Social Security (Stopping Benefit Payments for Offenders who Repeatedly Fail to Comply with Community Sentences) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Social Security (Stopping Benefit Payments for Offenders who Repeatedly Fail to Comply with Community Sentences) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

It’s quite amazing, the debate we’ve heard over the five months or so of this new Government—a lot of talk about reducing the prison population. They’re actually wanting to clean criminals out, and that’s fine. They’re saying they want a target of 30 percent reduction of imprisoned offenders, which is also remarkable because about 75 percent are violent criminals. So, if they meet their number, they’re going to have to release some violent criminals into New Zealand society, but that’s a matter for another day.

As it relates to this bill, it’s actually quite interesting, because if they claim that they want to reduce the prison population, this bill is a measure that helps to do just that. It does that because it offers an alternative to that harsher sentence for offenders serving a community sentence who fail to comply with the terms of their sentence. And, yet, all the rhetoric we heard from them on the select committee and the report indicate quite strongly that they will not be supporting this bill in its second reading. That’s an absolute shame, because it actually shows that, while they claim to have this goal of reducing reoffending, they’ll always let their ideology get in the way of what could, otherwise, be seen as something of a laudable goal.

The reality for these sentences, these community sentences, if we consider why they exist, is that, in some instances, it’s because of lower level offending. But, in many others, it’s as an alternative to more onerous fines that offenders might find and struggle to deal with—or, indeed, as an alternative to some level of incarceration. In so doing, in providing these sentences, offenders are actually given an opportunity to atone for whatever their crime may have been in a manner and in a form that has less stigma attached to it and, indeed, actually permits them to have some more of their family life and contact, which they would lose out on if they were, instead, in prison. But with that comes obligations.

The public expect, as does the Government, and our corrections department, that people who are sentenced to such sentences—community service—will turn up and will complete their duties. So if people are not going to comply with those sentences, the public have an expectation that they be treated accordingly. This bill, instead of a regime which has been shown to be more likely to see offenders who repeatedly fail to turn up to their community service more likely now to see them heading towards jail, would have offered, and would still offer, if people would vote for it, a short, sharp correction that gives a strong incentive for that person to re-comply with their sentence, with their service. It was a simple matter of “If you fail to comply several times, you’ll get a warning. You’ll get a benefit docked if you happen to be a receiver of a main benefit.” And that gives you some incentive to re-comply with your sentence.

Now, as the bill was initially introduced, it was a blunt yet effective instrument. It allowed for three warnings, and if you’d failed to comply after three warnings, bang, your benefit could be cut. But it didn’t allow, for instance, for the right of appeal on the basis of process or of fact. So I would like to acknowledge and commend the officials in the select committee process, who looked at it and felt that it had some issues of manageability, workability, and, potentially, some issues, in their consideration, of elements of natural justice. The officials said, and recommended, as the bill has been returned, or should have been returned on that basis, that what they could do instead is to allow an appeal right on process. So if the process was not followed properly, the offender could appeal and have, potentially, their benefit cut forestalled or removed. But it also allowed, in a balanced sense, for the offender not to have to fail to comply so many times before the department could look to issue that warning and invoke that cut to the benefit payment. So the bill, in the work that they did, would have come back to this House in a better shape.

That actually is the job of select committees, and when select committees do it well, the Parliament then gets to consider, in the second reading, a bill that is in better shape. It would have been a bill to see back here and, hopefully, to have seen pass through its stages—although it’s pretty clear that that members opposite are not going to support it. Yet that flies in the face of the substance of the data that was presented by submitters—not necessarily their views, because submitters were, fundamentally, mostly opposed, but the data in it was really quite interesting. You see, the reality is that, over the years, more and more people who fail to comply with their community services are ending up in jail. Is that really what we want? Is that really what we want? Does it help to reduce our prison population? It certainly doesn’t. Is it better for that offender if they’re then in an environment which not only provides greater stigma for them but actually helps them in their schooling in the art of criminal offending, or so we’re told? It isn’t a good outcome.

In 2004, 774 persons were imprisoned for offences against justice, which includes non-compliance for community services. In 2014, that number had grown to 1,307—that’s a 68 percent increase. Now, we don’t have the numbers for exactly how many of those were failing to comply with community service, but the submitter was very clear that the numbers had increased.

💬 Darroch Ball: I’ve got them—I’ve got them.

And, look, I’ll take Kim Workman’s expertise in this area over Mr Ball’s any day of the week. In fact, by November 2015, Mr Workman submitted, in support of his evidence, that only 36 percent of offenders nationally were turning up to comply with their community service sentences. So the problem has been growing, the lack of compliance has been growing, and more and more often, those who do not comply are heading towards, and into, jail.

Mr Workman did also make a point that, as the growth has been there in failing to comply, failing to turn up to these community service responsibilities, he felt that the Department of Corrections wasn’t doing enough to manage people’s attendance. That’s a reasonable point for a person to hold, but I’d reinforce this point, particularly for the people of New Zealand, and indeed those people who have been sentenced: the obligation to turn up for community service is the obligation on the offender. If they do not turn up repeatedly, it’s not the fault of the Department of Corrections; it’s their fault for not complying with the sentence which was initially handed down in lieu of either a harsh fine or a bit of jail time. They have an obligation. They should be discharging it. They don’t need the Department of Corrections to mother them or to parent them into fulfilling their obligations in the sentence for the crime that they’ve committed.

I’ll tell you what happens then. What happens, as Mr Workman pointed out, is that because the offenders, of their own cognisance, fail to turn up repeatedly, when they get in front of a court for their failure to comply, his view is that the judge is left with little alternative but to lock them up. This bill would have given an alternative, and could still if members opposite would see sense. It could give an alternative to help provide an incentive for offenders to comply with that sentence—a sentence that is better for them and better for the community than jail time. If only they would indeed do so, and if the members would support it, they might actually go a small way—a small but significant way—to meeting their supposed goal of reducing the prison population. So, really, it will be over to them. If they truly believe in that goal, here’s an opportunity to take a small, measurable, but significant step in helping to achieve that goal. If they don’t vote for it, they’re voting for more people on community service today to be in jail tomorrow, and that should be on their consciences. I commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe, Madam Assistant Speaker. Thank you for this opportunity. Well, that’s confirmed everything I believe of the former regime, and what that is is turning a public service and a safety net, such as the Ministry of Social Development (MSD), into a tool for punishing beneficiaries, for punishing some of our most vulnerable people in this country. When somebody goes into the Ministry of Social Development they have to form a trust, because, let’s face it, not many of them want to be there. In fact, if they had a choice, they wouldn’t go there, but they go there because they need the safety net. So they go in there. They create a bond of trust with their case manager—a bond of trust with their case manager. And then when corrections come in, without even fully understanding all of the complicated matters in this particular person’s life, they sever that lifeline. They take away that security net. They punish them.

Once again, this is what I continue to talk about with Whānau Ora: look at the family and not just the individual. Because you’re not punishing just the individual; you are punishing the family. Children miss out. Loved ones miss out. Why? Because they are being punished. What we should be focusing on is how we support these people better to make sure that they are able to fulfil their community sentence, where they are able to meet their obligations with the Ministry of Social Development and any other benefit that they might be receiving from the Ministry of Social Development.

As a former case manager, I can tell that side of the House, actually, you do that with trust. You do that with a bit of faith that actually people are wanting to do better for themselves. A proper relationship with a case manager, whether they be from the Ministry of Social Development or in fact the parole officer, or whoever it might be with the Department of Corrections—a more meaningful relationship actually will serve that person and the community better in the long run. I have no doubt about that—no doubt about that. We should be allowing these people actually to fulfil their sentences not by punishing them or beating them or scaring them. Actually, we should be supporting them—supporting them—making sure that they have the tools to fulfil that sentence and also to meet their obligations.

