful in the Law and Order Committee to ensure that there is a good balance. The Privacy Commissioner came in and addressed the committee as well and, you know, it is very important to get the fine balance right in these areas. We want the public of New Zealand protected. We want to have fool-proof systems. Yet we need to ensure that this level of surveillance occurs only in those limited situations that are necessary with those limited people whom we deem need to have this measure of surveillance.

Corrections implemented 13 recommendations after its urgent review after this event, such as making the temporary release process more rigorous and there were some very good measures taken. So while this bill did take some time to go through the House, can I assure you and the public of New Zealand that there were immediate responses to this situation that made it incredibly difficult for that sort of incident to happen again. But we need to futureproof legislation. We need to make sure that legislation is updated and this is what this process has been about.

It is very import to note that this response has been supported right across the House with the exception of the Green Party. I am not sure why they continue to hold their support back on this particular bill. I am very pleased. I want to just finish very briefly to let other members of the committee speak. The Law and Order Committee did a very good job, I believe, well led by Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi, a very good chair. It is a very collegial committee on most matters, and in this matter, when it comes to protecting the public of New Zealand, I believe indeed we worked well together to bring this matter to a satisfactory conclusion in this bill. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Can I first of all in this speech—which is likely to be my last contribution to the 51st Parliament—acknowledge you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and acknowledge your retirement. Ngā mihi nui ki a koe.

I am happy to take a call on the Enhancing Identity Verification and Border Processes Legislation Bill in its third reading. As I said in my first contribution in the first reading, I wondered about whether the measures being taken through this bill and the magnitude of the response were appropriate for the issues that were being addressed. Having seen the report from the Law and Order Committee—and I support the contributions of my colleagues Mr Little and Mr Sio on this, as well—Labour still supports this bill. I think the issues did need a response, but I wanted to go back to my first contribution and pose that question, and obviously, on this side of the House, in the Labour Party, we believe that it needs to be done.

Reflecting on everything that actually went on with this, if he was not so illegal and so daring you could almost say that what this man did—and I have not mentioned his name yet—was not only daring but tenacious, in a way. It is a great shame that he put his skills to this and tested the whole system, proving, I think, that something needed to be done. The sad thing about it is that if it was not only so illegal but devastatingly dangerous, it would be laughable, and I think my colleague Kelvin Davis made a statement at the time it happened that it was almost farcical. So I am really pleased that New Zealand is able to now put a piece of legislation in place that allows information to be shared amongst those agencies and those departments that really need to know what each other are doing. I think that is a definitive improvement on the way that things can be done for issues like this.

I remember reading some of the submissions through the select committee stage—and I want to acknowledge the Law and Order Committee—but I remember one in particular that stood out because of its concerns about how far the sharing of that information would go. I think those were valid issues at that time, but I am satisfied that the select committee has considered all of that information, and now we get to the stage of debating the bill as approved by the Committee of the whole House. I think it is incumbent upon members of this House—and it is good to hear that most of the members and parties in the House are supporting this—to actually consider seriously those issues, and I believe we have. So, hand on heart, I am happy to support this bill in its third reading, and I commend it to the House. Kia ora.

Ian McKelvie.

Sorry—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: You forgot my name, didn’t you?

Ha, ha! It is like Friday afternoon. It is a pleasure to get up and support this piece of legislation, which, interestingly, is quite a difficult piece of legislation to put together because it has brought together a lot of strands. Like so many things that happen in this place, it was put together as a result of the actions of one very clever and rather crooked man, and I guess that is what happens with a lot of legislation we have in this House.

I want to comment on only about three things. Two of them have been raised by speakers previously, and I want to comment a perspective on that. Also, I want to acknowledge David Clendon, who has been on the Law and Order Committee for all the time that I have been in this House. Even though the Greens often disagree with the pieces of legislation we are putting through the House, he has brought a very measured approach to that committee, and he has been a very valuable part of the committee in the time I have been on it. He will be missed, I think, because he has got a way about him that is pleasant and he makes a great contribution.

I want to talk about the privacy issue that has been raised, and it was certainly raised by Andrew Little earlier in the debate. He made some points that the committee considered at length. It was quite a difficult issue for the committee, because we were really trying to get the balance here between people’s right to privacy—and, on the whole, they are people who have been convicted of a crime of one sort or another—people’s safety, and the rights of victims to protection as well, and that is the critical piece of this. So it is a very difficult balance for this Parliament to get. As we gather more and more information on people—and technology has enabled that—it becomes more and more difficult for the legislators to put in place safeguards around how that information is used. Given the circumstances, I think this piece of legislation has got to the right balance in that area.

