Bail (Electronic Monitoring) Amendment Bill

on behalf of the Minister of Justice: I move, That the Bail (Electronic Monitoring) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

I just want to acknowledge and thank all members across the House for their views and input into the first reading speeches. It’s been enlightening and helpful to get a steer from parties as to their relative levels of support for the bill, and I’m encouraged that we’ll be able to progress this in a timely manner. It is obviously of some urgency and some importance, and I appreciate the views of members across the House, who agree with the Government that it is important to clarify that the electronic monitoring (EM) conditions that we put in place are lawful, and this will just reinforce the common practice, which is undertaken via the Department of Corrections and via the courts.

We agree with the Opposition in their view that we want to support faster resolution within the court system and in justice. I’ve noted, with some interest, the proposed amendment by Dr Webb, and of course we can discuss this later on, but at this stage I don’t think we’ll be supporting Dr Webb’s amendment, on the basis that you can vote while you’re on EM bail—you can undertake a home vote. I’ve undertaken a few of those myself, campaigning in Dunedin over a few years, and, obviously, there is a system whereby you can conduct a vote in your own personal home. You can have someone bring you a vote, you can fill it out, and they can take it back with them, and that will hopefully resolve the issue that Dr Webb is raising.

It is disappointing to hear that the bill won’t be supported by all parties. I just urge Te Pāti Māori to reconsider their support for the bill. We understand the background and some of the issues that they may have with the process and the general, sort of, policy differences that we have with that party, but the practical effect of their opposition will be to, essentially, try and make it harder for people on EM bail to do things like go to the doctor, visit their lawyer, go to the hospital, go do their groceries if they need to, go get housing support—housing advice—go to a tangi, as the Hon Ginny Andersen pointed out. I’d just urge them to reconsider whether or not that’s something they want to be supporting, whether or not they want to support making it harder for those individuals to do that.

That’s a summary of where we are. I hope that we can continue to progress this bill through the House with some pace, and I commend it to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Kia ora e te Mana Whakawā. Thank you. Look, this is not an inconsequential bill, so it’s disappointing that the members of the Government are not really exploring the challenges in this bill; they’ve clearly had it prepared at pace. In my previous speech, I asked two perfectly reasonable questions and asked the Minister of Justice to come back to the House at second reading and respond to them. Firstly, what was the judicial decision which triggered this concern? If there wasn’t one, just say so. Secondly, will he waive privilege on Crown Law advice so we can see the full analysis? They are saying there’s a problem, and at the moment we’re taking their word for it, so I’d really like to see that.

I’ve had very little time to look at this bill, but the other thing that strikes me is the retrospective nature of bills like this. Tidy-up bills, where you’ve been doing this and it turns out it’s wrong, are all very nice, but I guess there are two aspects to it, and I’m not sure that it really addresses the second aspect.

Firstly, there are people out there who have been happily saying, “You can have bail and you can do this and you can go to the shops and you can go to tangi.”, totally outside of any authority, and so they’ve been acting illegally. There’s a possibility that they’re civilly liable for acting outside of any legal authority they have and they need an immunity and that’s fine. But the other thing is that the people who have been told “Go to this tangi.” or “You can go shopping every Tuesday morning.” have actually been in breach of bail. That’s an offence under section 38(c) of the Bail Act. What they need is it to be very clear that their offence—because you can’t grant that extension, leave, or indulgence from bail if you simply don’t have the legal authority to do so: it’s void; it doesn’t count.

Now you’ve got people out there who, through no fault of their own, because it’s not intentional—it’s just a breach; it doesn’t require intention—are in trouble. It needs to be made absolutely clear because there’s a strong presumption against retrospectivity in those kinds of things. There needs to be a provision in this bill—and, you know, you need to get drafting, because if you’re doing it under urgency, it’s happening pretty soon. There needs to be a provision in this bill which says that people who act in reliance on an authority given by a corrections officer, or, it appears in some cases, even a social worker—not even an employee of the Department of Corrections—are immune from prosecution for any breach of the Bail Act flowing from that decision.

That’s actually quite important, because if we don’t have that, that’s hanging over them. It’s all very nice to say that the executive—that is to say, the Crown—wouldn’t prosecute, but it needs to be made clear that no offence has occurred and they did nothing wrong. Otherwise you’d say, “Well, you were in breach of bail on this occasion.”, when in fact—well, in fact they are, but we need to create a world in which they weren’t, and that’s one of the things that Parliament, here, can do.

I get why you want to fix this as quickly as possible, but it’s got all the hallmarks of being drafted on the run. I suspect while I speak, people are busily drafting amendments that we’ll see on the Table at some stage in the future. Sure, I’ve got a little bit of knowledge of the law, but this is just someone reading it from a position of—and I’m no expert on bail, I’ll tell you that, but it just doesn’t seem to quite do what it really, really needs to do.

