Rights for Victims of Insane Offenders Bill

I move, That the Rights for Victims of Insane Offenders Bill be now read a third time.

In October 2010, Graeme Moyle contacted me as his local member of Parliament, concerned about unsupervised visits by a special patient who was in the care of the Ministry of Health. This man, Matthew Ahlquist, was a special patient because he killed his flatmate Colin Moyle, Graeme’s brother. Graeme has spent years working to change the law based on his experience of the system, which didn’t treat him and his family the way he expected victims should be treated. Victims of crime, loved ones who have been affected by the taking of a life, are innocent, they are blameless, and they experience traumatic events through no fault of their own. It shouldn’t matter if the person who committed the act was insane at the time or not. We have balanced very carefully the needs of the people who carried out these acts who were insane, who also need the protection and support and care of the system.

On 4 April 2019, I put this member’s bill into the biscuit tin. It was pulled from the ballot on the very same day. I’m not sure that that’s ever happened before, but I’m very pleased that it did. It was over a year later, on 1 July 2020, that we had its first reading. I outlined the horrendous circumstances of Colin’s death, and I don’t intend to repeat that today. There was no doubt that Matthew Ahlquist took the life of a Good Samaritan, his flatmate Colin.

There are special days in Parliament, and this is one. Too often you see the disagreements, the debates, and sometimes behaviour that is not becoming, and tonight you see the unanimous agreement, where the co-operation of members across the House and every party in Parliament agrees not only on a problem but, more importantly, the solution to that problem. Normally, members’ bills are pretty straight forward—you know, we’re told, as a new beginner, as a new MP, if you want a member’s bill, pick something small and tight. This hasn’t been one of those.

The Rights for Victims of Insane Offenders Bill does three things: it changes the verdict so that victims don’t hear the words “not guilty”, it gives victims a voice, and it provides victims with information. This is an omnibus bill, which amends the Criminal Procedure (Mentally Impaired Persons) Act 2003, the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act 1992, the Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care and Rehabilitation) Act 2003, and the Victims’ Rights Act 2002. It is far more complex than what would normally be tackled in a member’s bill, and so I have some people to thank.

Firstly, to Graeme, for your sheer perseverance. I think you’ve figured out now that I can also be pretty bloody-minded, and it’s a good thing that the pair of us are determined. I want to thank your wider family, in particular Liz, who have supported you in every step of this journey.

To the many victims that courageously shared their stories, their experiences, and their pain, I do have to say, as other select committee members no doubt will, some of the stories were absolutely harrowing, and some of those stories were heard in public for the very first time. So I want to commend you for your courage. This bill supports those who, through no action of their own and no fault of their own, have had their lives permanently altered—trauma through no action of their own—and this Parliament supports them.

I want to thank Wendy Strawbridge, who presented her petition to Parliament, which sought to amend the law to extend to the victims of crime committed by people found to be insane the very same protections and rights as other victims of crime. She presented her petition in March 2019. Wendy was the victim of an attempted murder in Nelson while she was working as a registered nurse in the community. She discovered that the person found not guilty of her attempted murder by reason of insanity was back in the community, in her community, on unescorted leave. She had no input, no consent, no notification, which, of course, was devastating for her. I want to give my thanks to Nick Smith, who was her MP for all of this journey and who has worked tirelessly on this cause with me. This bill addresses the very issues that she raised; so it made sense for the select committee to deal with both items at once.

To Victim Support, who have recently celebrated 35 years. They were also at the table, giving evidence, and behind the scenes, providing support to the victims that had presented, along with other victims’ advocates, like the tireless Ruth Money.

I want to thank the members of this House for keeping the focus on victims. It was a complex balance. It was a very difficult and awkward balance at times, but we landed in a place where we balanced the needs of the victims and also those of the special patients. I want to thank each of the party leads on this bill for taking the time, the meetings, the discussions, the late night texts, and really deeply considering the issues.

The Justice Committee, who, on multiple occasions, could have easily said, “It’s too hard; go home.”—and I’m sure they were tempted to! Thank you for your perseverance. I think this piece of legislation—the omnibus bill of four complex pieces of legislation that are being amended—really is due to the significant work that the select committee members put in. By keeping an open mind, by keeping a focus on the policy intent of the bill, we traversed this very tricky issue, at times pushing the boundaries. And special thanks goes to the chair, Ginny Andersen, for diligently and carefully navigating our way through this process to ensure that we kept support for the bill unanimous. And I want to repeat that because that is really unusual. It is very unusual in the select committee on any bill, and it’s incredibly rare on a member’s bill. So I do want to pay special tribute to Ginny for the professional way and the very diligent way you drove to ensure we got an outcome that we all agreed with. And I know, at times, I can push the boundaries myself, perhaps showing that bloody-mindedness, that determination, or at times I’ve been referred to as being unreasonable.

