Rights for Victims of Insane Offenders Bill

I feel so strongly about the importance of this bill, having seen numerous gross injustices occurring from what my colleague Louise Upston is wanting to address with this bill. What I have seen over the last 20 years is an increase in the number of insanity pleas and, with it, an increasing number of victims that have not had justice from our system.

I want to begin by paying tribute to Wendy Hamer, a nurse in my Nelson constituency, who, in the course of her work, was attacked as a nurse, who suffered horrendous injuries—boiling water and the like thrown on her—in an attempted murder, and the offender said at the time that he would get off on insanity, where that offender subsequently soon came back to our community of Nelson and caused Wendy great distress. Only a few months after hearing that case, I had a further constituent, where a person who was mentally unwell presented at Nelson Accident & Emergency, was not seen for many hours, left that A & E, and said that they were going to go out and rape. Indeed they did. When they committed the horrific assault, they again told the victim that they would get off on an insanity plea. And, again, what was most awful in that case was the ill-treatment of the victim not having access to the same victims’ rights if that person was found guilty and was not insane.

And then—and this is all in the term of this Parliament—a third case that’s come to my attention this year, where a Nelson man was attacked by a person with a machete. They were attacked so badly they ended up in the intensive care of Nelson Hospital. The doctor said that another millimetre and he would have been dead. And I will, during the select committee process, bring attention to the select committee of the decision of the court, where the person who committed that horrific assault was released from the court without any requirement to go to a psychiatric hospital or any other penalty, in extraordinary circumstances, because of some of the flaws in the law that Louise Upston is attempting to address.

So this bill is very timely. I’m delighted it’s come before the House. If we look at the statistics around the increasing use of the insanity plea, this Parliament and this country does need to take a compassionate view of people that are mentally unwell, but equally we must never lose sight of the victims of so many of these horrific crimes. The justice system is failing in this area. The victims of those crimes deserve exactly the same rights as those of others. I also welcome the ambitious step by the sponsor of this bill in changing the misnomer in the law that somehow someone is not guilty and so no one is responsible with the clarification of the language to say that it is proven but the person is not legally culpable, because of being mentally unwell.

This is a sensitive, difficult issue, but it is absolutely timely that Parliament addresses it, and my hope is that Parliament can move with some speed to address this issue, because, actually, every month this flaw in our law remains, there are New Zealanders who are suffering injustice—just three cases in my own Nelson constituency in the last three years. Parliament needs to fix these laws, and this is a very good bill that needs to progress.

Madam Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to take a short call on the Rights for Victims of Insane Offenders Bill. I’ve sat through the debate so far, heard the introductory remarks and the other speeches, and if I can just first acknowledge the Hon Louise Upston for her dedication on this issue. In researching for my speech tonight, I see that this is an issue that you have been advocating for since 2013, which had come about from a constituent issue that you’re familiar with. It is, as has been acknowledged tonight, wonderful to see that those constituent issues can be brought all the way through here to the House to be debated, and to look at whether we can improve legislation for their experiences. So I, first, just wanted to start by acknowledging the honourable member for her member’s bill.

Also, from the outset, I will say that Labour will be supporting this bill to its first reading, because we think there is merit in what the bill is proposing. I do want to say, and I think the member herself acknowledged, that maybe it’s not perfect, and there could be room for improving it. That would be possible through a thorough select committee process, where we hear all views and can thrash out the areas that perhaps could be improved. But, fundamentally, it reflects Labour’s values, which are to promote justice, accountability, and transparency while respecting survivors of crime and their communities. I think that it’s always a challenge. It’s a balancing act between each other’s rights that need to be respected in the processes. So I think that this bill has real potential and is worth considering at the select committee, but, like I said, we do have some reservations, and I’ll go into those in a little bit more detail.