Look, yes, we agree with it. We also agree with the principle that people who are on bail, particularly if they are charged but not yet convicted, need to have the most liberty that is consistent with community safety. Fundamentally, that’s I think what we’re trying to get at: that the Bail Act’s job is to make sure people turn up to their court appearance but also that, particularly when you’ve got violent offenders or those accused of being violent offenders, the community is kept safe from them. It is a balancing act. Electronic bail is a really good way to do that because community safety is enhanced because you can constrain exactly where they are—it’s at this property or this part of a property, with these limited conditions. But we see that change can be needed.

I said before—and I was disappointed a little bit that the Hon James Meager didn’t address it—that the philosophical question is where the line is drawn between, essentially, delegating control over someone’s liberty to an unelected bureaucrat, and the role of a judge. Now, in the court process, the registrar can also—only with the agreement of the prosecution—agree to variants of bail conditions. I do have a residual concern that we are putting into the corrections system a high degree of control.

I’ll be honest—and I’m sure my colleague the spokesperson for corrections, Tracey McLellan, will have something to say—the Department of Corrections isn’t a shining star of good procedure in terms of some of the work it does. I’m not saying they’re not people who are trying their very hardest to do a good job, but they’re constrained on all kinds of fronts. Certainly, there’s a risk that the attention to the important balancing of rights—which is what judges do: the exercise of discretion, taking into account fundamental rights and freedoms, and the need for community safety. Understanding the legal interaction between those is actually quite a tricky job.

I am concerned in this bill that it, basically—if I’ve read it right, I think it’s in new section 30MB in clause 5—enables an electronic monitoring assessor to approve pretty much anything. The court has an ability to either say, “Yes, for childcare and your medical needs, we give the electronic monitoring assessor the ability to do that.”, or it can say, “Or do whatever you want.” Now, “do whatever you want.” is extending a huge amount of, fundamentally, power to the electronic monitoring assessor.

The other thing I’m curious to know is—in the legislative statement, it referred to the fact that the electronic bail conditions had been delegated to the Department of Corrections and others, including social workers. I’m very keen to know what “and others” means, and how the social workers got thrown in there as well—“and others” could mean anything at all. It might be skilled professionals like psychiatrists, I don’t know, but it could also just be anyone. We need to know who had that.

Also, in terms of the transitional provisions—because most of the words of this piece of legislation are in fact transitional provisions, and I can see why, because it’s actually pretty tricky. I don’t understand yet, because I haven’t got my head around it, how the transitional provisions are going to work for these approvals, which are so wildly outside of any reasonable delegation that they could have imagined existed.

If a social worker or the cleaner was allowing these extensions, what do the transitional provisions do to those? Do they give an immunity for prosecution for people there as well, and what about going forward? If your social worker said to you that you can pick up your kids from kindy at the usual times—and that was your social worker. Now, it’s hard to validate that, because the new regime doesn’t allow it. It’s not like saying that, well, we’re going to change the rules, and we’ll deem the rules to have been always applicable—it still falls outside of that. That’s a challenge, as well.

Look, we get it: there’s a mistake and we’ve got to fix it up, but I’m yet to be convinced that this is in the right form, and the committee stage has got a lot of work to do.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. As we mentioned in the first reading, the Green Party supports this bill in the sense that it provides a practice that is not punishment in nature to the existing system. However, I think as the previous speaker the Hon Dr Duncan Webb has mentioned, there are a number of concerns in this bill and I think I would just like to spend this particular reading in lieu of a select committee process to actually highlight some of these concerns, which I’m sure that we will have more time to discuss during the committee stage.

As everyone has said, this is a current practice, but there are a number of issues with this current practice. I think first of all there are the privacy concerns. In the departmental disclosure statement, it does mention that the Office of the Privacy Commissioner was consulted around this. Most of us bear in mind that, in order for absence to be granted in new section 30MA or new section 30MB in clause 5, or even in clause 4 of this bill, a registrar or even an assessor may be able to access some of that personal information. I think we haven’t really quite teased out in terms of the privacy component of this bill and the implementation of this bill, even though it’s an existing practice, and in terms of particularly its interaction as we see with some of the latest updates around the information privacy principles (IPP) of the Privacy Act 2020. I think, from a privacy perspective, there’s actually a lot of things to discuss and to hopefully have a conversation with the Minister of Justice for some elucidation. That’s my first point.

I think the second point that I would also like to mention is that as we are talking about the fact that these sorts of assessors etc. will be able to assess from a corrections perspective as opposed to the existing structure of having the court for those kinds of assessors to do it, what situations would be considered appropriate context for absence to be granted? Again, just because it’s current practice, like the previous speaker said, doesn’t necessarily mean that it is the right process to do.

One of the bills that we did discuss last year was around the Corrections Amendment Bill, which is now the Corrections Amendment Act 2024. During the debate of that particular bill, one of the things that we really highlighted is the removal of cultural competency within that bill. As we’re seeing that the Department of Corrections is now in a position where they are granting some of these absences, it does make me wonder in terms of what cultural competency is granted in terms of what leave will be allowed in that case.