To Andrew Little, who now is the Minister of Health but formerly the Minister of Justice, who agreed quite some time ago that the verdict must be changed and gave officials full remit to work on this bill. Again, that’s very unusual, and without the Minister’s remit, we wouldn’t have been able to do the sorts of work that we needed to, to end up with this bill.

To the justice and health officials, and in particular Dr Crawshaw, who worked so well together despite coming up against issues that needed careful consideration and were often in conflict with each other. As I said before, in the committee stage, usually our systems of Government are very separate, and it’s quite hard to mesh them together.

To the select committee staff, who kept us incredibly supported through our work, who worked so professionally, and the officials, as I said, who navigated some pretty tricky waters.

Last, but not least, the Parliamentary Counsel Office, who helped interpret my very first policy intent into a member’s bill after many, many, many months of work and then crafted the select committee decisions into a workable solution that we will pass the bill today.

Today, I want to give confidence to every New Zealander that this is your House and, as MPs, we work for you. We work to make New Zealand a better place. You can meet with your MP, like Graeme did, and you can change the law. To paraphrase another New Zealander, while it might not happen overnight, it can happen. Tonight is proof of that, and I think it’s a wonderful way to end this parliamentary year, for the members’ day, where victims will have more rights with the unanimous passing of this bill. Thank you.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai. Thank you very much. That was a great speech from the member in charge of the bill, Louise Upston. It’s not often that we have nice things going back and forwards across this House, so it’s good to be able to take time to enjoy rare and exceptional circumstances. I think it’s the content of this bill that has caused the unanimous agreement from both major parties in relation to an issue that’s incredibly important.

First and foremost, I think Louise Upston needs to be acknowledged for not shying away from a tough issue. We’ve had many members’ bills in this House that have significant issues that have been brought before and managed to change the law for the better, and this one is exactly in that camp. Some of the best members’ bills I’ve seen during my time in this House have come through the office door of an electorate office, just as this one does. Real issues that come from the real day-to-day lives of New Zealanders—when the law is not working right, they bring those to their local member of Parliament, who is able to champion those issues and change the law for the better. So I would like to acknowledge the fact that we have a great democratic system that works well enough, that we have that ability to have a one-on-one conversation with another human being and be able to take that forward and change the law to improve it for other human beings. I think it’s testimony to the great democratic system we have.

I would like to acknowledge those submitters. I’ve already mentioned in the previous stages of this bill that some of those submissions that we heard from, sometimes the victims of those crimes themselves, firsthand experience—we heard accounts of a harrowing rape, a brutal rape within a woman’s own home, from a complete stranger, who managed to break into her house. We also heard of the subsequent days, weeks, months, and years of her process, not only through the justice system but through her own rehabilitation, her own rebuilding of her life after such a horrendous crime. No one can imagine how difficult it must be to be in a courtroom and to hear the words “not guilty” after being the victim of such a brutal attack.

So the fact that we have been able to traverse long, long hours and long time at the Justice Committee, to be able to provide a better way forward for victims of crime when the person who has been put before the court is declared to be insane or unable to be found guilty on account of insanity—to how we take into account the needs of a person who is within our mental health system and, at the same time, take into account the needs of the victim of that crime—is no easy feat. So I would like to say that it’s been a big learning process for me to see how we can work together more effectively to make sure that we drive change that’s lasting and that improves the processes that we have in place already in both health and in the justice system.

As part of that, I’ve been fascinated in the two key areas, and that’s, first of all, coming up against, you know, the legal requirements of mens rea and actus reus—the very fundaments of what it is in a guilty verdict and how we break that down in a way that meets the needs for the courtroom and the criminal justice system. How those very words, which seem so basic to lawyers, can be so offensive to the ears of victims and their family, and to have a discussion around how that takes place with both lawyers and with mental health and health experts—debating that out, how we take care of those needs. I’d like to see more debates like that in the future for New Zealand. I think it’s a great area for us to look at, how two separate worlds intersect and how we can provide more effectively for people in their everyday lives by having conversations that go far beyond just an Act, that go far beyond what the requirements are in a textbook or a statute, and how that filters down into everyday lives. So that’s been a fascinating process.