The other issue that was raised by an earlier speaker was the issue of executive power. If you think about the amount of legislation that goes through this Parliament—and all other parliaments, I expect—in this day and age, it is extremely difficult, given the pace of change that we see in life today as opposed to the pace of change some years ago, for those legislators to keep up with the changes required in legislation by bringing pieces of legislation back to the House every time you need a change. Hence the need for the considerable amount of executive power that is put into some of these bills. And by “executive power”, obviously I mean the ability to regulate and change regulation at a reasonably frequent pace. That is pretty difficult, again, for committees to get their heads around, I think.

Those two changes have both been brought about by the massive increase in the pace of life that we live and the increasing technology and many other things that are happening in life today, so there will always be challenging legislation that deals with people’s rights. I think it is something that will have to be considered in the future as to how we deal with this sort of issue as a Parliament, because it is complicated. It is giving some power, in a lot of these cases, to one or two people to make some quite significant judgments.

So I have got no problem with the bill. I think it is well put together and I certainly support it. Thank you.

Of course we support this bill. Anything that keeps communities safe we are obviously going to support.

First of all, let us go through the problem definition and how this came about. We know that in November 2014 a prisoner serving a life sentence for murder—he was a convicted paedophile—escaped New Zealand while on a temporary work release from prison, and he was arrested in Brazil and was returned to New Zealand. People say this man was intelligent, but I think he was as thick as two short planks. Anyone who gets arrested in Brazil—there is something terribly wrong with their plan. I think his arrogance was his undoing, which had sort of characterised his whole life. So let us not say that this man was intelligent, because he was anything but. In fact, he was a predator who should be—you know. Anyway, let us leave it at that.

The other thing is that the Privacy Act meant that it was very difficult—well, the Privacy Act determines how agencies collect and store data, what they can share, etc. The Privacy Act at this point did not allow a sufficient level of sharing to optimise keeping the police and other agencies well informed, so that was changed. The other thing, of course, is that there are legislative and technical barriers that hinder information sharing. So what this bill does is it looks to rectify the situation that allowed someone like the gentleman we have mentioned to escape.

I suppose the concern I have—and, like I said, do not get me wrong; I am completely supporting this bill—is that when I looked at the original regulatory impact statement, it highlighted a number of issues. The first one was that the Ministry of Justice had limited opportunities for detailed agency consultation. What it actually said—this is the Ministry of Justice—is: “We have not had sufficient time to collect definitive information from agencies regarding their information needs, but we have worked closely enough with key agencies to gain clarity for the purposes of designing a legislative mechanism.” It said it had been unable to consult with the Privacy Commissioner. It said that the scope of change for the purposes of the analysis was restricted to identity verification. It said the Smith/Traynor review made useful evidence available, but its scope was limited. It also said it had not been able to assess the definitive fiscal cost that may result from the options.

Now, the reason I point this out is—one of the reasons, of course, a bill goes to select committee is that it allows experts, or just Kiwis who have an interest in this, to submit in front of MPs and make sure that the bill that goes through first reading can then be brought up to speed at the select committee process. But I think we run a bit of a risk if what we do is sort of say “OK, we have had an issue here. The Minister has investigated; she’s come out with 39 recommendations. We must rush this through.” It is a little bit knee-jerk, I suppose, and it is a shame that, after 9 years, it actually took a serious incident for this sort of bill to be drafted.

I mean, we understood the issues. We know the problems. It might have been highlighted by a particular case, but these existed for a long time. And I think we have got to be really careful—and this Government is pretty bad at it—that we do not write legislation in a knee-jerk fashion. When I read the regulatory impact statement I sort of got the impression that that might have happened. But, luckily, there was a good select committee that it went through, the Law and Order Committee, and I think the bill is now up to scratch and it will achieve the purposes that it was supposed to achieve.

We do acknowledge that the systems surrounding offender and prisoner management needed amending and updating. The key parts of the bill are common sense—changes that will allow Government departments to better share information. And I suspect that a lot of New Zealanders did not realise that, in fact, these agencies could not share information in the first place. I mean, we understand the role of the Privacy Commissioner, and we definitely know that information has to be kept private, because if it is shared for nefarious means—or any other means—then it could end up creating unintended consequences, and we certainly do not want that.

But what we do want, I think—and what we require—which, of course, this bill addresses, is for agencies to be able to share information that will (a) allow them to their job better and (b) allow us to make sure that our communities are safe. And this bill does address that.