We heard about the fact that, yes, things like going to appointments, going to meetings subject to going to Government agencies, picking up from daycare—we’ve heard some of these, but what about things that are more cultural in nature? For example, for people who needed to attend a tangi, would they be provided absence, or would they be provided leave for the entire duration of that tangi? Or is it just like, “Actually, we’re going to go with a standardised funeral or bereavement leave where you can go for one day and choose which day you want to go.”? A lot of these sort of have broader implications and cultural implications if Corrections is in charge of this particular aspect. That’s one of the other elements that I think really deserves some attention when we are progressing through the committee stage.

I think the other thing that is central to the Bail Act 2020 but also is central to the discussion we have right now is the fact that we what we’re seeing is a drastic increase in the number of people who are on remand. Indeed, some of the latest studies that have been done and some of the latest articles that have been written around remand—most recently, one of the ones that I picked up on was at the end of last year, which talks about how as we see the way that our remand system works, we’re seeing more and more people who are unsentenced people who may not be guilty of offending being placed into these situations. Now, again, understanding that we’re looking at the system with electronic bail and also with absence, we are seeing those who are on remand who may not be within the prison system, but we must acknowledge the interaction between our view and our position on remand more broadly.

For those who are on remand, we are seeing that 54 percent of females in our current, for example, prison system etc. are on remand. It is a threefold increase from a decade ago. We’re seeing as of the data from April 2023 that I had available to me—considering we’re currently going through all of these under urgency. In the data that was available to find from April 2023, 89 percent of young people are on remand. A lot of this does come into the fact that when we are discussing this bill and the broader context of remand and electronic bail, it does beg the question of why is this something that the court system is unable to do?

I think one of the previous speakers—the Hon Ginny Andersen—has mentioned in the context of this that, yes, we do want Corrections to possibly be able to do some of these in order to not create that backlog and bottleneck in terms of our court system. However, I think the bigger question is: why are there so many people on remand right now that we need to have this system in the first place?

If we do actually treat people on remand, as is stated in our New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 (BORA) under section 25(c), as “innocent until proved guilty”, surely that remand as a concept of us punishing people without any formal sentencing and without proving they’re guilty is a flaw in our current system. With something like this, as we see an increase in the number of people who are on remand, are we actually seeing that the practice that is being put forward here that we would like to codify is actually a response to the wider issue of remand and then providing a technical fix, as opposed to us addressing the genuine issue of why there so many people who are in remand, and why is the court not able to handle the workload and we have to pass it on to Corrections instead?

Again, another piece of really important context around this, when it comes to remand, is in, let’s say, the data from October 2023. This is in the context of the prison population and those who are in remand in prison, but I think it highlights again the broader issue that 40 percent of our prison population in October 2023 were on remand and that that is a quadrupling in two decades. I think these are the broader issues that also possibly deserve some attention as we look at the technical fix that is this bill.

Lastly, I would like to highlight—and I think I’ve highlighted it previously—the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 context of this bill, and particularly the retrospective nature of it. I did just, again, have a look on the Ministry of Justice website, and it is clear to me that although an attempt was made to upload the BORA report—as stated in the departmental disclosure statement saying that there is a BORA report—that BORA report is actually not available. The link doesn’t work on the Ministry of Justice website, and, fundamentally, it begs the question that it’s very hard for members of this House to really scrutinise a bill and really provide the kind of analysis that we need as a legislature and as people whose primary role is to make law for Aotearoa New Zealand. We are kind of stabbing in the dark because we don’t have that information available to us, such as, fundamentally, a New Zealand Bill of Rights Act consistency report, which is not available, or else the link is broken. That is a genuine concern.

I can stand here and say that, yes, in that report, we might see some evidence of conversations around consistency with section 18 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, particularly around freedom of movement. I mentioned this before, in terms of some of the issues and consistency with retrospective penalties in section 26, which apparently weren’t something that the BORA report—in terms of the boxes actually considered, which I thought is kind of obvious. But, again, in the broader issue with remand under section 25(c), I think all of these bring a broader context to some of the things that we need to be looking at when we’re discussing this bill.

Lastly, I just want to very briefly touch on something else that the Hon Dr Duncan Webb mentioned before. That is the fact that we’re looking at something that is predominantly within the judiciary that has now been passed on to the executive through Corrections, and that separation of power and that broader context, I think, is something else we would like to ask the Minister during the committee stage. With that, we support that, and we really look forward to the committee stage and to having conversations with the Minister.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Oh look, it seems to be a Green Party policy shop this afternoon. I want to say thank you very much to the hardest-working Opposition MP, Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan, who’s back. He’s here—he’s ready for a committee stage.

Look, I think why we’re doing this has been really well canvassed in the first reading. We’re in the second reading at this point. We want to make sure that the current practice is, in fact, law-abiding. I know, and I can hear the concerns coming from some of the Opposition. I think, like, let’s just get this fixed and get this across the line, and there could be some great member’s bill ideas out there. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

I suppose it’s really on us to kind of bring back some logic and some sense into the discussion that’s been heard before the House—sometimes time-filling becomes a distraction to what is really at heart. We’ve heard a few commentaries across the House about the alarmist kind of strategy around what could and what might, and setting bail, and this is not what this bill is about. This is about the electronic monitoring exemptions for bail conditions that already exist. This is not overruling the court system. It is not overstepping the mark. This is not breaching the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. This is not to be overthought and overanalysed and create scaremongering amongst the public.