The other part of the process that has been a really intriguing one for me is seeing how the mental health system and how the justice system can work more effectively, and I think we’ve done a great job at putting that forward.

I’m going to quickly traverse through the stages of the verdict, because I think it’s important to keep that on the record, to see where we’ve been. Where we started at on the spectrum of the verdict definition was, first of all, it started with “not guilty on account of insanity”, and, for the reasons I’ve already specified, that was the whole purpose of the bill—that, to the ears of victims and their family in the courtroom, was so offensive. That was the purpose, to try and change that. Where the committee initially landed was “proven but insane”, and while we got advice and did a good job in that space of trying to balance, we had the Chief Justice not agreeing with that. So after the bill had been reported back to the House, we found ourselves in the unusual position of it being referred back to select committee for the Justice Committee to once again take into account that advice from the Chief Justice, and see how we can provide for, particularly, that word “proven” that we were using and the fact that it could not be “proven” if there was no mental element or mens rea due to the mental health or a specified insanity of the person standing on trial. The Chief Justice emphasised the fundamental principle underpinning the finding of “not guilty on account of insanity”, and that is that the defendant, by definition, is not guilty because the mental element of the offence has not been proven. As my learned colleague Duncan Webb was attempting to do earlier, even changing the title of the bill in order for “offenders” to be removed and change that for “persons”, because, technically, they are not an offender if they have not been found guilty—but I think we’d had enough time debating the infinite details of this bill, and I encouraged him that we should just let the bill pass. I’m sorry, but you know never to let an academic hold things up.

So I think that the place where we’ve ended up is the right place, and that was when there was consistent agreement from all the different corners of the world: legal, mental health, policy. Having a clear view that the act was proven—so by separating out actus reus and mens rea by just speaking about the act, the act is “proven but not criminally responsible on account of insanity”. So I just guess I would like to note that this is a sensitive and incredibly important area of the law, which requires a delicate and accurate legislative approach, and I think that we’ve managed to do that, even though it took two turns. It is good that the committee has had the opportunity to consider it fully and ensure that it will work as intended—as already spoken earlier, to have that longer enactment date to make sure that we do have those alignments in place for when this law comes into force.

I’d like to acknowledge those not here tonight. Simon Bridges—when in those long hours of debating on which of the several proposed definitions that we would adopt, it was actually some of Simon’s words, to separate out “act proven”, and having a hand in crafting that to achieve agreement. As the honourable member, Louise Upston, has already referenced, there were many points along the winding pathway of this piece of legislation where we could have thrown our hands up and said it’s too hard and walked away, but we felt committed. I think, for me, I felt committed once hearing the stories of those victims, hearing the trauma and the pathway to rehabilitation and having their lives back on track. We felt committed to finding an outcome that served victims and made our criminal justice system fairer to those victims. I’m really pleased to be seeing this law passed tonight, so that we can stand by the fact that we’ve seen this done. I think we all put our political colours aside because it’s been seen as a good way forward that provides an improvement to the existing circumstances. To be able to put that aside and move ahead with the best course, I think, is a good day for New Zealand democracy.

Look, I’d like to sum up by saying that we support this bill as the Labour Party because it sits well with our values. We have put in the time because we see it as promoting justice, promoting transparency, and also respecting survivors of crime and also their communities. I’d like to note that while this bill cannot undo or mitigate the things that people have experienced, we really hope that it can alleviate some of the most difficult elements of dealing with an incredibly complex and challenging area of our legal system for people in the future. I’m proud and happy that the hours have paid off and that we can happily commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to take a call on the Rights for Victims of Insane Offenders Bill, which is at its third reading.

Let me just start by acknowledging my colleague the Hon Louise Upston, who has brought this piece of legislation to Parliament, not only as someone who’s been a local MP listening to her constituents, but someone who has a deep respect for the law, but also a deep appreciation and understanding for victims of crime. I just want to acknowledge the heart and the passion that she has brought to this Parliament when it comes to making sure that at the heart of our criminal justice system, we put victims first. I think that’s the message that Parliament is sending tonight to the criminal justice system: that we want to see victims put at the heart of our criminal justice system.

We’ve heard from the previous speaker, Ginny Andersen, and we’ve heard from Louise Upston about the many challenges this bill has faced to get to where it has got to. One point I just want to make to all of those victims who are listening tonight is that we hear you, that we see you, that we are listening, and that we are making sure that Parliament puts its stamp on the law and on the criminal justice system.

