Corrections (Victim Protection) Amendment Bill

Kia ora, Madam Speaker. It’s a real pleasure to speak on this bill, because whilst we have slightly different approaches across the House, we all in this House agree that victims in terms of the criminal justice system are deserving of far more attention. Certainly on this side of the House, we do want to see more done for victims and a reorientation towards victims.

Whilst the Government’s view is that what victims want appears to be longer sentences, we’re not convinced that that’s the case. Having said that, on other things we can agree, and this bill is one of them. This Corrections (Victim Protection) Amendment Bill does what it purports to do, which is to protect victims, but, in particular, it protects victims from unwanted contact from offenders.

Now, as is often the case with members’ bills, whether this was absolutely necessary or whether it could be done within the existing legislation is moot. Certainly, Corrections already have frameworks in place to make sure that offenders aren’t contacting victims who don’t want to be contacted. I think the member in charge of the bill would probably point and say, “But there are situations where that doesn’t happen or it doesn’t work effectively enough.” Rather than having some policy framework, what we need is an actual requirement on Corrections, and that’s what we’ve got here. Good on her for bringing this bill to the House, and whilst it might not have been a bill we would have put ourselves, it does something that we actually agree with. That’s why we are supporting it today.

I do want to say, though—and I hope the member will agree with me—that we need to push Corrections hard, because they have a number of obligations under the Corrections Act, and this adds another one. Corrections and the Ombudsman have been in front of us and talked about their operations. What they are actually surprisingly candid about from Corrections’ point of view is that they are not meeting their statutory obligations in terms of how they run their custodial services—that is to say their prisons. That’s not good enough—that’s simply not good enough.

One of the ways we want to see fewer victims is by having prisoners better when they’re released than when they came in, and not allowing them contact with their whānau, not giving them case management plans, and not providing suitable exercise and all of those things that are statutory requirements doesn’t help that. My concern is that Corrections will look at this, kind of roll their eyes and shrug their shoulders and say, “Whatevs.” Certainly I’m sure that the member in charge, Rima Nakhle, will be assiduous in making sure that Corrections do follow up. I think one of the things that we do want to know, and I think is a really important part of this and will be, I understand—because this was discussed at select committee—what’s the audit on this? How do we know many slipped through? There’s going to be human error, right?

My concern is that nothing will change—that Corrections look at us as parliamentarians and say, “Oh, yeah. All very nice for you and your highfaluting talking shop, but down on the ground here, we’ll do it as we always have done.” We absolutely do need to follow up and make sure, in terms of this bill and its requirements, to protect victims from unwanted communications—whether it be emails or letters or whatever, including through side-doors, if you like, through other people and what have you. We need to make sure that that unwanted communication is absolutely stopped. We heard it with instances where the victim was a family member, a mum or a partner or child, and even though they’ve still got strong connections, the harm from those connections can sometimes be quite significant and the control of those communications needs to be in the hands of the victim and not any third party, whether that be their support network or the offender or whomever.

I do recognise that the bill as it originally came to the House actually was framed as applying to any person sentenced. I can see the sense in that, and judges do make orders for people who, perhaps, are on probation or supervision or some other non-custodial sentence, that they not contact a victim. How that’s supervised is actually quite problematic, and it’s, essentially, a self-report. That is, if the victim is contacted, they call the police and say, “The judge said they can’t do it and they are still emailing me or texting me”—or whatever it might be—“or phoning me up.” Corrections isn’t the right institution to actually be monitoring community-based orders. They don’t have the resources, and I think it was good of them to come and say, “Well, look, that’s just too much. We couldn’t possibly do it. You’re setting us up to fail.” So that was taken out of the bill.

Having said that, look, it’s a good bill. We do need to have a grown-up discussion about how we protect victims, because we do have two different views. We’re not going to agree on everything, but if we can agree on empowering victims more effectively and we can agree on protecting victims and making sure the court process and the rest of the justice framework is less traumatic—in short, for victims—that would be a good thing.

I’d just finish on one point, and that is the Te Ao Mārama programme which was instituted under the last Government, which actually takes a victim-centric approach in the courtroom and in the court process and in the prosecution process. Whilst this new Government is still rolling that out, they’re scaling it back, and I’m concerned about that—that’s just a note of concern. Let’s work together and let’s both protect victims when they do occur but, most of all, let’s aim for fewer victims. Kia ora.

This debate is interrupted and set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. today.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 12.57 p.m.