I mentioned the impact on families. I know that many of the submitters didn’t support this bill, and we know that quite a number of them actually highlighted the fact that it has unintended consequences that impact significantly on children. So we’re saying now with this particular bill that the member’s promoted forward into the House, that we’re going to be punishing those children. We know how hard it is for many of the families out there, particularly in my electorate, in Tāmaki Makaurau, but I have no doubt that in many electorates across the country families are struggling out there. This is just another one of those tools to beat families into submission, to actually force many family members, including those who are penalised through this particular bill, to actually go out and commit more crime, to be able to make sure that they can provide for their families. The data is out there, that many who find themselves in these situations and in times of hardship have gone to the Ministry of Social Development or have sought assistance, and in the end have actually resorted to crime to make sure that their family or the individual themselves actually have what they need. Here is yet another tool to punish people.

I accept that where there is continual failure to comply, sure, we need to start looking at this a lot more closely, but I don’t believe that it’s actually in the form of punishment or punitive measures. I actually think it’s more about making sure that we support these people more holistically, making sure that they’re able to meet their obligations. It’s nothing new. Whānau Ora talk about it—a whānau-centred approach, a holistic approach, to make sure that we have a good hard look at why these people aren’t meeting their obligations and we deal with those issues. We don’t simply punish them because of failure to comply. Sure, once again, I admit if there’s continual non-compliance, then we have got an issue. But instead of going in, making sure that they actually have the support to achieve their community sentence prior to the warnings—by all means that’s what we should be doing. That’s exactly what we should be doing. What we’re actually requiring, what we’re asking now of our officials who deal with these matters in both corrections and the Ministry of Social Development, is actually that they take a more human approach to it. I talked about bonds of trust, whether you’re in the Department of Corrections or, of course, the Ministry of Social Development.

That raises another question, actually: the capacity to enforce. It’s quite simple to say that the Department of Corrections can go in and instruct the Ministry of Social Development to do this and it will be done, and we’ll all go home happy, and the person who is continually non-compliant will be punished. It’s actually not as simple as that—it’s not as simple as that. As a former case manager and a former service centre manager and a former manager in Work and Income in the Ministry of Social Development, it isn’t as easy as that. It’s not as simple as going [Clicks fingers]; gone. It’s not like that.

We know that there are steps in this bill to make sure that the person is compliant. Well, in an ideal world, and as we read it in this legislation, that might be the case but actually in an MSD and a Department of Corrections that are currently under the pump, under-resourced, understaffed, feeling the pressure of an explosion in prisoner numbers, and an explosion in the need for their services and the safety net that’s provided to them, these people are struggling.

💬 Brett Hudson: Your problem now, Peeni.

It is in fact the challenge in front of this Government to fix that. Why? Because, as the member across on the other side just said, it’s now our problem. He acknowledges that they actually created it, and now we’re stuck with it—now we’re stuck with it. So our job then is to make sure that those people get the support they need to actually be meaningful contributors in our communities. So I’m disappointed. I’m disappointed by this type of bill that comes to the House.

Also, the member who promoted the bill to the House tonight talked about stigma. I say to the member that actually having dealt with many of those people who have come through the doors of MSD and also, actually, in corrections too, in a former life, the stigma is just as big there, outside of the prison, as it is inside. The member tried to offer that only for those who go inside, of course, the stigma’s bigger. Well, I’d argue actually the stigma’s just as big on the outside—just as big on the outside—and one of the problems with that is, of course, all that does is create more non-compliance. All that does is actually scare them into more non-compliance, not just for the individual but also for their associates and the family members that they associate with, and I’m really concerned about that. Any kind of bill that forces more non-compliance by stigma and by discrimination, I think is a poor bill.

I just want to, in my final couple of minutes, talk about the discrimination. Many in this House know the numbers of Māori who enter into the justice system, know the number of Māori in prison, and know also the number of Māori who receive assistance through the Ministry of Social Development. We know, and the evidence suggests it, that discrimination by a mere fact of numbers of a particular ethnic group actually does exactly what I just talked about, about stigma—stigma through discrimination—and that’s a real problem. It will disproportionately affect Māori people, it will disproportionately affect those in particular, I’d argue, as a good member for Tāmaki Makaurau, in urban settings who actually have some rather complex needs—rather complex needs—and we know that on this side of the House actually a more progressive-thinking bill to actually assist these people in fulfilling their sentences and supporting them in the way that we should be is something that would be considered by this side of the House and by the Government. But at the moment this particular bill does not do that.

So I’d encourage that side of the House to actually look into their hearts, stop using legislation and the tools at the dispense of Government to actually punish our people, and look at how we care for them better, look at how we make stronger communities, stronger families, and stronger individuals, because at the moment a bill like this doesn’t do that. In fact, it punishes them and takes a punitive approach to what, essentially, is a human issue. So therefore, Madam Assistant Speaker, I say to you and to this House we will not be supporting this bill.

Madam Assistant Speaker, I want to rise and stand in support of my colleague Brett Hudson and his member’s bill, that is the Social Security (Stopping Benefit Payments for Offenders—and I want to say, “who Repeatedly Fail to Comply”—with Community Sentences) Amendment Bill. And for the member that has just resumed his seat, Peeni Henare, I think that is the key part that he seems to conveniently have forgotten.

In the bill immediately preceding this, one of the other Labour members talked about the fact there is an expectation that offenders are held to account for their crimes. So this bill is not a bill about suitable sentences; this is about dealing with those who have been sentenced by the court and who repeatedly—repeatedly—fail to comply with the community sentence. So the speaker that just spoke before me completely missed the point in terms of what this bill is, and I want to provide a bit of context for this.

New Zealand actually uses community sentences more than most other jurisdictions around the world, and members opposite should be pleased about that fact because it is before incarceration. It’s an important step and, as Brett Hudson very clearly stated in his speech, one of the ramifications for people not being supported to comply with their sentences—one of the ramifications is that they could end up being incarcerated. I would have thought that side of the House wants to avoid that. I’m really hoping—and the New Zealand First member Darroch Ball is shaking his head. I was shocked that New Zealand First didn’t support this bill, really shocked because I thought New Zealand First were a party that supported the delivery of law and order. The delivery of law and order is offenders being held to account.

💬 Darroch Ball: That’s right. They should be going back to court. Why are you giving them an extra cushion?

So the New Zealand First member would like to see more of these people that are on community sentences currently going back to court and going to prison.

💬 Darroch Ball: Recidivist offenders. You can’t have it both ways.

Well, actually, I disagree with you and I want to talk—the community probation staff of the Department of Corrections do an extraordinary role with these offenders. I do agree with the speaker before me; some of them have quite complex issues, and community corrections do an extraordinary job with these offenders. There are 27,000 offenders a year on some form of community sentence, right. So for those people they want to support them in complying with their sentence so that the sentence is done and dusted and they are never seen again. That is the intent.

Unfortunately, there are some people who are frequent flyers who do not comply with the obligations that are set down by the court and that taxpayers expect the offenders to deliver. That’s the guts of this bill and the opposition seem to have completely lost the point. These are people that have been sentenced. These are about ensuring that people who are sentenced fulfil their obligations, comply with their sentences. And when the officials were before us, they said it’s a tool in their tool box—they don’t have to use it, and, in many cases, they wouldn’t use it, particularly if there are children in the household—and, again, that point seems to have escaped the Government member who spoke before me.

This is about ensuring that offenders who have committed crimes of a variety of natures are stopped in their tracks and we stop them and get them out of the justice system instead of progressing them through. As my colleague said, 1,300 offences against justice. We want to keep them out of prison. It’s interesting some of the other comments that have been made by the other side in this debate, and the one prior about rehabilitation. Well, if the Government was serious about rehabilitation, in the first corrections bill they introduced into this House they would not have scrapped the requirement for rehabilitation in that bill. It’s outrageous that it was scrapped.

💬 Hon Member: It was rubbish.

I was in charge of it at the time; I know it was in there. I’m shocked that a Government that proposes to be trying to reduce the prison population would scrap the one thing that makes an enormous difference—yes, to the lives of people who have challenges. They don’t care. They’re going to go back on what they did in their nine years where the prison population increased at a faster rate than the last nine years and they want to lock them up and throw away the key. This is the tool they could use to stop people getting into prison and they’re not going take it.