It is ultimately Parliament who sets the law in this country. It is ultimately Parliament that gets to decide what the law says, and that is what we are doing tonight by changing the verdict in these cases from “not guilty on account of insanity” to “act proven but not criminally responsible on account of insanity”. Whilst some may say it’s only words, when we here heard from those victims who came and who shared their tears in front of us at the select committee, who shared their stories and their anguish, the pain and their suffering; not just in the courtroom on that day, but in the years following, we realise that, actually, these words deeply—deeply—matter. And not just the words, but also the other parts in this bill which make a real difference to those victims and their lives.

I’m very pleased that we’ve been able to have agreement across the House. I want to acknowledge the Labour Party; the chair, in particular, of the Justice Committee, Ginny Andersen—it’s been great working with them. And I want to acknowledge the contribution that everyone on the Justice Committee has made. I commend this bill to the House and I look forward to continuing to see more legislation brought to this Parliament which puts victims first in our criminal justice system.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker, and thank you for an opportunity to take a call. I also want to begin by acknowledging the member Louise Upston, not only for raising an important issue but for also allowing victims to be heard at the select committee and giving them a voice there, but also for her thoughtfulness, for her care, and for her patience as we asked questions during the committee stage. That was very much appreciated.

I referred in a number of my statements at the committee stage to the Chief Victims Advisor’s report in 2019, which is called Te Tangi o te Manawanui. It was recommendations for reform in the victims’ rights space, and that made a significant impact on me, partially because it quoted victims themselves. One of those quotes talked about justice for victims being “Basically, a safety net for people who have been wronged. And whether or not that net has holes in it you don’t know until you’ve got on the journey.”

As a member of the Justice Committee, a large part of our process was about listening to people and to families who had been on that journey and had experienced some really horrific instances of crime and offending. The challenge for us, I think, as a committee was really putting victims first and keeping them front of mind—which they absolutely were—but also balancing the rights at play with the principles of our criminal justice system, which are equally important to maintaining a fair justice system.

So I would thank, again, the member but also those who came in to submit. I think it was incredibly courageous for a lot of them to provide those submissions to us, but, as the member herself also referenced, I think there was a lot of integrity in the way that they approached submitting to the select committee. There was a lot of respect for the mental health system and a recognition of its inherent value, and this was from people who have suffered a whole lot in terms of instances that have happened to them. As my colleague Ginny Andersen said, this bill won’t be able to undo the harm that those individuals have suffered, but I do believe that the bill in the form that it’s been amended to and that it’s been reported back from select committee goes some way to acknowledging the rights of victims while also remaining true to the principles of our justice system.

It is a bill that does aim to ensure that victims in this space are given equivalent treatment. We’ve traversed through the committee stage the number of different changes that are included within this bill, including notification to a victim when an offender is released, including victim impact statements, and also, of course, the verdict, which I think has been really, for me, that real pivot point in terms of finding the right balance between all of the rights at play here. A number of us spoke about the fact that this hasn’t been an easy process. It has been about balancing interests and rights, but I do think that these are timely changes and changes that also mirror those made in other like jurisdictions to strike an appropriate balance.

I also do want to acknowledge some of the submitters. I do recall vividly the submission of Victim Support, whose submissions referenced Glen Collins, a much-loved man. He was a 45-year-old father of two who was stabbed to death without any warning, and there were many, many horrific stories that we heard over the course of that select committee.

I also wanted to reflect very briefly again on the changes to the verdict. Our chairperson, Ginny Andersen, stepped us through a number of those changes, and there were actually three iterations of change to what the current law is. I’d again point to the member’s bill when it first came into select committee, and the verdict in that bill referenced “acts or omissions” and also included a reference to “the defendant”. The select committee then shifted to “proven but insane”, and where we landed—the “act proven, but not criminally responsible on account of insanity”—is actually, in my view, very akin to the member’s initial proposal. That says two things to me. Firstly, it shows the integrity and the balance that the member brought to the initial version of the bill, which was intended to bring a balanced approach, but it also shows the rigour with which the committee approached its task.

I think it’s also useful to consider the pace of change. I asked a question during committee stage about comparability with like-jurisdictions. There have been a number of other changes in Australia and in Canada in this regard. In New South Wales, they conducted a review into the experience of victims and the system and, as a result of the review, there were a number of changes that were made, including that the victim had the right to make a statement in court and also that the court may consider the statement in deciding the conditions that were going to be imposed. This really does, in New South Wales, give that victim comparable treatment. In Canada, for circumstances akin to these, the law has removed the words “not guilty” from the insanity verdict, replacing them with “not criminally responsible”. So you can see a very similar trend in like-jurisdictions, so we are not out of step with what’s happening internationally.