It is also, as the Hon James Meager highlighted, an opportunity to make the best of difficult situations in electronic monitoring and actually deliver some positive conditions. Maybe there might be a chance in this House to stop panicking, to stop the victim narrative, to stop being an obstruction to implementing some good changes, and to recognise that this is an opportunity, when electronic bail conditions are put in place, to actually allow some exemptions and some conditions to allow those that are on remand to have some quality of life in their conditions, to seek help, to seek guidance, to seek support, to seek family members, and also to complete the justice process.

It is a system in place already. There was an anomaly identified where perhaps this may need to be tightened up in terms of the process, and that is exactly what this piece of legislation is doing. That is why we are doing it under urgency—to ensure there is the clarity that members across the House are seeking—and that is why New Zealand First will fully commend this bill to the House, acknowledging the incredible efforts of the Minister of Justice to make up for lost time in the corrections process that has been slipping it. Thank you.

Ki te reo Māori aku kōrero i tēnei wā, i roto i tēnei pānuitanga tuarua o tēnei pire e kīia nei ko te Bail (Electronic Monitoring) Amendment Bill. Ka taka ki Te Pāti Māori ngā kupu whakaaraara o te iwi Māori e whakapuaki i roto i tēnei Whare nā runga i te mea kua roa te reo o te iwi Māori e kauparehia atu e tēnei Whare. I tēnei wā, kei te rongo atu ahau i ngā kōrero a te Whare nōna te mana whakahaere e whakaiti nei i tā te taha ki te tangata whenua o Aotearoa whakapuaki i ngā whakaaro nui, mōrearea nei, mō tōna iwi.

I roto i te kotahi tau me te hāwhe, kāore anō ahau kia rongo i te taha Kāwanatanga e kōrero nei mō ngā aupēhitanga i runga i te iwi Māori. Kāore anō ahau kia rongo i te taha ki te Kāwanatanga e kōrero nei mō ngā kupu whakatūpato a Te Tāhuhu o te Ture mō āna panonitanga ture i roto i te rāngai ture o tēnei tau. Kāore anō ahau kia rongo i tētahi whakaaro e puta atu ana i a rātou he manaaki i te iwi Māori.

Ka mutu ka taea e tēnā mema, e tēnā mema te tūtū mai me te whakaiti i te wāhi o te reo o Te Pāti Māori ki te whakaara ake me te whakapuaki i ngā whakaaro o te iwi Māori, te iwi kua roa e mauhere nei e tēnei Whare, te iwi kua roa e mau kino nei i roto i ngā tikanga whakahaere a Te Tāhuhu o te Ture o Aotearoa.

Nō reira kāore au mō te whakarongo me te whakaae ki ngā kōrero a tēnā pāti, a tēnā pāti e mea nei ko tā mātou he whakamataku i te tūmatanui, he whakamataku rānei i te iwi Māori. Ehara.

Ko tēnei panonitanga, āe, he tikanga me panoni nā te mea kua tekau tau, neke atu, e tārewa hē ana. Ko wai hoki rā te Whare ka whakaae kia haere i runga i te pōhēhē e tika ana āna tikanga whakahaere, me te ao ake tekau ki muri kei te hē ngā whakahaeretanga.

Hanga tūmeke ahau i tēnei āhuatanga, me te kawe tere nei i tēnei whakatikahanga, me te kī atu kua pai ināianei, me haere tonu ahakoa te kauparetanga o te reo o te iwi Māori, ahakoa te kore whai whakaaro ki te tokomaha o te iwi Māori e noho nei i roto i ngā tikanga whakahaere a Te Tāhuhu o te Ture.

Me pēhea rā te iwi Māori? Me pēhea rā e rangona ai ngā kōrero whakatūpato, ngā whakaaro whakaaraara i tēnei Whare ki ngā auē me ngā taimahatanga, ngā aupēhitanga o te iwi Māori i roto i ngā tau? Kāre au i te kite i te huarahi. Kāre au i te kite atu i te huarahi i te mea kei te mōhio ahau mā roto i te komiti whiriwhiri ēnei āwangawanga nui, ēnei kupu whakamōrearea nui o te iwi Māori, ā, ka taka noa ki te taha.

Nā reira kāre au e whakaae ki ngā kupu a te mema kātahi anō ka noho. Kāre e whakaae ki ngā kupu a te heamana o te Komiti Whiriwhiri Take Ture. Nō reira—

[My comments will be in the Māori language at this time, in this second reading of this bill known as the Bail (Electronic Monitoring) Amendment Bill. It falls to Te Pāti Māori to express the words of alarm of the Māori within this House because the voice of the Māori people has been deflected by this House for such a long time. At this time, I am hearing the statements of the House who holds the governing authority belittling the opinions of the people of the land of Aotearoa expressing significant thoughts, dangerous ones, for his people.