Any student of history will remember Dresden. That was a time when the Allies bombed a non-strategic city, a city that had no munitions factories, and they did it for one reason: they wanted to warn the Russians of how tough they were, of what the possible complications on the Russians were if they didn’t comply. Well, it didn’t work. History shows it didn’t work. So what it shows, in coming back to this bill, is that anything we do around crime, any legislation we bring in, we’ve got to know what we are trying to achieve with it. What we are trying to achieve in all Crimes Act amendment bills or whatever bill we bring in has got to be about reducing crime. It’s got to be about making society a safer place. And when I look at this bill, it simply fails that test.

What experience has shown—and one of the previous speakers from our side mentioned about proximity to offending, and how we actually influence and affect offenders is by ensuring that the punishment, or whatever we call it, is actually proximate to the offending. Attempting to punish offenders in this manner will simply not be relevant in what we are trying to achieve here in trying to reduce crime. It’s quite interesting, when I was reading through the submissions, even the Sensible Sentencing Trust, I see, were actually opposed to this bill, which gives some indication of just how effective it may well be.

I’m personally not saying we don’t punish these people, and the previous speaker, Louise Upston, talked about how we need to make sure that people are punished. What I’m saying is that this will not do it. In fact, what we are trying to achieve here is that the punishment that we are trying to achieve on people—that will just simply not do it. It will not achieve what we’re setting out to do. Also, because the very people we are setting out to punish—as in the example I used at the beginning around Dresden—the very thing we set out to try and achieve, it will not simply achieve it, because when we actually impose this, we’re actually going to be imposing it on those around the person we’re trying to punish.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It gives me great pleasure to resume my presentation on this bill. Let me resume by saying I do believe there should be a consequence for those who don’t comply. You may remember I did use the analogy of ensuring that when we send a message, we’re sending it to the right place, and I repeat my Dresden analogy, where the Allies attempted to send a message to the Russians at the expense of many thousands of innocent lives. So, again, I am stipulating it’s important to get your message right, to signal right, and to make sure you’re targeting the right area.

I fear that, quite frankly, this legislation does not target the right area. For a start, it’s patently unfair because only the beneficiaries will be targeted by this. If you look at the report, it shows that the majority of people who don’t adhere to their community-based sentences or comply with their community-based sentences are actually people who are not on benefits, so we’re actually looking at a piece of legislation here that is actually just going to target a small proportion of those who actually don’t comply.

But, more importantly, I look at those who we’re actually going to punish with this one as well, because, again, my experience is that those who end up on community work are those who often don’t live, shall we say, lives where the sort of normal sanctions that we might apply to those who have a relatively, dare I say, normal life will actually apply. They’re people that, whether we like it or not, are not going to give up their cigarettes—those that smoke. They won’t give up their drugs. What they will give up is paying those around them who will often be supplying the food, supplying the necessities of life, and even those who they supply the necessities of life to—for many of these people, in fact, their benefit will actually be their fixed costs, and much of what they live on is what they’ve managed to eke a living out of, often criminally. It’s the very reason they ended up on community work in the first place.

So, going back to what I said originally, we’ve got to be careful what we want to achieve with any legislation around crime. We’ve got to ensure that we actually reduce crime and don’t inadvertently increase it. What I very much fear with this piece of legislation is that we will actually end up increasing crime, because those people will—and you may say it will be petty crime. Well, the people who actually lose out from petty crime most are those who can least afford to lose out from petty crime. Often, it’s the neighbours of those people, often in the lower socio-economic areas, who don’t have insurance and who don’t have the ability to actually even replace what they lose, and they are the people who actually lose most. So, again, we have to be very careful where we target legislation like this. I think it will almost invariably result in an increase in crime, which is one reason why I am opposed to that.

I also mentioned before—around proximity. My experience is that when we’re dealing with people—particularly at the lower end, who are the people who are likely to not comply, for any number of reasons here—is that when we do seek to impose some sort of sanction on them, it’s incredibly important that they understand the sanction. A financial one like this will take some time. If it actually does bring about or give them some cause for regret or cause for second thinking about their actions, it actually won’t be related to the act that they actually did or didn’t do. It won’t be related to the act of not complying with their community work.

I think it’s important to actually look at what those community work provisions are, as well. It’s community work, which requires an offender to do a specified number of hours of unpaid work in the community for non-profit organisations; supervision, which requires an offender to take specified rehabilitative programmes to address the cause of their offending; community detention, which requires an offender to remain in an approved residence during certain time periods; and intensive supervision, which requires an offender to take rehabilitative programmes to address the cause of their offending.

So, again, the proximity between a financial penalty which would be imposed on them and, as I said before, mostly those around them—it won’t actually have an effect on their behaviour. So when we do seek to impose the sanction—again, as I said, I think there should be a sanction on this—we’ve got to make sure that it’s something that is going to work best for the whole of society. That’s where we come back to—we cannot impose something that is very much piecemeal and that by itself will simply end up in an increase in crime. That will mean more people either on the community work or more people who, if not on community work, are actually in prison—that very thing we need to address.

So I’m always a little suspicious of and often opposed to this type of legislation, which starts as a good idea, and probably those that conceived it did so with the right ideas. But when it’s taken in full, and when we work out how it will affect not just those who are going to be financially punished, if they are beneficiaries—less than half of the people who don’t comply. If we’re only going to apply this sanction to those people, then, quite frankly, it will simply not work.

So while, again, I think those who conceived this—and I think this legislation has been through several sets of hands before it arrived at this stage—I think I’d invite them to sit back and have a look and see just what it is they want to achieve. If it’s about making this country safer—I’ve heard claims across the House of being tough on crime. I mean, so many of the tough on crime measures actually don’t end up doing what they’re intended to do. I personally am a great believer in “A belief you will get caught is the greatest deterrent to crime”. We need only look at our own driving behaviour for that. So I oppose this bill.

I honestly don’t know where to begin with the number of reasons why New Zealand First, and, I know, the rest of the Government, will be opposing this bill. I think—I truly believe—that I’m going to be running out of time before I get to complete my speech.

I’m going to start with a couple of things that Mr Hudson said—ridiculous in the extreme—and the worst part about it was it’s quite clear that he didn’t even read his own bill. I’ll give him a little bit of a break, because it’s not really his bill—it was Mark Mitchell’s bill—but he stood up in his first speech and he said that “The public expect that those who are given community services turn up.”, which is fair enough, I guess. Then, in the same breath, he said that “The public’s expectation, the consequences that they don’t.” Now, if that’s true, why oh why is National promoting two separate pathways, or two separate consequences, for whether you’re a beneficiary or a non-beneficiary?

If it’s all about ensuring that the Government who’s in charge at the time holds the people who are on community service to account—not just the beneficiaries, because that’s what Mr Brett Hudson said—then why are there two separate pathways? That’s the question that that member needs to answer. The second thing he said—oh, and this is a good one—was “The origins of community service were because it was an alternative to a harsh fine that the offender couldn’t afford.” It’s an alternative to a harsh fine that an offender couldn’t afford. So what is this legislation doing? Going to the beneficiaries, who can’t really afford it in the first place, and pretty much fining them—cutting them by up to 50 percent.

If that’s not a flip-flop, and I’d like to say some other words, but if that’s not a flip-flop I don’t know what is. This is a member who is the author of this bill, or he was the guardian of this bill, who was supposed to be standing up in the first reading or the second reading, after he wanted it so badly to go through the select committee, and he has absolutely spoken against it. He’s given evidence about reasons why they should be voting against it. The last thing he said—well, not the last thing but one of the last things I want to talk to him about was—the problem has been growing, those who don’t comply has been growing. Who’s been in Government for the last decade? First of all, who’s been in Government for the last decade? That’s been National. Who’s been in control for the last decade? National. Who has had the chance for the last decade to put this bill in if it was such a great idea?

💬 Kieran McAnulty: Those guys.

Them. Why didn’t they do it? Why didn’t they do it? Look, this is a nonsensical bill. It’s not about tough on crime. It’s not about soft on crime. To be fair, if you listen to the speeches, and I’m sure the speeches for the rest of the night from the National Party but definitely the ones prior to this, they’re caught in a sort of no man’s land. You can tell they want so desperately to say this is being tough on crime—tough on crime—but it’s just not. It simply is not. It’s just ridiculous in the extreme. The National Party knows that this will cause—just like the Labour Party member who just spoke said—more crime in the end, and they know that.