In considering some of the changes that we did, we didn’t just look to statements from victims—although their submissions weighed heavily on us—we also considered the views of academics and practitioners in the area, including the mental health law expert Dr Warren Brookbanks and forensic psychiatrist Dr Jeremy Skipworth, both of whom have argued the benefits of allowing victims to make submissions concerning patients’ leave and release as well. So these are views that are shared by academics and specialists alike. But the tensions were very real. We touched on a number of them during committee stage, including the broad overlap between the justice space and the health space, and, again, I think we touched on that in a policy sense, but we also saw it as a space where operationally there was a lot of overlap. I think the clear message for us was to recognise that the law doesn’t exist in those discrete boxes, but that we need to actively consider the mental health space and the health and wellbeing space as we’re making changes to our justice legal framework.

The other big tension that I spoke about at committee stage was the issue of privacy and disclosure, and I did pay particular heed to the submission of the Privacy Commissioner as well as the Human Rights Commission in this regard. I said, again at committee stage, that, in my view, there were some very valid questions raised about the balance and whether we were getting the balance right. We were balancing those submissions against what we heard from victims themselves who talked about a need to be informed. They talked about the anxiety of walking the streets and just not knowing whether someone would present or note. I do note that at committee stage the member responded very well to this question as well, citing the fact that for many mental health patients, it’s not in their best interests either to be in a situation where victims aren’t made aware of their temporary release.

Finally, I would just like to say again that I commend the member for raising this issue. I think we’ve worked extremely collegially cross-party to achieve a balance that will work both for victims’ rights as well as for the rights that we uphold in our justice system. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise on behalf of the Green Party in support of the Rights for Victims of Insane Offenders Bill. I am speaking on behalf of the Green Party, but I also just wanted to mention that I’m also, in particular, speaking on behalf of our justice spokesperson, Golriz Ghahraman, who I know would have wanted to have been here to speak in support of this bill, having worked alongside the Hon Louise Upston and the select committee over a very long time to get this bill into its current form. Unfortunately, she’s not able to. She would be able to make the case much more competently than I’m about to.

I do want to acknowledge the Hon Louise Upston for her work on this bill. It’s often said in this Chamber that there are two kinds of member’s bill: one being a sort of a political statement, which probably has no chance of getting anywhere but is used to lay out a position; the other is a genuine attempt to solve a very real challenge. This bill falls into that category. It is a complex and a sensitive area, as a number of speakers before me have mentioned tonight, and recognising it has taken quite a long time from first reading to make its way through to here. It is one of those bills that is truly worth taking the time to do properly. So I do want to acknowledge the member who brought the bill and I do want to acknowledge the work that Ginny Andersen and the select committee have done and that the officials have done over a number of years, over what is quite a narrow but important and difficult and challenging area, where issues of mental health and criminal justice are conflated and not easily picked apart. I think that the bill has landed in a very good place, having taken quite a journey to get there.

The gap, of course, is in the justice system, where, currently, until probably about 30 minutes from now, there is no mechanism by which victims of criminal acts that are committed by insane persons—to provide any form of victim impact statement. That is a gap in the sense of being able to create justice, to provide a justice system that actually lives up to its name. The Green Party, of course, has always strongly supported the inclusion of victims’ views in the justice process. We do believe that victims must be supported at every stage of the justice process, and that includes by having their views and their experiences safely and affirmatively given in the context of the proceedings.

As with a number of others, of course, we did have a problem with the wording in the original bill. Where, as a number of other speakers have said, the original language around “proven but insane” implied criminal responsibility. So I think that there was an amendment that was put up quite early in Golriz’s name but actually events then overtook it. The Chief Justice made the submission by writing to Parliament, asking that that issue get addressed, and, you know, the work was done. It’s landed in a very, very good place as a result. So, in that sense, I think that the kind of key issue that we were anxious about has been very well resolved to the satisfaction of everybody, has been noted as well.

I also just wanted to mention there were some other organisations that engaged with this bill, including JustSpeak and the Mental Health Foundation, who were, at least initially, opposed to this. They had some concerns about the risk of non-judicial and non-clinical input into the decision-making process that concerns about how there might be a risk of longer sentences being conferred, which would harm rehabilitation—which, of course, then errs back into the issues around mental health and criminal responsibility, and so on—and that context of it being about mental health rather than being about holding the offender accountable, which is, of course, what normal sentencing is about. So the committee has clearly engaged deeply in all of those very thorny issues. Those changes that have been made to the bill have kind of addressed those risks. So we’re very pleased or we’re assured that victims’ statements aren’t going to be able to be politicised, that those decisions will be contained within the process in a way that is safe for victims and actually for the people who have committed those acts.