Within a year and a half, I have yet to hear the Government side speaking about the oppression of the Māori people. I have yet to hear the Government side speaking about the cautionary words of the Ministry of Justice regarding its legislative amendments within the justice sector this year. I have yet to hear a single thought being expressed by them that is respectful of the Māori people.

Furthermore, each member is able to stand and disparage the role of the voice of Te Pāti Māori to raise awareness and to express the opinions of the Māori people, the people that have long been incarcerated by this House, the people who have long been badly ensnared by within the procedures of the Ministry of Justice of Aotearoa.

So I am not about to listen and allow the comments of that party and that party that assert that we are merely scaring the public, or scaring the Māori people—not at all.

This amendment, yes, it is a process that should change because it has been suspended badly for 10 years or more. Who is the House that will agree to continue on the erroneous belief that its management procedures are appropriate, when 10 years later the management is wrong.

I am somewhat surprised by this situation, that this amendment be carried under urgency, and then to say that it’s OK now and we should continue, despite the voice of the Māori people being neglected, despite the lack of consideration given to the many Māori people that remain within the procedures of the Ministry of Justice.

What are the Māori people to do? How are the words of caution to be heard, the thoughts that alert this House to the cries and the difficulties, the oppression of the Māori people over the years? I don’t see the pathway. I don’t see the pathway, because I know through the select committee of these significant concerns, these words of danger to the Māori people, and they will merely fall by the wayside.

So I do not agree with the words of the member who has just taken his seat. I do not agree with the words of the chairperson of the Justice Committee. So—]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Can I just bring the member back to this particular bill.

TĀKUTA FERRIS: Āe, kei te kōrero ahau mō te pire nei. Nō reira ka waihohia ake āku kōrero i reira. Ahakoa te tōwai o ngā kōrero, me tōwai ka tika i te mea kāre anō ngā taringa o tēnei Whare kia tahuri mai ki te iwi Māori, ā, ka mau tonu Te Pāti Māori ki tā te iwi Māori e mōhio nei nō roto mai i ngā wheakotanga o tēnā whakatipuranga, o tēnā whakatipuranga, o tēnā whakatipuranga tahi me ngā ture o tēnei Whare.

Kāre mātou e tautoko i te pire. Kia ora tātou.

[Yes, I am speaking about this bill. So I will leave my comments there. Despite the repetition of the comments, it is appropriate that they should be repeated because the ears of this House have yet to turn to the Māori people, and Te Pāti Māori will maintain what the Māori people know through the experiences of each successive generation together with the laws of this House.

We do not support the bill. Thanks, everyone.]

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m happy to take a five-minute call to support this bill, which is going through, and it’s fitting because I actually visited Whanganui Prison yesterday. Some of the points that they were making around prison population and the remand population were quite helpful in terms of understanding this bill because—what was the quote he used? He said, “As the muster grows, the quality goes.”, and that’s what we’re seeing in Aotearoa: lots of people in prison and lots of people in jail on remand who could otherwise be out in the community on electronic bail.

That’s why we’re supporting this bill. It means that more people can stay in their community and go to really important appointments and things that they need to run their lives and they’re able to do that freely. I know that that’s a real challenge for people.

There was a 14-year-old boy that I met in Ōtepoti—in Dunedin—and I won’t go into the details too much around his offending, but he was presented with the choice of whether he could go on electronic bail monitoring or go to a youth justice residence. He picked the youth justice residence, and the reason he did that was because he said it was too hard to follow the bail conditions while he had the bracelet on. He said it was too hard—that the rules and the curfews were far too hard and it was much easier for him to just go to the youth justice residence. I want to remind people that that’s an expensive choice that people are making, because it costs far more to incarcerate people than it is to allow them to go about their lives and have relative freedom whilst still being monitored.

This is a good change that makes things a little bit more reasonable, because the way that we treat people while they’re on bail, when they’re in jail, or whether they’re in prison directly affects the way that they will engage with the justice system or offend again or not. The more that we can treat people like human beings—allow them to go to the supermarket, allow them to go to the Ministry of Social Development to talk to their case worker face to face, allow them to go to appointments where the doctor actually physically needs to see them—the more it is a really important part of respecting the humanity of all people in our society, including those who may have been sentenced or who are awaiting sentencing.

That’s, basically, the crux of our support. There’s not a whole lot more to add than that. I’ve pulled out all the stories I have, so I will conclude there and say that we commend the bill to the House.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. It’s good to see a relative sense of unity across the House on this piece of legislation, bar our friends in Te Pāti Māori, but I don’t think we’ll see much of that ever happening. This is a pragmatic change—really good legislation. We’re doing it quickly so we can ensure nothing falls through the cracks, so I commend it to the House.

Madam Speaker, thank you. I’m going to take probably a few more minutes than what the previous contributor just managed to conjure up in his contribution and talk about this bill at the second reading—not to be confused with the first reading; that was just a few minutes ago.