I’ve got some evidence to show why the National Party didn’t want this bill to go through. They didn’t actually want this bill to go through even though they had every ample opportunity to as a Government. Here’s the time line for this bill. So the first reading was in August 2016. The first reading, when National was in Government, when this got pulled out of the ballot, was August 2016. It was referred to the committee on 10 August 2016, and the closing of submissions was 20 September 2016. So the member, when it was pulled out of the ballot, had two years to convince the Ministers of Justice and of Corrections, and the Minister for Social Development to put it in his Government’s bill. You’ve got to ask why.

I went back and had a look at the minutes from the—no, not the minutes; the letters that the Social Services Committee sent, and Alfred Ngaro knows this because he signed it—well, one of them, anyway. The letter asked for an extension to the Speaker at the time Rt Hon David Carter—that’s how old it is, the Speaker was the Rt Hon David Carter—“It is due to be reported to the House by Friday, 10 February 2017.” This bill was due to be reported to this House in February 2017. They want an extension on 30 November 2016, right. Another letter: “It is due to be reported to the House by Thursday, 13 April; now we want it to be extended to Monday, 8 May 2017.” Then another letter, and this one’s signed by Joanne Hayes because by that time she was the chair and Alfred Ngaro had then moved on to become a Minister, that’s how long ago it was. “It was referred to us on 10 August 2016. We have made substantial progress in our consideration of the bill.”—yes, we did, because everyone knew that we didn’t want this bill going through, including the National Party.

They wanted to push this through to 25 October 2017, after the election—after the election. It was quite clear to everybody sitting in that select committee that the National Party did not want the report to come back here to be debated, because they knew that it was a rubbish bill. They knew it—they knew it. So now here we are—April 2018—20 months since the first reading and 18 months since the first due date back here in the House. Now, if Alfred Ngaro wants to take a call I’m sure he will try and explain that, when we didn’t need to have those delays as a select committee, I’ll be very interested.

If anybody who is watching, and for that matter any of the National Party members, including and especially Brett Hudson, wants to know why no one should be supporting this bill, just have a look at the report of the Social Services and Community Committee of March 2018. You only have to read the first page. You don’t really have to read all of it, because there’s enough in the first page to justify why we shouldn’t be supporting it.

First of all, I’d just like to point out that the first heading is “Reasons for recommending that the bill not proceed”, and that goes on for one, two, three, four pages. Then it comes to “Reasons for recommending that the bill proceed”, and it’s two paragraphs—if you can call them paragraphs, it’s probably about two or three sentences really. First of all, some facts that Brett Hudson failed to mention: in 2015, there were 33,000 people who were required to complete a sentence of community work. Of these, 5 percent—that’s 1,500 people—did not comply with their sentence. It says, “Compliance rates were in fact higher for those receiving a benefit, at 77 percent, compared with 67 percent for those not receiving a benefit.” If this was such a law and order issue, if this was such a piece of legislation that was supposedly ensuring the public’s expectation of people on community work not breaching and turning up, then why are we ignoring the largest proportion of them—the non-beneficiaries? What did the National Government do when they were in Government about them? Nothing. About nothing. Only 23 percent of those receiving a benefit—so, 23 percent of the 5 percent—were breaching.

💬 Hon Member: Is that it?

Twenty-three percent of 5 percent. Of the 33,000 people, we’re talking about 300 people. Now, this doesn’t go any deeper, this is 300 people here, but that doesn’t talk about the highly recidivist offenders or breaches. So, the 300 could just be one breach. So if this bill is looking and trying to dig down in to the high recidivist people who breach community service, we could be talking about just dozens of people whom this bill is trying to target. They knew that. Brett Hudson knew that. The Ministers knew that. That’s why they didn’t put this through as a Government bill—that’s why it didn’t go through as a Government bill.

Madam Assistant Speaker, I told you that I was going to run out of time. I haven’t even begun to get through it. I got through some of the main nonsensical facts and some of the things that Brett Hudson said. But New Zealand First will clearly not be supporting this bill—not because it’s not tough on crime, or because it’s soft on crime, or because it’s in-between; it’s because it’s nonsensical, because it will not work.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. The previous speaker started off his speech by saying that he doesn’t know where to start. Well, he didn’t even know where to finish, and he didn’t even begin to talk about the bill itself. But what I would have to say about that member Darroch Ball, who’s just sat down and who just made his speech—I want to use an old Kiwi colloquialism that’s actually in the Oxford Dictionary, and it says this. It’s called sucking the kumara. “Sucking the kumara” refers to the fact that when someone has failed—and it’s a terminology that’s used that he’s sucked the kumara—he didn’t keep his promises. He didn’t actually achieve what he intended to do.

I would have to say that when New Zealand First stood up in the election campaign of 2017, here are the things that it talked about. In fact, if you go to Newshub of October 2017, they talked about the 16 different things—and it relates to the bill that we’re talking about now because one of them was about benefits—that are different between New Zealand First and the Greens. One of them was about Māori seats. “Abolish them.”, is what New Zealand First said. Well, that didn’t happen. The other one is around Whānau Ora: “Get rid of it.” That hasn’t happened. We just heard today there’s going to be a review. The others were about mining, but in particular was actually No. 10, and here’s what it said about benefits. Here’s what the Greens said. Their manifesto said this: “We want to increase benefit payments by 20 percent and remove all sanctions and obligations for beneficiaries.” But here’s what New Zealand First said. Wait for it—they said this: “Greater scrutiny of the benefit system”, and that’s exactly what this bill is about. OK? At the heart of it, it’s the scrutiny of the benefit system.

So let’s talk about this and see what this bill is actually all about. It’s in the title, which says, “Social Security (Stopping Benefit Payments for Offenders who Repeatedly Fail to Comply”. Now that surely is something that’s part of the New Zealand First manifesto. It wants to scrutinise the benefit payments.

In other words, these are people who are beneficiaries already who’ve actually committed an offence. It could be everything from robbery. It could be all sorts. It could be male assaults female—we don’t know what it is, but they’ve committed an offence. They’ve gone into court—I know Greg O’Connor will know this—and they’ve been held to account, but the judge has mitigated the sentence. He’s actually said to them, “We’re going to give you a community sentence.” A community sentence is where the offender can go back and can contribute to his community. It means that he has a certain number of hours that he has to comply with. It lessens the ability for them to go into incarceration—to go into jail. That’s what the sentence is actually all about.

So we’re now talking about people who have offended. They’ve gone to court. They’ve been charged. They’ve been convicted. They’ve been sentenced. Now they’re going into a situation where all they have to do is complete—it could be 10, 20, 30, or could be even 100 hours. That’s what they have to do. That’s all that’s being asked of them. When they don’t comply, not once, not twice, or maybe not even three times—now you have to say this, on the other side—when do you get to the point where you have to hold people to account? When do you have to say to people, “There’s been a lesser sentence. It’s been mitigated.”? And that’s what this bill is actually talking about. It’s saying this. What we’re saying is this is one tool to incentivise compliance. That’s what this bill is about. It means that corrections can use this as an ability to be able to incentivise that process.

But let’s walk and talk the way through what this bill actually is telling us and what is trying to be achieved in being able to implement this bill. Speakers on the other side have said it’s being mean-spirited, it’s cold-hearted, and it’s not actually caring for those that are in need. Again, we’re talking about people who don’t comply. So here’s the process. With the relationship with the corrections officer, the probation officer who’s working with them, or it could even be a social worker—after 30 days, they cannot apply a written notice but they will apply one written notice.

So, say the offender hasn’t turned up. They’re meant to be doing some gardening, or meant to be out there, maybe at the local school, maybe in a park, to help beautify a community, and they didn’t comply with that. They’ll be contacted. They’ll be talked to and asked for the reasons why. If there is no valid reason for that, then there will be one written warning. Now, it’s another 14 days afterwards in which they can then also apply a second warning.