I think some of the concerns about the bill speak to wider concerns about the justice system. It is an imperfect system. There are gaps in it, but they aren’t going to be resolved within this bill, which does have a very narrow focus. I think that we need to continue always to ensure that we are seeking to improve the justice system so that those kinds of concerns, when they do come up through bills like this, are able to be addressed. We do hope that this bill does signal future legislative improvements to further our approach to restorative justice for insane offenders in the future.

So, in conclusion, I just want to come back to the beginning in acknowledging the work of everybody involved, but particularly the member who brought the bill. It’s a very good piece of work, and I think this is one of those moments tonight where you can see Parliament at its absolute best; a rare and beautiful thing. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. I’m almost afraid, as I stand here tonight, of what we’ve done. My colleague, the Hon Mr Shaw has just referred to this as being a narrow bill. I do get his point, in one sense there’s not that many offenders who get classified as insane in this country. That’s right. Compared to other sorts of offenders, they’re quite a small subclass. But in another sense, I think it’s one of the biggest things we’ve done this year when it comes to the criminal justice system. And that is frightening.

It’s big in two senses. First, what happens at the top of the system when you get to criminal trial, right up here [Lifts hand above head] influences everything in all the decisions that prosecutions and police make down here at the bottom. It becomes a bottleneck if you don’t keep that space wide enough so that people can see the prospect of success. We all know that we have victims in this country who do not come forward or who give up because they look up at that top and they see only a bottleneck and they drop out and we lose their voices. This bill sends a message that the voices and the reality of victims are valued at that top point, at that apex of the criminal system. And that’s significant. It’s significant in another way. And as we’ve discussed during the committee stage, which was so thoroughly enjoyable, this is a really significant bill because it puts the victim into the adversarial system in a way they have rarely been put at the centre of the adversarial system. The adversarial system is conceived as a two-party thing, a little bit like the traditional version of this House before we had the wonder and panoply that we see before us, of MMP. It was a two-party system that admits of no other and, for that, they recognise the reality and the significance and the dignity of two sides only: the Crown and the defendant.

This bill, for perhaps the first time, gives victims an independent right of standing where they are not just tools, one way or another, to get evidence from for the purposes of those two important people: the Crown and the accused. That’s incredibly significant. But it is nerve-racking. I found it so exciting, but it is frightening, and it should be frightening because the criminal justice system is right, criminal lawyers are right to be protective of our system. Because the criminal justice system is about the protection of some of the most vulnerable people in our community.

One of those two parties, the defendants, they are so often so powerless. And if we don’t have a system that enshrines their dignity as a matter of absolute importance in our system, then we do not deserve to call ourselves a civilised society. We have to protect the rights, the dignities of defendants. We have to do that. We also, though, have to look at the truth, and the trial has to be an effective mechanism for the discovery and the investigation of truth—in balance with the dignity and the rights of the defendant. Hence, we get our evidence laws. Hence, we get things like the American version, no allowing of the “Fruit of the poison tree.” These are important things, there might be evidence but if you’ve got it through the destruction of the defendant’s rights, then that is enough of a block. We give up on truth when it affects the dignity of the defendant to that degree. It is a system of checks and balances, and when we interrupt something as crucial as that, then we should be nervous and we should be mindful, and by God we were throughout this process. It has been a careful, arduous, often circular, often spiralling back upon itself process, and so it should, because it’s important.

As we do it, however, and as I think about what my dad, the criminal lawyer, is going to say when he gets a load of this one, when I think about the unconstitutional—but nonetheless they’re going to happen—sideways glances I’m going to get from judge friends when they get a load of this—

💬 Chris Bishop: Oh, just a bit of big-noting while we pass it.

—those doubts I have, those uncertainties about what we’ve done, they are worth it. Oh, bring it on, Mr Bridges. You’re all good—I’ve got teenagers.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Hey, I didn’t say anything! I appreciate, you know, that it’s easy to confuse the boyish good looks, but …

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Any time now you’d like to carry on, do so.

One teenager or another; it doesn’t really make much difference to me.