When we consider the Bail (Electronic Monitoring) Amendment Bill, there are some other aspects to this and some other parts to the puzzle, I should say, or some other pieces to the picture, that might help kind of elucidate the background a little bit. The changes that the bill makes, as has been said, are already the existing practice of the Department of Corrections, and the courts, as well, with respect to granting absences from electronic bail addresses, and that’s kind of one aspect. This bill simply ensures that the practice that’s been happening for a number of years now is compliant with the Bail Act and that the existing authorisations continue to be valid.

It’s probably important to note that when we are talking about these types of things, not everybody has the chance or the opportunity, so to speak, to have a little bit of a look inside the justice system. It’s a system that probably the vast majority of people aren’t familiar with because they don’t interact with the justice system on a day-to-day level, and, hopefully, for most people, they never have to interact with the criminal justice system. But it’s a unique environment and it’s full of all sorts of processes, procedure, rigour, and structure, and then there are lots of things that happen that sometimes can feel a little bit ad hoc, or a little bit not quite tight enough, considering the types of situations and the circumstances that are at play here within the criminal justice system.

It’s important to note, I think, that when we’re talking about changes like this, it is ultimately about people, and people who are incarcerated, awaiting trial, or on bail are innocent until proven guilty are exactly that. They are still people who have some rights and who have considerations; and the State, as the person potentially taking away that liberty, has responsibility to ensure that the system that people find themselves in is a robust one. Of the people on bail, many have not been convicted of a crime at all, and because of the presumption of innocence, they should be confined—and I think most people would agree—in the least restrictive way which is still consistent with community safety, which is obviously paramount and incredibly important. Other people that we may be talking about when we’re considering this piece of legislation may have gone through that process but are yet to be sentenced.

We’re talking about people that find themselves in different stages of that system, and people have been assured that when they’ve had leave prior to today, that it’s been granted correctly, that it was a valid decision, and that they haven’t, in fact, therefore been in breach of the Bail Act. I think that goes not only for the people who are on electronic monitoring but also, as my colleague the Hon Dr Duncan Webb has said, the myriad of people who have made those decisions, and I think that the vast majority of the public would be quite surprised to know that it’s not necessarily the legal profession, or the types of people who work within Corrections that they might have assumed would have been the people making those decisions. In fact, it can often be people from various different professions, including social workers and other people. It’s incredibly important for the people who find themselves in the Corrections department, and also the people who work within the Corrections department, that those assurances can be made.

It’s not a simple thing. There’s been several contributions from the other side of the House that have almost been flippant to the fact that questions have been raised on this side of the House. I can assure you that, certainly when we come to the committee of the whole House stage, there will be several clauses and several questions and undoubtedly some amendments required because with all the best intention in the world, sometimes the simplest things that seem simple can very easily have unintended consequences. Whilst we haven’t had a huge amount of time to pour over this particular bill and consider those ramifications, it is very clear, even having a quick look, that there are some questions—some really, really valid questions about the logistics and about some aspects of this bill that may need to be further tightened up.

It’s interesting—although not everybody might agree—that there was a contribution from the other side of the House that suggested that this bill itself may need tightening up, as if that was simply the advice that was received, and yet the members of the National Party and New Zealand First and ACT have had an opportunity to elucidate this House on the fact that we still are none the wiser as to really what is the impetus behind bringing this bill to the House today, other than needing to fix something up. How, after several years, has this suddenly arisen? My colleague the Hon Dr Duncan Webb, in his very first contribution in the first reading of this bill, posed the question as to what was the information or the court decision—I can’t quite remember the exact phrasing that he used. It was clear that there was some sort of judicial process or advice that lent itself to the fact that this was required, in quite an urgent fashion—hence the fact that we find ourselves in urgency.

I found it a little bit amusing, or bemusing, that contributions may have simply sort of downplayed that as perhaps needing, or may need, some sort of tightening up. When that incongruence happens, it does raise some questions. Whilst the members on the other side of the House—the Government members—have made very, very short contributions and haven’t taken the opportunities before them today to be able to provide those answers—and they might not know. I don’t know what their internal processes are, but the people that are taking the calls in the House today might not be privy to the ministerial level of knowledge, and that’s fair enough. We understand how these things happen when urgency is in play. That’s why the committee of the whole House stage exists, as members well know, as an opportunity to be able to tease those out. We would also like to just, I suppose, give a little bit of prior warning to the fact that amongst the questions that have already been asked during this first and second reading, it will be absolutely incumbent upon the Minister to give us some more details about how this came about. We would like to know specifically how long this has been in play. How long have they known that this will require a fix—so to speak?

The other aspect that I wanted to mention is that, when we think about the sort of broader aspects, we know that thousands of people are on electronic bail, and thousands more, unfortunately, are on remand in our prisons. Some other contributions have noted the escalating proportion of people incarcerated through our corrections system—I think it is even up as high as 42 or 45 percent—who are actually on remand, which means different things to different people. It’s certainly, I would hope everybody would agree, not an ideal situation—that’s all of these people who are accused in cases currently before the courts who have not yet been convicted or acquitted and who are awaiting sentence.