The inquiry, actually, into the escape of the man, whose name I shall not mention, did show a chain of failures by Government departments. And a lot of those, actually, could have been—I mean, my understanding of the incident report into this is that a simple telephone call could have, in fact, prevented this. So whilst this bill puts a lot of checks and balances in place to make sure this does not happen again, we also need to understand that those who are responsible for implementing this—the men and women on the front line—actually understand the processes and they are following them in a way that is robust and retains the integrity of our prison system and our court system and our other agencies that deal with these sorts of characters.

The inquiry into this chap’s escape did show that the levels of vigilance and communication could have been a lot better. Now, you cannot legislate for that; you really cannot. If the people are not talking to each other or agencies are not talking to each other or communicating, even though the processes and procedures are there, then this is not going to stop this. One thing that we do need to know—and I do admit I was not on the select committee, so I am assuming this has been communicated—is that there is a set of procedures in place, and the staff who are responsible for implementing these procedures do need to understand what their roles are when a prisoner is out on, for example, work release, etc., etc.

I mean, my understanding is the victim of the crime was not even notified that this chap was on work release or had escaped. There were no comprehensive systems in place where the Department of Internal Affairs was supplied with information about New Zealanders not allowed to leave the country. It did note that the police deal with the information they have got in front of them, but we do know that, often, these criminals will change their name simply to avoid the sorts of checks we are talking about. So, again, this needs to be flagged with the Department of Internal Affairs, and the Police, and Corrections at the appropriate time and as soon as is practicable, so we are not just dealing with a John Smith or a Clive Smith or whoever; we are actually dealing with the person whom Births, Deaths and Marriages has information on.

Corrections noted that it had strong inadequacies in the way that it administered temporary release. I suspect that this chap has now had to spend a lot of time in solitary confinement, not because he was a bad boy and ran away to Brazil, but simply because a lot of temporary releases were cancelled at the time. The prisoners who were actually using these or were on temporary release for the right reasons, i.e., integrating them back into the community, which is what we want—there is no doubt about that—had their temporary releases cancelled. I think that was probably a bad thing; there is no doubt about that.

So what I would just say, to sum up, is that we do support this. We support anything that keeps our communities safe, and we support any bill or any measure that actually allows our various agencies to communicate in a way that is meaningful, that drives efficiencies, and, most importantly, once again, keeps our communities safe. Thank you very much.

I rise to take a short call this afternoon on the Enhancing Identity Verification and Border Processes Legislation Bill in its third reading. If I may, before I dive into my small amount of contribution on this topic, I do just want to acknowledge you, Mr Assistant Speaker Tisch. This is my last speech, I suspect, in this Parliament and your second to last day here. Our paths crossed back in the late 1980s when we were involved in the National Party, and I have worked with you in your roles at both a regional level and a national level. You have always been a mentor to me, and I just want to acknowledge the over 25 years of close connection between me and you. I wish you all the best for your future.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Thank you.

Like Stuart Nash, the previous speaker, I too have not been involved in the Law and Order Committee deliberation on this very complex bill and the quite significant layers of improvement that are being put in place and enabled through this piece of legislation. But, unlike the previous speaker, I am not going to immediately dive into trying to lay blame on individuals or agencies, or look for political points, because I think what we see here in this legislation is the Government actually working.

Every single one of us will have been appalled by what happened with this individual—and, like the previous speaker, I am not going him the kudos of being named—but, clearly, a significant number of operational deficiencies were identified, and this is often the way, actually. These things are not big, silver bullet, major failures. What happens in organisations—and I have been involved in a commercial context over the years—is that you have, as they call it, the Swiss cheese model. You have a whole lot of relatively minor actions or inactions that result in something that is clearly not acceptable.

But what we have seen here is very much a whole-of-Government approach around acknowledging this was an issue and doing an inquiry to identify the breadth of changes, both culturally and in terms of process, that needed to be brought into place. A number of them were immediately enacted, but, of course, to support that cultural change and focus on excellence, there needed to be a piece of legislation put in place to ensure that the legislative framework to encourage that sharing of information was in place and that it set the right legislative direction and underpinning for that change of culture. I thought Ian McKelvie actually spoke very well on this topic just before, when he talked about the inherent tension between freedom of information and personal information, the freedoms that are expected around that personal information, and the extent to which that gets traded away when you have committed a crime against the community that, as a consequence, sees you jailed.

Again, I am not close to this, but what I have listened to in this debate and read shows that the initial bill, I think, had very close to the right balance, and the collective efforts of the select committee—almost in unanimity—has got this piece of legislation to a very good position. So I am very pleased to see that as we conclude the 51st Parliament, we have got another example of the Government working and the Government delivering and getting a good outcome. I commend the bill to the House.