So what we’re doing is really, really significant. It’s going to be something that’s going to be picked over not only by my criminal practitioner colleagues but also by my criminal academic colleagues, because the other way in which this is incredibly significant is, as my colleague Vanushi Walters was talking about, in terms of an ongoing process of the reform of the criminal trial, which has been advocated for by academics over the last 30 years. The victims’ rights movement, as it’s known within academia, has been gathering pace, mainly as a result of the growing awareness in the early 1980s of the trauma inflicted on victims in the trial when they were victims of sexual assault. The victims that we saw, as I said earlier, echo the pain that has been talked about and found for the last 30 years. It is extremely significant, I think, in the development of the criminal law in this country that we are bringing this in. I think in the years to come this is going to be seen as a point at which Parliament shifted the goalposts and encouraged the adversarial trial to evolve. It is a scary thing we’ve done, but it was the right thing.

The fact that the victims we saw, as Ms Upston brought up earlier, were not vengeful, that they weren’t out to grind down the person who had hurt them, speaks also to what we’re doing here. It’s not about law and order and “lock ’em up”. It’s not about making sure the person gets punished for what they did. That’s all taken care of. What it’s about is the giving of due respect to the victim. It’s not about the destruction of one person in order to elevate the victim; it is about the elevation of all of them as key pieces in our criminal justice puzzle. That is significant and that is right and that is important work. I wish I could see some of my academic colleagues when they get a load of this one. Boundaries are difficult places. Boundaries are going to be difficult, difficult places to be at, but they’re worthwhile places to be at, because otherwise what on earth are we doing here in this space?

Also, in terms of our process, I think I do need to stop at this point and thank those officials who worked so incredibly hard and had to put up with nonsense the likes of which even Simon Bridges can’t produce. We want to thank Dr Crawshaw, who again guided a bunch of know-nothing parliamentarians through the complex process of the mental health system and got us out the other side, I think, with everyone intact. I want to thank my colleagues on the committee for all of the help that we gave each other and all of the forbearance, particularly our chair Ginny Andersen and, most of all, the lady of the hour herself, Louise Upston—absolutely remarkable bill. Given how much work it cost, I think maybe you could not put another one in the ballot box just—

The member’s time has expired.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT to take a very short call on the final reading of the Rights for Victims of Insane Offenders Bill. Unfortunately, Nicole McKee, who sat on the select committee, can’t be here tonight, as she would have wanted to have been. I’m sure she’s a passionate member of the select committee.

I was a policeman in Nelson in 2009 when Wendy Hamer was viciously attacked. And while I wasn’t directly involved in the inquiry and the investigation, the effect it had on the police and the community was huge. Wendy’s strength to not only survive but to launch a petition for victims’ rights was a major influence in this bill, I believe, and it shows an amazing courage and determination. I’d have to acknowledge Nick Smith for his advocacy for Wendy over the years too.

The bill gives victims of insane offenders the same rights as other victims of crime. It allows the victims to be recognised as victims and get fair access to services and entitlements. The rewording of the verdict now accurately reflects the offence, and words do matter. I sat in on a select committee yesterday, and the Police Commissioner stated that mental health call-outs have increased 60 percent in the last five years. Unfortunately, this issue isn’t going to go away. We must continue to put victims first, and we must start looking at the social fabric of our society. I was disappointed to read today the death of a 16-year-old girl in a car accident and a 20-year-old driver who was speeding, texting, over the drink-drive limit, and driving on the wrong side of the road, who was given a four-month and two-week home detention plus a fine. We’ve got a lot of work to do.

It’s obvious everyone in the Justice Committee worked really hard on this bill, with cross-party support, and special thanks to Louise Upston and Ginny Andersen and the officials from the Ministry of Justice for their advice and their assistance. I understand the bill went back and forth a couple of times to get things right. And a good example that good process produces good law and that laws should not be rushed. A huge thanks to the victims for their perseverance and for submitting and sharing their stories. This outcome is yours and your strength will always be appreciated. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This evening I rise to give my grateful thanks to the Hon Louise Upston for bringing this bill to us in the House. I’m not on the Justice Committee, but I was privileged to be able to sit in, substituting in for one of my colleagues on some of the submissions that were profoundly moving. I don’t mind sharing that some of them brought members of the committee to tears, myself included, and the bravery of these submitters was profound.

It was really clear that what had been done to these people was profoundly wrong. By that, I don’t simply mean the acts committed against them, but what the law had done unintentionally. I’m very, very pleased to be able to see those changes come before us this evening. The words “act proven but not criminally responsible on account of insanity” are significant, as are the rights of victims. For that reason, I heartily commend this bill to the House.