We do fully understand that to not do this today would absolutely, without a doubt, necessitate that there be some other work necessary, and it would add to what would eventually be a measure that would actually contribute to further backlog in the court. We know that that is unacceptable by any stretch of the imagination, not the least of which in terms of court process. It actually just takes victims longer to get the satisfaction that they need through this process as well. For those reasons, we continue to support this bill.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. There is no need to wander and waffle. This is a required change, and I commend it to the House.

Catherine Wedd: Madam Speaker.

I call Camilla Belich.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Members are very keen to make contributions to this bill, as I can see, across the House, so I look forward to the member Catherine Wedd’s no doubt substantive contribution to this bill when she gets the opportunity to speak as part of this split call.

It’s a pleasure to be able to take a call in this House, as always. I haven’t had the opportunity to speak yet to this bill at first reading, so it’s my first opportunity, really, to outline some of the thoughts that I have had around this bill, which, to be fair, I haven’t had in front of me for that long due to the nature of the introduction of this bill. But, like other colleagues in the Labour Party, I obviously support this bill. Sometimes bills like this do come before the House, and it’s an opportunity, really, for the House to reflect on our duties as parliamentarians to make the public services and the responsibilities that Government has in this place in relation to corrections work effectively, and that is an important service and it is an important responsibility that we do have.

In this particular case, there is a situation where there is a need for clarity around the responsibilities that these third parties, or these electric monitoring assessors, have in relation to those who are on electronic bail. It would be, from our perspective, a difficult position to oppose this bill due to some of the very key reasons that people may need to be on electronic bail and not be at their specific address—for example, for the seeking of urgent medical treatment. I mean, I think that that is a relatively practical reason that someone would need to change address. I understand that this doesn’t have the full support of the House—I’m sure there are other good reasons, and I haven’t heard all of the contributions so I can’t speak to those—but there are certain situations like urgent medical treatment or like, I imagine, those who are on electronic bail doing things like going to their jobs and doing things that will actually help their recovery and help them participate in society that benefit from this bill.

It is not a usual process that we are going through today in hearing all the stages under urgency. Like I said, I think that this is a practical reflection of the need to clarify this, but this has been in practice for over a decade, so I’m not 100 percent clear of the exact reason to necessitate the urgency. Once it’s been identified, I think probably a sensible suggestion might be to make sure that it is cleaned up and that there is clarity in relation to the processes.

This is a retrospective bill, and I’ve thought about the comments to make about that, because usually retrospectivity is something that we shy away from in lawmaking, for a very good reason: it shouldn’t be that people act in a certain way and this House then subsequently changes the law—or the rules of engagement—under which they operate. It’s not a good way to make law, but I have looked through this documentation in the short time that I have had. I’ve seen that there has been advice provided in the departmental disclosure statement to say that the retrospectivity is justified based on the fact that it benefits those under electronic monitoring, and I’ve kind of thought about that and I’ve thought that, well, I guess it does in the sense that this does allow a greater sense of freedom for those who might otherwise be subjected to staying at the location that they have to be under for electronic monitoring, or, indeed, if we didn’t have these laws which permit electronic monitoring and bail, it would mean that they, in fact, would have to be incarcerated.

Just quickly, before I end—this is a short call—I think that the other thing to note about this is that a really important role that we have, as parliamentarians, in setting the law and a huge responsibility that we have to make sure that we get things right is when we do deal with incarceration and with taking away freedoms from people. A fundamental thing that only the State should have the ability to do to its citizens is to create rules that do lead to the loss of liberty, and so it’s a very serious thing, but this bill does allow more liberty than may have otherwise been available for those who are under electronic monitoring, so I can see the rationale behind it.

I think there’s more information that would still be good for that to come out. I saw that there was a New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet under it, but I was not able to read that before this reading. I’d like to comment on that if I have another opportunity.

Look, I rise to support the Bail (Electronic Monitoring) Amendment Bill because this is a common-sense approach, it rectifies a process. It’s all about ensuring that we have safe electronic monitoring in our community, and I commend it to the House.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. It’s been really interesting to hear the wide variety of commentary on this bill, which is an incredibly important one.

It’s important to clarify, I think, right at the start that electronic bail is quite different to home detention, because I’ve been seeing a few comments coming in from people who are watching. It’s really important to make it clear that electronic bail is definitely not the same to home detention, and those two should not be conflated. Electronic bail, which is what this bill sets out to rectify, is something which offenders are granted before conviction but prior to sentence, whereas home detention is punishment in itself. It’s important to note that electronic bail in itself is not a punishment but a public safety tool. People on electronic bail must be given timely approvals for absences, and so this is what this bill sets out to do. We realise this bill amends the Bail Act back from 2000, and those amendments relate to the absences of criminal defendants who are granted bail with conditions specifically under section 30B of the Bail Act.