So let’s talk about this. Fourteen days—the ability to be able to go again, to comply with the sentence they’ve been given. It’s a community sentence. It may be gardening, or it may be weeding. But what it means is the opportunity for that person, who’s receiving, by the way, a taxpayer-funded benefit to help support them and their family and their whānau—all they need to do is comply with that. Again, it could be gardening, or it could be weeding. But if they don’t comply for a second time, they get a second warning, right. A second warning. Then, after that, another 14 days has to lapse before corrections will then contact them or talk to them and say, “Look, it’s been over two weeks, three weeks, and there’s been non-compliance. You haven’t turned up. If you do not, there will be some serious consequences.” That’s what this bill is asking of them.

So, tell me, where’s the hardship? Where’s the cold-heartedness in this? It’s actually ensuring that we are walking through, with offenders, to make sure that they comply.

Here’s the other point that this bill is trying to achieve. It’s accountability with discretion. This is not cold-hearted. This is not mean-spirited. It’s trying to make sure they complete it, because the sooner they complete the sentence, the sooner they can get on with their lives.

Here’s the other alternative, where this bill is trying to mediate this and give another opportunity and an alternative to going back into court, going back into the system, and potentially going back into prison. It’s saying to them, “If you comply, and if you do the things that you’ve been asked to do simply to uphold the sentence that you’ve been given, then you will just continue and finish your sentence.” End of story—there’s nothing else to be done. Now, where’s the cold-heartedness in this? I would say that the people outside, that are inside of New Zealand, would say, “Actually, that’s OK. That’s accounted for.”

Mr Darroch Ball talked about the numbers. In actual fact, it’s around about 27,900 offenders that have a community-based sentence. Out of that, when you talk about splitting the percentages, it works out at about 1,600 who breach their compliance with the sentence that they’ve been given, and those are beneficiaries. So we’d say this: out of the 1,600 that are beneficiaries, it’s not untold to be able to hold them to account. Again, there’s a process that has discretion to it, to allow them to get to a point. All they simply need to do is to comply and finish off the sentence. I would have to say that that’s what this bill is trying to do. That’s the intent of the bill. There’s accountability with discretion, and that’s inside of that. And for 1,600 breaches, I believe that, actually, it’s a bill that’s worth considering.

I am surprised that New Zealand First have sucked the kumara on this. They’ve gone along and, next thing, it will be an increase of 20 percent in benefits. They’re removing the sanctions and the obligations that have been proved to make a difference. The fact is that those who have been found in breach of benefit fraud—so there are around about 89,000 people who were found in breach. That calculates as $34.6 million that was actually taxpayer-funded. I have to tell you this. Taxpayers that are out there, who are giving their taxes to the Government to hold people to account in this particular area—look, it definitely won’t increase crime, but what it will do is hold people to account.

I will finish by saying this. New Zealand First campaigned on the fact that they would have better scrutiny of the benefit system. That’s exactly what this bill is intended to do. I have to say to New Zealand First on the other side that your supporters that are out there in New Zealand—I have to ask the question. You made a promise; you haven’t kept it. You’ve sucked the kumara. I think it’s a sad day for New Zealand First, who are not supporting this bill. I support this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise on behalf of the Green Party and to oppose this bill and, hopefully, to see the end of it from this House. There are many reasons that I’ve been pleased to see a change of Government and, I must be honest, seeing the end of this bill is one of those reasons. It was quite—I don’t know the right adjective, really, but it was bemusing at times to sit on the select committee and hear the overwhelming submissions telling us what a bad idea this was and to see the then Government members on the select committee just keep engaging as if it was possible to fix it despite all of the evidence that we had. It started off being just amusing and got to the point of being disturbing, actually. We were being told just so clearly of the dangers of this bill. So it is lovely to rise and speak on this tonight, knowing that this will be the end of this bill.

I do just need to reference, for a second—not to defend New Zealand First or speak to their policy—that the last speaker’s view, that this was somehow something to do with scrutiny of the Social Security Act, to me is just a bit of a stretch and a bit of a bizarre concept. I would have thought scrutiny of our social security system was actually about ensuring that it was meeting its purpose, which was, I thought, about ensuring that we had a safety net through which nobody in this country would fall, and that actually this piece of legislation was fundamentally undermining the purpose of that piece of legislation. So, therefore, good scrutiny of our system would involve rejecting this bill, and I think that seems entirely consistent, to my mind, and certainly is consistent with the views expressed by the New Zealand First member throughout the hearings of this committee, not just post-election.

I will just briefly recap for people who may be enduring this debate that the point of this piece of legislation is that it is to enable corrections to trigger a process that would lead to benefits being cut for people who are not complying with their community work sentence obligations. To do that, the corrections staff would send a written warning. There would be two written warnings, two weeks apart, stating that the benefit may be cut if the person doesn’t comply within 14 days of that second letter. Work and Income would then be in a position, if they weren’t compliant within that time frame, to cut their benefit. Now, this was only for certain benefits, not all benefits. It was for people on main benefits; it was not for people receiving New Zealand superannuation, it was not for people receiving a veterans pension, it was not for anybody receiving Working for Families entitlements and benefits, and also it wasn’t for anyone who was earning wages, despite the fact that they were the people most likely to be non-compliant with their community work obligations, in terms of numbers.

The idea that this would fix things—that cutting people’s benefits would motivate them to be good people and get compliant—overlooked several key things. One of them, which I do think it is worth reminding this House of, is some of the reasons that people aren’t compliant. Sometimes, the reasons that they’re not compliant have nothing to do with their desire to be compliant but are actually to do with the way that the system works, and I’d like to give the House three examples of that over recent years.

In one case, in April last year, there was a spike in non-compliance in the Nelson area. This was because they had moved the reporting location for people on community work service from Nelson to Richmond, 20 kilometres away—for a group of people, many of whom were ineligible to drive, in an area where there is very little public transport, and there was no transport being provided by corrections. So a whole lot of people became non-compliant because they just simply couldn’t get themselves to the place of reporting. Now, would anybody sensibly say that the answer to that would be to cut that person’s benefit?

💬 Angie Warren-Clark: The Opposition would.

The Opposition would. As has been pointed out, they seemed to really just not want to engage with that point through the process at all.

Another example we heard: in 2016, in Canterbury, there were so many issues of non-compliance that, actually, supervisors were fired; so there were fewer people able to engage with people to find out why, what was going on, and to be able to support them to meet their obligations. So there was less support in being able to follow this up, and you’ve kind of got to see this piece of legislation in that context of “Well, let’s just send a letter. We’ll just send a couple of letters—job done. Don’t need many staff to do that. Just fire those letters off, and then we’ll cut their benefits, and that’s not our problem, because then the police will pick them up and they’ll be in court again for somebody else to deal with.” You really do have to question the basic logic of this proposal.

We also saw another example, which I think speaks more positively around the Department of Corrections’ engagement around non-compliance. In Tauranga, I think, in 2013, there was some research done on the reasons for non-compliance, and they found that one of the major drivers for non-compliance was that people were choosing to go into seasonal piece work and earn some money rather than comply. It was a chance to get some work to be able to support their family and to keep engaging, because they saw that as better for their long-term benefit. When Tauranga looked at this and did the research, they thought, “Actually, for the betterment of society and that person or their family, let’s support that. Let’s not consider that non-compliance, and let’s shift their times of responsibility for when they don’t have the opportunity to work. Let’s try and build support around people and have them engage positively in their society.” That is the Green Party’s vision in terms of rehabilitation for people, rather than cutting people’s incomes and driving them—and we heard this evidence so clearly through the select committee, of the very high chances that this would drive more crime, as people didn’t have enough money to be able to pay their rent or put food on the table.

It also needs to be pointed out, too, when you think of the people getting these letters and the idea that that will just magically trigger them to be able to become compliant—because it had nothing to do with the State’s setting up of a system that didn’t work! But we also have to acknowledge that among young offenders, as an example, 40 percent of them have foetal alcohol syndrome, 20 percent of them have head injuries, 80 percent of them are struggling with alcohol and drug issues, and 40 percent of them with mental illnesses. These are the people whose incomes we’re going to be cutting for not responding appropriately to a community work obligation or a letter that we’ve sent them, which they may not even be able to read, because we know that there are high levels of illiteracy amongst this population.