I’ll be very brief. I want to acknowledge my colleague Louise Upston. At the end of the day, if a family member is assaulted, is badly injured, or is even killed, and they turn up to court and they hear a verdict “Not guilty on account of insanity”, all they hear is not guilty. That’s all that they hear. There’s no one that’s actually been held to account. Louise Upston recognised that, she realised there needed to be a change, the committee’s worked on it, there’s been a very good change now where it is now “Act proven but not criminally responsible on account of insanity”. It means that there is accountability and it means that victims get treated properly inside our criminal justice system and that families feel like they get the justice that they deserve. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a call on the Rights for Victims of Insane Offenders Bill. This is the second time that this House is coming together to pass bills tonight. I’ve had the privilege of speaking on both bills.

Can I first start with acknowledging and congratulating the Hon Louise Upston for bringing this important bill to this House, and the contribution from the members across the House. The heart of this bill adjusts for the victims and their families who will go through a lot, and their only mistakes are that they are just the victims.

This bill aims to better align the treatment of victims of offenders found guilty-insane with the victims of regular offenders of our justice system. It simply addresses an inconsistency. Labour supports this bill because it aligns with our values, because it simply promotes justice and transparency, while also protecting survivors of crime and their community. Tonight is a good night; it’s good to see that at the forefront of our politics is the people and victims, and that when we do that, we do things well. So I commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. I’m really conscious of the time so my contribution will be very short. I just want to acknowledge the member, the Hon Louise Upston, for ushering this bill through the House. I want to acknowledge your constituent who brought the issue in the first place and also that of the Hon Nick Smith who was the petitioner that we also dealt with, the two together. I really want to thank all sides of the House. We really did work hard on this. It’s been well described by all the speakers before me. It has been an absolute honour and privilege to be part of this piece of legislation and I really do hope that it brings something forward for those families, for those victims. I hope that it has been a worthwhile process for them and I hope that the courts are able to work with this in the future. So, with that, I commend the bill to the House.

I support this bill. It was good to be on the Justice Committee. I know that the member in charge of the bill’s wish is that it passes so that it has a maximum effect, and that in the rare cases that it does pertain to those people involved and the victims, particularly, get the effect of this bill. So I’m not going to speak at all long. I do normally speak to the substance of the bill and things about this bill that are why I support it, but I’m not going to do that.

I do, just like other members, though, want to acknowledge Louise Upston. She’s a fine MP. She’s done a great job here. There are member’s bills and then there are member’s bills—those that are sort of passed to someone and they don’t necessarily have a passion for it, but she has had a huge passion for it. She’s, dare I say it, been very protective of it, in fact, and wanted to ensure that at every stage—it’s had twists and turns, and this bill has had a lot of twists and turns—that the right thing was done. So I do pay tribute to you, Louise. You’ve done a great job here, and this will be, among many other things, a lasting legacy of your contribution in this Parliament—not that you’re going anywhere any time soon at all. But it’s a good bill. I support it. It was great to be a small part of it.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise to take a very short call on this Rights for Victims of Insane Offenders Bill, and again I want to commend the member for bringing this bill to the House. This is an important issue that she’s addressed with dignity and respect. It’s shown the best side of Parliament, really, with the collaboration that parliamentarians have shown on the select committee. The bill as it stands is well thought through. It’s not a simple change, it is a thorough change that allows what I see as a very well thought-out and thorough law to be put into place.

Just to reiterate some of the points that my colleagues have said, the reason that Labour supports this is that we do think that this bill does look towards increasing justice for victims and for their families, increases transparency. It also increases and really focuses on a victim-centred approach. So I think that’s really important. So, in conclusion, we support this bill. We commend the committee for their incredibly hard work, and you would have seen the amount of expertise and knowledge that members both on the Government side and on the Opposition side have in relation to this bill.

Also, just to finish off by acknowledging the victims of insane offenders. This is why we’re here debating this bill today. It’s for them. It’s to focus on them, and it’s to make their journey a little bit easier. Nothing can take away the trauma that people suffer when they’re victims of insane offenders. What we can do is make sure that the laws we put in place when these people are facing the criminal justice system are sensitive to the needs of families and look towards making the best of a really terrible situation.

That’s why I personally support this bill. I think that it will make the journey much, much easier for many people as they go through what has obviously been a very, very difficult time. And so, in conclusion, I commend this bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Members, the House is suspended and I will resume the Chair at 9 a.m. tomorrow for the extended sitting. Pō mārie.

Sitting suspended from 9.56 p.m. to 9 a.m. (Thursday)