As we’ve already discussed, if there are situations like a tangi, an important community event, then those on electronic monitoring (EM) bail are able to do that, and it’s appropriate that this is done the right way. As we’ve seen from the information that’s been provided by the Government today, that Crown Law have advised—quite urgently, as they often do—that the conventional practice where the Department of Corrections just authorise to approve absences for defendants was just not compliant with that section 30M of the Bail Act. The fact that it’s non-compliant requires this bill to have a retrospective element in order to go back in time and make sure that those approvals were done legally. It also sets up the framework to make sure that those approvals, going forward in time, are also done legally.

Overall, we know that those people who are in prison on remand and haven’t been provided EM bail is growing in New Zealand, and in New Zealand the figure I have here is 43 percent of people in prison in New Zealand are not sentenced and are awaiting court processes, which is a lot higher than other countries. I had a quick look at a few other countries, and the UK, for example, has only 18.3 percent of prisoners in that space.

It is quite concerning that the rate of people who spend further time on bail or who are detained, waiting to find out whether they are in fact guilty or not guilty, is due to the fact that the time spent on bail exceeds, sometimes, any sentence on conviction. I think it is incumbent upon all parties in this House, whether they’re Government or Opposition, to really take a good look at how our justice system is operating. If we have 43 percent of people in prison not being sentenced when we compare ourselves to other like countries who don’t have that high rate, I think we do need to look at the way our court system is operating and at our general approach to the prison system when it seems to be not operating that fluidly at all.

I do wonder whether the urgency of this legislation—how has that come about? I’d be interested to know, and I’m sure we’ll ask through the Official Information Act, whether it is with the delays being so prominent that we’ve had to act urgently. Is it the fact that some of those hold-ups in the pipeline through the criminal justice system—has that put pressure today for us to have to pass this so urgently, because if it does not, does it have other implications down the pipeline for the system? I think those are important things for us to understand, in time.

But we’ve been clear about it today: the Labour Party does support the changes that this bill sets out to existing practices that have been quite clearly identified as not being in line with the existing legislation. This bill ensures that the practice is compliant with the Bail Act, and it’s really important that people know their rights, people understand what they are, and they are followed through correctly. I also hope that as part of these changes, there will be clear communications given not only to corrections staff but also to the customers as well to make sure that people are informed of their rights in terms of these changes.

We do want to prevent further delays in the courts, and to do that we need to make sure that Corrections need to be continuing to be able to do what it’s done since 2013, to manage the EM absence approvals, and we need to make sure that’s been done legally. We support the use of electronic monitoring and ensuring, where possible, people can stay connected to their communities. One of the important points of EM bail is that people may still be able to hold down employment, may be able to continue their residential tenancy, and may still be able to maintain connections with whānau, whether they’re parents or they’re a caregiver to others. Those functions still need to be able to operate and people need to go about these daily requirements, even if they’re still waiting for their court case to come up, and so having clarity around a process which gives people an ability to attend functions and to have that in place is really important.

I think it’s worth noting how many people are actually using this system. It’s a big system for New Zealand, and I think that that highlights the point of why it’s so important that we get these things right. That’s why, on issues that are sensitive, where it is important to act with urgency, we see all parties supporting the right thing to be done in this space. I think it’s worth stating again that the people we are speaking about are all people who are accused in cases currently before the courts, and it is through no fault of their own that there is a delay for not having their court case heard in a timely manner. These people have not been convicted or acquitted, but they have not even had their opportunity to go through this process.

We note that the fact that there is this backlog is a concern, in terms of the job ahead of not only Corrections but, of course, also the Ministry of Justice. The Ministry of Justice always does that good work in looking at the pipeline and how many more people are coming through this system. It’s important to note that some of the changes that this Government have brought in—legislative changes—will see our prison population continue to grow, and it will continue to put pressure, not on just the prison infrastructure, but all of those support services that go with that infrastructure: that’s mental health, that’s family violence counselling, that’s drug and alcohol addiction support, and it’s also all the work that goes on through Corrections with monitoring bail electronically.

It is concerning that we have a Government, now, who has significantly cut back funding in public services while still wanting to significantly increase our prison population. It will be important that we maintain strong infrastructure to provide our communities with safety, but also to provide people with all of those support services that not just make electronic monitoring possible but also give people the opportunity to get the support and the assistance they need to stop crime reoccurring.

I think that’s the main problem we have with this Government: we do not have a plan to break the cycle of crime. We have a Government that’s very interested in locking people up but not so interested in looking to the solutions to stop that cycle occurring again and again. Of course, those are victims in New Zealand. The revictimisation of people is something we need to urgently address, and we need to do a lot more if we are serious about saying that victims are central to our justice system. I commend the bill to the House.

Thanks, Mr Speaker. I rise in support of this bill, the Bail (Electronic Monitoring) Amendment Bill. I know that our Government absolutely has a plan to crack down on crime. That’s why we want to get through this bill very quickly and get back to those other bills, like the Sentencing (Reform) Amendment Bill, which I’m very, very excited about passing very soon in this House. I commend this bill.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

This bill is set down for committee stage immediately. I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Bail (Electronic Monitoring) Amendment Bill.

In Committee

Part 1 Substantive amendments