So it is with a great deal of relief that I expect to see this bill voted down in the House this evening, and to stand in support of a social security system that moves us out of the Victorian age and that actually recommits to supporting everyone in this society to be able to put a roof over their head and to be able to participate in society, not just those people who have been fortunate enough to have good enough lives never to end up in the situation of engaging with the justice system and be on income support.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I rise to take a call on the Social Security (Stopping Benefit Payments for Offenders who Repeatedly Fail to Comply with Community Sentences) Amendment Bill, a bill that I absolutely cannot even begin to support because it’s so unbelievably punitive, for one, and, secondly, will not even achieve what it purports to achieve. I’ll begin by outlining, for those who may be watching, what this bill aims to do. I’ll speak to, maybe, the heart of what it wants to achieve, and then outline, based on submissions that the select committee heard—and I am part of the select committee that considered this bill. I’m not even sure that we had one submission that was in support in any way. Overwhelmingly, submitters were incredibly opposed to this bill.

So, to begin, what does this bill do? It, basically, enables the Department of Corrections to instruct the Ministry of Social Development to withhold all or part of a person’s benefit where that person has repeatedly failed to comply with a community-based sentence. According to members on the opposite side of the House, this is a new tool that corrections can use because these people who are on a community-based sentence just don’t turn up and don’t do what they’re supposed to do, and, somehow, cutting the money that they get—and this is money for people who already can’t afford to pay. As the member Darroch Ball rightly pointed out, these are people who can’t afford to pay the fine that has gotten them into this position in the first place. Somehow, members opposite think that taking away even more money from them is going to magically motivate them to comply.

Who’s on these community-based sentences? What are they? They’re sentences of community work, supervision, intensive supervision, and community detention. One of the reasons—or, I guess, the main reason—that I’m so incredibly opposed to this bill, as I suspect members on this side of the House are, is because it strikes at the very heart of the values that we stand for: values about social security; values that say, for example, that everyone, regardless of who they are, deserves to live with dignity, and this strips them of that.

Members opposite will stand up and continue to say, “But of course, they’re really bad people and they should be motivated or encouraged to do what they’re supposed to be doing in the first place.” I don’t think anyone will disagree that people should comply. Those who are on a community-based sentence should comply, but, as the member Jan Logie pointed out as well, perhaps we should be looking at why people don’t comply. How do we define compliance and non-compliance? Those are some of the substantive issues that I would have wished members opposite would have looked at, instead of beneficiary bashing. Really, that’s what this bill is about. That’s the crux of this bill, because it doesn’t apply to someone who’s not on a benefit.

So basically, what it’s saying—and we’ve heard some of the numbers as well: 27,078 offenders were serving a community-based sentence, over half of them in community work; 5 percent of offenders serving a community-based sentence are prosecuted each month for a breach. Putting on a policy analyst hat from my previous life, if you were tweaking the law or you were developing policy, you’d look at the scale and severity arguments. Really, this bill kind of falls down on both those calls as well, because, firstly, in terms of scale, we’re looking at a very small number of people. In terms of severity, it’s even worse, because you’re talking about people who are on a community-based sentence who don’t have money, and therefore are on a benefit, and who are doubly penalised as a result.

Now, let’s go into some of the issues as to why this bill’s not going to stack up from a workability point of view either. One of the submitters talked about the fact that this will actually increase the potential for crime. I want to read a couple of quotes which were quite powerful. So this was, I believe, a submission by Kim Workman—Institute of Criminology, Victoria University. He says, quite apart from the fact that this is a punitive bill, and I quote, “What is an offender likely to do to survive financially, once deprived of a benefit? [I’ve] discussed this Bill with a group of consumers from that group. Apart from [the] disgust that the state would take food from the mouths of their children, their responses were two-fold. First, that their confidence in the criminal justice [system] and the social welfare systems would deteriorate considerably, and, second, that there will be people within that group who will engage in unlawful activity, in order to feed themselves and their children.”

This leads me to a second point that submitters have raised, a very valid point, which is what is the effect that this bill, if it passes, will have on children and families? It penalises young people. It penalises children and families for something that their parents or their caregiver has done. Over half of submitters on this bill raised that as a massive concern—the concern about whānau well-being. In fact, cutting—and this is what it’s going to do; in reality, this is how it’s going to impact people—the sole parent benefit by half would reduce a family’s income by about half the average weekly rent and less than the average weekly food bill. So, basically, what this bill does, in its claim to motivate people to comply to their sentences, is to cut down what they have for rent and for food, which is, basically, what you need to lead a life of any semblance of dignity.

So what is that going to lead us to? An increase in homelessness, like we’ve seen over the last nine years; more people on the streets; more people living in their cars or in their garages; children studying in the back of cars; and people not able to feed themselves and their families as a result. And this is going to make people more compliant? I somehow don’t think so.

Further harm was another issue that was raised, and the member Jan Logie touched on this as well. Basically, what about beneficiaries who are affected by this bill—if it were to pass, which hopefully it won’t—who have a significant impairment, like brain injury or mental illness? A large number—in fact, 40 percent—of, specifically, young offenders on the community-based sentences have foetal alcohol syndrome, 20 percent have head injuries, and 40 percent have a mental health illness. What about them? Is cutting food and rent money from them going to motivate them to comply as well? What are the root causes?

That is the crux of this whole thing. We stand here discussing this bill that will cut benefits. Just before, earlier this evening, we talked about a bill—again a member’s bill from the opposite side of the House—that talked about increasing a penalty from two years to five years. That was their example—they lauded that example as them being tough on crime. That was going to fix everything. It was going to solve all our criminal justice issues. Just as that bill didn’t look at the root causes of crime—it didn’t take a holistic approach of all the things, the mess that we have to fix to actually get people out of the situations that they’re in—this bill does the same. It doesn’t address the root causes of anything, really. It doesn’t address the root causes of those who are committing any crimes. It doesn’t look at why they’re non-complying in the first place, and I remember reading in some of the advice—I can’t exactly remember where—there are issues like transport—just really simple things where people can’t get to where they’re supposed to be serving their community-based sentence. And then what? So we don’t actually address that, but we’ll cut all their money because that’s going to fix it!

Address the root causes. Increase the likelihood of people getting caught—this is going back to the previous bill, so in terms of community policing. Fix the social safety net. Fix the housing crisis and the health crisis. Then, perhaps, people will feel supported to actually, firstly, not commit an offence in the first place and then, once they do, to comply with whatever punishment that they’re supposed to go through. Let’s actually support people to get there instead of just punishing them and kicking them when they’re down. That’s absolutely why none of us on this side of the House will be able to, with any semblance of conscience, stand here and support a bill that will punish people at a time in their lives when they absolutely should not be punished but should be supported to get to where they need to get to, and that also will not achieve what this bill wants to do, which was a fine aim, which was to try and get people to comply to a sentence. Sadly, this bill is not going to achieve that, and for that reason I cannot support it.

I understand this is a split call. Simon O’Connor—five minutes.

You know, here was me thinking that the Labour Party, after doubling the taxes on Aucklanders, couldn’t lose any more votes, but, after listening to this left-wing, socialist drivel, I am delighted to stand up and say this is a good bill. The last speaker, Priyanca Radhakrishnan, said, “Oh, we shouldn’t be punitive.” Absolutely, we should be punitive. This is not about giving teddy bears to criminals and making up excuses. This is what we’ve been filled with here tonight: apologists for crime and bad behaviour.

We get it from the left wing time and time again: criminals are a product of everybody else; people commit crimes because we as a society are being bad to people. Well, wake up on the other side. Crime exists in human nature, and all your talk of health and kindness ain’t gonna make a lick of difference.

Maybe if some of you, like myself, had been to the prisons and worked on the front line, you might just have a little bit more of an understanding.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Excuse me.

They’re clearly apologists—actually, Madam Assistant Speaker, I have absolute confidence that you do have an understanding—absolute apologists for crime here.

Allow me to give the members opposite and those committing the crimes a little bit of advice: if you don’t want to get your benefits cut, well, don’t commit the crime in the first place. If you have committed the crime and you don’t want to have your benefit cut, well, turn up when corrections asks you to.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! I just remind the member I don’t want to be brought into the debate.

Oh! I am sorry.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Thank you.

Apologies. We will get that right.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): The word you were using is “you”.