If I can just talk to what the intent of the bill is, it’s to ensure that victims of legally insane offenders are treated the same as other victims of crime. The bill changes the formal finding of the court to provide victims with the acknowledgment that the offender was proven to have acted grievously, even if they lacked the intent to be guilty of the action. The bill renames the verdict “not guilty on account of insanity” to “the acts or omissions are proven but the defendant is not criminally responsible on account of insanity”. The revised language is intended to acknowledge that the offender did, in fact, commit the criminal act, but that the reasons of insanity therefore mean that they are not guilty. That’s quite important. I heard in the previous debate some of the discussion around the use of insanity as a defence, and I think it’s really important to make it clear here for everybody in the Whare tonight and listening in that it is not the intention of this bill to actually go back and look at insanity as a grounds for defence. That’s entirely separate. It is, in fact, how victims of that are treated and how it might be recorded by the courts. So the revised language is intended to acknowledge that, yes, the offender did commit the criminal acts, but in terms of criminal liability the insanity finding is still there.

Now, I did just want to say that I did a little bit of research, and when the member’s bill was drawn from the ballot it was welcomed and celebrated by victims’ advocates, and so I think that they will be particularly interested in submitting. Equally, there are those like Changing Minds, who shared some of their concerns about what is proposed in the bill, and I think that they, too, will seek an opportunity to maybe question and thoroughly analyse some of the areas where they have concerns, particularly around the access to their medical records and the possible ability to have some influence on somebody’s sentence. Sorry, Madam Speaker, I see my time’s run out. Kia ora.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First in support of the Rights for Victims of Insane Offenders Bill. We will be supporting this through to select committee. It is a common-sense bill, and most importantly, as every other party has pointed out thus far, at its core the bill puts victims at the heart of the justice system. New Zealand First has core policy of ours, to put the victims at the heart of the justice system, and that’s why we will be supporting this bill at its outset.

It makes a couple of good changes. First, is a change to the formal verdict in the case of someone being found legally insane, shifting to language that reflects the fact that the crime has occurred, which is important, and the victim has been wronged. It also ensures that victims feel that the crimes that are committed on them have been acknowledged by the justice system. So it’s a good idea in principle, for similar reasons. It also changes the Victims’ Rights Act, ensuring that victims are given notice whenever unescorted leave or leave of absence or unescorted overnight leave of absence is granted, rather than just the first time it is granted. Again, good common sense, and New Zealand First supports common sense always.

We do want to have the chance to see this thoroughly explored at select committee. It is a very difficult topic in its complexity and it makes the examination of the bill very important. So we commend the member Louise Upston for bringing this forward. It’s an important topic to bring forward, and important issue to bring forward in this legislation. We commend the bill to the House. Thank you.

I’m just rising on behalf of the Green Party to speak in support of this bill through to first reading. I think that the Hon Louise Upston made some extremely cogent arguments for the bill and why it’s necessary. As with the other parties in the House, we’re supporting it through to first reading in order to ensure that it gets a good hearing and that it has the best chance of evolving in such a manner to ensure that we have a good piece of law if it then succeeds upon further readings. But I do want to congratulate the honourable member for bringing this bill to the House and for what I thought was one of the strongest first reading speeches for members’ bills that I’ve seen.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I want to start by saying that I really acknowledge the contributions of members in the House, and the first speaker representing the Labour Party asked why an issue like this, that seemed on the surface to be so logical, had taken so long. One of the difficulties is, when you’re amending multiple pieces of legislation and you are trying to cross over between the justice system and the health system, actually, it’s not’s straightforward. And I know my colleagues on both sides of the House will recognise this in the work that’s currently being done in family and sexual violence. When you’re trying to deal with more than one agency, more than one department, it becomes particularly complicated.

So I do want to also put on record some feedback that was raised by those with mental health challenges, who, I think, in a press release said, “About us, with us”—or words to that effect. And I want to make sure that I put on the record in this first reading that the emphasis of this bill is primarily and predominantly focused on the victim and their family, and I accept it’s challenging and I accept that it’s difficult, and that’s why I’m incredibly grateful for members of Parliament, colleagues, and political parties represented in the House for the willingness to support this through to the select committee so that it can get a really decent working over—that makes it sound as if it’s not a great bill; it is a great bill but it absolutely needs improvement. I think that, with the willingness that’s been demonstrated in the first reading speeches in the House tonight, that will happen.

I do also want to acknowledge Barbara Stewart from New Zealand First, who was also a list member of Parliament, residing in Cambridge, who also worked with Graeme Moyle, and it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge her work as well. So I commend this bill to the House, the Rights for Victims of Insane Offenders Bill in the first reading. Thank you.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Justice Committee.