Oh, I know, it’s such a—look, the English language has many failings in it, and that’s one of them.

The other side would do very well in suggesting to those committing the crimes: well, actually, don’t go against what corrections says.

The third part—and this really, really gets me down; we get if from the left all the time—is using children as pawns: the “Oh my God! Who will think of the children?” I worked on the front line in the social service for year after year, and what was striking was the number of people with bad behaviours who would bring their children in and basically use them as pawns to go away and to continue poor behaviour. Well, let’s put out a radical idea. If that’s happening, maybe we should have a conversation with those parents and ask them why they’ve got those children—and maybe we should be doing some more interventions. I want to make it really clear tonight: to the left and to those who are against this bill, stop using children as pawns.

At the end of the day, if you want to wax lyrical about rights, and the rights to welfare and all of this, well, also understand the real basic of rights is it comes with obligations. One of those basics is if we as taxpayers are going to continually fund behaviours, well, then we’re going to expect that you actually, well, you know, follow the law—that might be helpful. We’re not here to make apologies. If you commit crimes, there are consequences. At the end of the day, we’re talking here about something fairly low level, and we’re just adding another tool to corrections’ arsenal to push back—to push back and to actually put an obligation in place.

From the other side all we’ve heard is—basically, it’s like their drug policy and everything else. It’s basically a principle which says: do whatever the hell a person likes and everyone else will clean up the mess. That’s exactly what we’re hearing from the left here: commit your crimes, don’t follow the rules, don’t do what corrections tells you—in fact, use your children as pawns. We’re just going to say, “That’s OK. It’s all our fault. Sorry; here’s more money.” Well, that’s absolutely absurd, but it is absolutely typical of progressive, left-wing thinking.

As I said right at the start, mainstream New Zealand, those that are listening in, will completely understand that these guys are gaga, and, unfortunately—and shockingly so, and I don’t quite understand it—New Zealand First used to say they were tough on crime. They were all about consequences. Well, here’s a bill—it’s relatively simple; it’s adding another consequence—and New Zealand First is not prepared to back it.

💬 Darroch Ball: Listen to my first speech.

I did listen to your first speaker. It was what we call incoherent.

It’s really confusing, but I’m looking forward to going out—not so much into my electorate. I think there’s a couple of New Zealand First voters; they’re a bit remorseful now—all three of them. But in other parts of the country, when we go around, they’re going to be absolutely shocked that the left, and New Zealand First in particular, say it’s OK not only to commit crimes but to go completely against the directions of corrections and to actually remove one more tool.

And I think what will shock them even more is, actually, the apologist behaviour which is coming from the left here, that these poor criminals—it’s what is the classic case. I’ve come across it many a time. It’s mixing up—and it’s very easy for the left to do this, because, you know, not always working—the difference between reasons and justifications. There are reasons people commit crimes, but they don’t justify it. So go away and noodle on that. It’s a bit of a distinction. It might be a bit brain-hurting, but, you know, it’s an absolutely great bill. To Brett Hudson, thank you for bringing it here. Look, it’s not a surprise—those who came in front of the committee and spoke against it. Again, it fits a complete and utter stereotype. And I would just end with a little bit of advice that I gave at the start: if a person doesn’t want to lose access to their benefit, don’t commit the crime. Listen to corrections and actually support society rather than work against it.

Oh, my goodness—where to begin? The member Simon O’Connor—the bleeding hearts here, we find it so difficult to keep railing against the children. Well, guess what? We do care about the children. We actually do care about the children, and we’re absolutely clear that our children don’t deserve to be punished for the actions of their parents. So let’s face the fact, quite clearly, that that is what it will do. According to the members over there, not only will we be going light on justice but we will also be somehow telling the whole world that this is a bad thing. We’ll lose votes. Well, guess what? Our parties here are in Government, and all—all—of the advice against this bill is that it is a poor bill. It is a poor bill and it is not evidenced and it is not good law.

So let’s look at—I mean, even the name. I can’t even stand to read the name out, because it actually only refers to beneficiaries. We are not talking about people who commit crimes who are actually just committing crimes and then not being compliant. No, no, no, no. We’re actually only talking about a specific class of people within a specific group of people. We’re not talking about the elderly who are on super. We’re not talking about the pensioners who have gone to war for us. No, no—they’re a special class, too. They don’t get covered. We’re only talking about people who are on benefits who are actually not in work. That’s what we’re talking about, and this legislation makes me feel sick. Actually, when I read this it made me feel sick, because I can tell you this: I have worked on the front line and I have seen some of the reasons why these people are non-compliant, and I swear to you that a lot of people want to be compliant. They try their best and they admit that they’ve made a mistake and they’re criminally convicted for those things. They want to do better, but they don’t have the means.

Let me tell you about a family that I worked with.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Don’t bring me into the debate, please, thank you.

Sorry, ma’am. Let me tell you about a family—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): No, don’t. Don’t tell me.

No—no, no. Let me tell the Opposition—sorry, ma’am. I’m all impassioned. Let me tell you—

💬 Hon Member: No.

Ha, ha! Let me explain. Ha, ha!

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Take a deep breath.

Yes—I’m all impassioned. Let me explain about a family I worked with in the refuge. A mum who was on a community sentence came to the refuge, due to the fact, obviously, of domestic violence. Now, what we did was we sat down with her and we said, “You’re not compliant at the moment.” She said that she knew that, that she hadn’t been able to get there. Her ex-partner knew the time she was supposed to report in. She did not want to go. She didn’t have credit on her phone. There was a private number ringing; she didn’t know who that was. She didn’t answer her phone. She was also unable to receive mail, because she was transient—OK? So this is a woman who has been affected absolutely. So what did we do? We didn’t say, “Let’s cut your benefit by half. Let’s sit down and go, ooh, we’ll punish you so you and your family can’t eat.” No. We said, “Let’s work out a way. Let’s case manage you”—sorry, ma’am. “Let’s case manage, let’s work side by side, and let’s try and get you there—let’s try and get you there, and let’s try and explain the circumstances.” That’s actually better than cutting off a benefit and saying to someone, “Well, that’ll fix ya. That’ll learn ya. That’ll learn you and your family.”

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order!

Sorry, ma’am. “That will learn your family.”

💬 Hon Members: Ha, ha!

Ha, ha! Oh, I was just so incensed about this poor piece of legislation. I am absolutely opposed to this, and I cannot commend this bill to the House.

In contrast, I rise to support the Social Security (Stopping Benefit Payments for Offenders who Repeatedly Fail to Comply with Community Sentences) Amendment Bill. It’s been a really interesting debate tonight. There’s been an enormous amount of emotion, and there have been two distinct points of view: one that this bill provides an unreasonable punishment, and the other that it provides a positive intervention that can allow people to have another chance. I think we should reflect on where this all comes from, because I think New Zealanders are justifiably proud of our social security system and the policies that underpin our idea of a welfare State.

We’re basically a compassionate and generous people, and we value fairness in life, and we want to make sure that our fellow citizens are never left out in the street without means of support, and that’s a very good thing. But we also believe that it’s fair to expect our citizens to be part of the community, to be basically honest, and to live by the laws of the land, and if people choose to break the law and victimise other New Zealanders, there should be some consequences. Now, there are always consequences in life, and learning to understand those consequences and manage them responsibly is really a part of being good New Zealanders. So providing realistic consequences is another way to try to stop offenders reoffending and then creating more victims of crime.

This bill is about giving corrections an additional tool. It doesn’t have to be used for everybody. It’s not something that is compulsory. It is an additional tool to incentivise compliance from offenders—those ones which are subject to community-based sentences. Now there are about 28,000 offenders who get community-based sentences in any year in New Zealand, and the interesting thing here is that 95 percent of them, approximately, front up and can fulfil their obligations. But about 5 percent don’t, and it’s this 5 percent that, if they don’t front up, at the moment are liable for prosecution for breaching their community sentence, and can be sent to jail. This bill provides an alternative to prosecution. It provides an alternative that might end up with people in jail, and I think everybody in this House knows that sending people to jail is not necessarily a good answer. So it provides an alternative to prosecution as a last resort when offenders are not prepared to meet their obligations imposed by the courts.

There’s been quite a lot of discussion tonight about the people who may get one of these sentences, but let me make the point clear that when a court imposes these sentences, it takes those things into account, and the fact that 95 percent of people can manage to front up and fulfil their obligations means that it’s working.

Now, there’s also been talk that it discriminates against beneficiaries, but there’s a flipside to that too. It also means that beneficiaries have another chance before prosecution. They have a chance to work their way through the process and to comply. What it means is that after two warnings, not one—two warnings—and an extra 14 days for people to be able to have that discussion, to look at the consequences, if they still don’t comply they may get their benefit cut, or, if they’ve got a family, half of their benefit may be cut. I think that’s pretty reasonable as a tool in the tool kit for people who haven’t managed to front up, like 95 percent of the offenders do.

So I support this bill. I see it as an opportunity to give offenders who do not attend their community-based sentences another chance to avoid prosecution and to end up in jail. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

It will be no surprise that I rise to oppose the Social Security (Stopping Benefit Payments for Offenders who Repeatedly Fail to Comply with Community Sentences) Amendment Bill. Gosh, that’s a big mouthful, for such a bill that I am so appalled with—a Draconian, appalling bill that can only lead to social harm and further criminal offending.

But I will say this: even though it is such a bill that appals me so much, I will actually congratulate whoever drafted this bill, because it must be a very hard feat to draft out a bill that two absolutely opposing groups have both come out in opposition of. No Pride in Prisons, against wanting to actually have real reforms in our prison system, said that this was a bad bill—probably no surprise there. But also, I see here a quote from the Manawatū-based Sensible Sentencing Trust spokesperson also coming out opposed to this bill. So we’ve got people from all political spectrums who agree that this is an appalling, bad bill.

Now, I want to start with a quote here from one of the groups who submitted, who was JustSpeak, to the Social Services and Community Committee. The reason I want to start with this is because this particular quote talks about what is wrong with the fact that the department would be put in charge of “punishing”—and that is the only word that they use here—people who are not turning up for the sentences. JustSpeak says this: “It is the role of our courts to determine the appropriate punishment when someone has committed a crime. It is the role of the Department to enforce and supervise that punishment. Withholding benefit payments goes beyond enforcing and supervising a court-determined punishment, and amounts to imposing a punishment above and beyond that which the sentencing judge determined was appropriate for the crime committed. The Department is not equipped to determine the appropriate punishment … Nor does the Bill provide an appropriate framework for such a decision to be made.” It’s that not having that framework or the department having the understanding of why that non-compliance happened in the first place.

Now, my colleague over here from the Greens Jan Logie talked about the reasons for non-compliance. We have reasons such as transport issues, accommodation, and childcare issues. People who had opportunity to work—and I was very pleased to hear Jan talk about the Tauranga example of our fruit pickers, our people that go to get their work in season fruit picking. Some of those people were actually parents at my school who took out the time to actually go and get work, and corrections worked with those people. That, unfortunately, is not happening anywhere, and is being seen as a reason why those people don’t come for their correction service that they have to do.

I want to tell a story, not particularly around someone that’s going through probation—but a parent of mine who I worked with in a school that I was principal at, who was taken right off the system because they couldn’t show up to work—a parent who had a six-year-old son when she was 21 herself. So she was a child when she had a child, and she had very little support around her. One day, this particular boy had severe behaviour problems—lovely little boy—and we’d got help through a child mental health foundation to actually support this particular boy and the mum so that both of them could grow and be stronger together.

Transport issues were big for this particular mum and when her car continually broke down and she couldn’t afford to get fuel in that car, she couldn’t get to the appointments. She had no money on her phone to contact anyone to tell them that she couldn’t make those appointments. She was sent a letter to her old rental place—she had changed twice because of housing issues. The letter had gone to her old place, nobody followed through, and when she didn’t make the appointment for the third time, she was completely wiped off the list—completely. No follow up whatsoever. So the child and the mother were hurt, because they can’t get the support that they need.

This is the intent of this bill. The intent of this bill is to actually hurt people, because they can’t get there. We don’t know what the issues are. We don’t know what the issues are and why they don’t turn up. How does that make it right that we would put in a Draconian, punitive punishment that will not fix the root cause? To make a difference in behaviour, to actually help these people, we need to walk alongside them.

I am appalled that we have people in this House in the Opposition who believe that it is OK to punitively punish these people. They are looking at these people through their lens. They are not walking beside these people. They have no idea of the troubles that these people face, and then they have the audacity to stand there and say, “If we had known what these people were like.”

Well, I will tell them that I have worked with these people for quite some time, and I know the troubles that these people face. I know the hardships. I am prepared to walk with them. I am prepared to look at ways as a Government that we can make things easier, that we can allow these people the opportunities and the frameworks that will help and support them, and that’s what we will do. I have no shame in saying that we care. I have no shame in saying that we will show kindness. It is being used against us at the moment as something that is supposedly bad. I have no shame in saying that I will put a lens of kindness and a lens of caring when we are dealing with these issues. I know that my colleagues along this side of the House feel exactly the same.

We need to wrap around. We need wraparound. We need to walk alongside. One thing that I’d like to say is that there was no understanding from the member who raised this bill about incentivisation. He mentioned that this would incentivise people to do the right thing. He needs to go back and study psychology, I’m afraid. There is no such thing as using punishment to incentivise. It does not work. That will not change behaviour. It absolutely will not change behaviour. As I have said, we need to walk alongside.

I was pleased when my colleague from New Zealand First Mr Ball talked about Brett Hudson’s quote that he said, “This is an alternative to the harsh fine the offender cannot afford.” Tell me what the difference is. This is an alternative to the harsh fine the offender cannot afford! So we won’t fine them, but we’ll take the money off that they can’t afford to pay for the fine anyway. So we’ll get around it by saying, “Oh, we’re just going to take the money away.”, and that is supposed to be an incentivisation. What incentivisation is there around that? It is not. It is an absolute stick to use to punish people further. It is kicking someone when they are down.

💬 Hon Member: Have you been drinking, Matt?

Ha, ha! The last point that I would like to make, in conclusion, is that I will also make absolutely no apologies for putting the needs of children at the centre. I have been doing that my entire working life. So to have someone stand here tonight and tell me that we are going to pull out our violins and put the children and use the children—I have always put the needs of children at the front of everything that I do. I will make no apologies about this.

To say that we will take money away from these families hurts the children, and anything that will hurt the children I will always stand up against, and I will always rail against anybody that will do that. This is a terrible bill, and I am actually pleased to stand here and say that I am totally against it. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. Well, we’ve heard it all tonight, but a thing that is missing out of all of the debate that I’ve heard here tonight is that we are actually talking about criminals. These are people who have been to court and they have been convicted of a crime. The difference is they have been sentenced to a non-custodial sentence. A lot of these people end up in our communities, they end up doing community work, and, for me, I’m extremely grateful for the contribution they make back to those communities. They’ve seen the product of their toils. We have seen some wonderful community projects completed by people doing their non-custodial sentences. Most of them I have found to be really good people, who have just done something quite stupid that’s ended them up in this situation.

I was most impressed by one young man who was convicted of a crime. He did his community service and worked on a special project in town, in Hokitika. His community sentence was up before the project was finished, and he had invested so much of himself in that and got so much pride out of what he had done that he came back to finish the project as a volunteer. I think that’s a huge credit to the corrections staff that work with these people doing their community service. I want to give a shout out to the corrections staff, because it’s not always easy for them. I’ve seen the effort that they put in, in helping the people that are doing this community work to actually achieve their sentences and put things right.

But, as we’ve heard tonight, there are a few that are hard to reach, and they are the 5 percent that are the most difficult. They’re the ones that are non-compliant with their non-custodial sentences. So what are the consequences for these people that fail to turn up? Well, there actually is a precedent for this bill—that precedent is the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Act of 2013. That Act actually withholds benefit payments for people who have outstanding warrants, and they are on benefits. So there is precedent for this bill.

I think my last closing comment I would like to make to the other side of the House is if you do the crime and don’t do the time, don’t expect the taxpayers to pay you when you don’t turn up. We on this side of the House are not soft on crime, and we simply want those people who have been convicted to do their time. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.