Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Bill

I move, That the Prisoners' and Victims' Claims Bill be now read a third time. The House has listened for several hours now to a raft of ludicrous and false claims from the Opposition about this bill. We have heard claims that it will compensate vicious prisoners, that it will give prisoners new rights, and that it will extinguish the rights of victims, etc. All of those claims are, of course, absolute nonsense, and the members making them know it.

I want to recap on what this bill actually does. In August 2004 a group of Auckland prison inmates were awarded a total of $130,000 after the High Court found aspects of the behaviour management regime that operated at Pāremoremo unlawful. The reason they were able to claim compensation was that the National Government during the 1990s, of which Tony Ryall was a member, did not legislate to overturn the landmark decision made in the Baigent case that monetary compensation was available for breaches of human rights. I repeat that the Baigent case made it clear that monetary compensation was available for breaches of human rights, and the National Government did nothing whatsoever to change that. This bill does not give prisoners the right to claim compensation for breaches of their rights. National had already ensured that they would have that right. They have had it for 10 years.

The bill being passed today by the Labour-Progressive Government, with the support of the Green Party, for the first time establishes guidelines that restrict the circumstances in which courts may award compensation in the most serious cases of prisoner abuse. The prisoners will have to demonstrate that they have tried to use the prison complaints system to have their grievances resolved at the earliest opportunity, before the matter escalates. The court will have to be satisfied that a non-monetary remedy would not be sufficient to address the claim. This bill does not extend prisoners’ rights to compensation—the rights the National Government let them have. It limits those rights.

Of course, the Opposition claims in a fit of outrage—which it apparently did not feel 10 years ago and in its time in Government since then—that we should go further and rule out all possibility of compensation, no matter how grievously a prisoner might be abused. Doing that now would put us clearly in breach of international human rights law. This Government has made it clear from day one that we will not breach our international obligations in addressing this problem. To do so would seriously undermine our international credibility. No other country with which we would like to be compared—the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, the United States, and the European nations—rules out the possibility of monetary compensation as a remedy for the worst breaches of prisoners’ human rights. None of those countries does that.

This bill does not limit or reduce victims’ rights, as is claimed by the Opposition. In fact, it greatly enhances victims’ rights to pursue civil damages claims against an offender. It does this in two ways. Firstly, it suspends the limitation period that applies to all civil claims while an offender is in prison. Offenders in prison cannot earn money, which means that making civil claims for damages against them is a waste of time. Suspending the limitation period means that the victim will have more time after the prisoner is released in which to pursue a claim if, for example, a prisoner comes into a windfall payment from an inheritance or a lottery win, or makes money from a successful business venture, as may be the case with white-collar criminals.

Secondly, if a prisoner is awarded compensation despite the new guidelines strictly limiting such payouts, the compensation will now be held in trust rather than released to the prisoner. Victims of the offender will be contacted, and assisted in making a civil claim for damages against that sum. Making such a claim will not re-victimise the victim. The facts of the offence will not need to be re-proven. Claims will be determined on the papers. The victim will not have to confront the offender, or even fill out the forms. Other persons or organisations may fill out the forms on the victim’s behalf. Not one cent of compensation payment will be turned over to the prisoner until all civil claims from victims, as well as outstanding reparation payments and outstanding legal aid charges, are satisfied.

These are new rights, and this bill extends new assistance to victims. This bill ensures that all the cases causing concern to the public are captured. The Taunoa payment, if it is upheld on appeal, will be subject to the new trust procedure, and victims will be assisted in making claims against it. The 200 new cases that Mr Taunoa’s lawyer has indicated he intends to bring will also be subject to the new guidelines restricting compensation. In the event that any of these cases result in a compensation award despite the new restrictions, those funds will be held in trust.

Of course, the best way to avoid having to make future payouts to prisoners is to prevent the grounds from which such claims first arise. For that reason the Government has agreed to a very constructive suggestion by the Greens that we follow the passage of this bill with legislation to establish a new independent prison complaints body. Such a body will help to ensure that complaints and problems in prisons are dealt with early, before they escalate to the point where grounds for damages claims might arise. Legislation establishing the new body will be passed by the end of 2006.

With a new complaints body in place, the likelihood of future payouts being ordered is expected to fall dramatically. For that reason, the bill contains a sunset clause that will effectively wind down the special claims procedure in a period after the new complaints body is established. The procedure will apply only to claims lodged by prisoners prior to 1 July 2007. A second sunset clause ensures that the guidelines restricting the circumstances in which compensation payments may be made will be reviewed before the same date. The Government has agreed with the Greens that the guidelines will benefit from a future review, in the light of experience, before being amended or renewed.

The Justice and Electoral Committee has recommended that there be an inquiry into support available for victims of serious crimes, and the place of victims in the justice system. The Greens also have expressed a strong desire for such an inquiry. The Government has agreed that such an inquiry will take place. Most New Zealanders find it abhorrent when prisoners are awarded compensation payments for wrongs they have suffered in prison, while prisoners have never paid any compensation at all for the harm they have inflicted on their victims. This bill tackles the problem by greatly restricting prisoners’ ability to claim such payments and greatly enhancing victims’ rights to take their own civil damages cases against the offenders who have wronged them.

The Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Bill deals effectively with the current cases causing concern and with cases that are foreshadowed. The new independent complaints body will reduce the likelihood of future cases arising. This new law strikes a far better balance in favour of victims than the law as the previous National Government left it, which gave prisoners unfettered access to compensation. It is National’s law that has led to the current round of cases, and it is that law that the Labour-Progressive Government is fixing today, with the support of the Greens. I commend this bill to the House.

In the world of spin and super-spin, the Associate Minister of Justice has no equal. He has made a number of extravagant and completely wrong statements. We know only too well that this bill would not have got as far as it has—and it may yet falter—but for the assistance of the Greens.

I wonder what Labour members opposite made last night of the comment of the Green MP Mr Locke, who disarmingly said, and I paraphrase: “This is a bad bill, but we will vote for it.” So Labour and Green have coalesced for present purposes, in order to see the passage of this legislation, which National on no basis will support. We have been opposed to this bill, for a number of reasons, right from the very beginning. Although we accept that where the State is a jailer—where it has a responsibility for prisons—it has an obligation to protect prisoners, and ensure their safe and reasonable treatment, but it is quite another thing to provide a statutory regime for prisoners to sue.

In the course of this debate, I have drawn attention to something I think is truly bizarre. Just across the way, in the Court of Appeal, the Government’s lawyers are saying that there should be no right to compensation. It is wrong that there should be compensation. It is sufficient when breaches of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act occur that there should be a declaration. Yet here in Parliament the Minister has said, with repeated fervour, that there should be compensation rights.

We have been treated to statements about our international law obligations that are plainly wrong. The Justice and Electoral Committee was properly apprised of the position but the Minister has, sadly, misunderstood the legal situation. We are party to a number of international treaties. One of those treaties is the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. It is known in the trade as the “CAT” convention. It was signed by New Zealand on 14 January 1986, and it was ratified by New Zealand on 10 December 1989. We are a party to that treaty arrangement. But we entered a specific reservation, consistent with our international obligations to that treaty, with reference to article 14 of the convention, to provide that we were prepared to provide compensation only at the discretion of the Attorney-General. We entered a reservation to that treaty that there would be occasional cases—hopefully occasional—of abuse where there would be ex gratia payments. This Government has gone way, way beyond that, for no good reason.

There will be a lot of problems with the legislation. Let me explain quickly why that will be so. The regime proposes that where a prisoner sues and gets a chunk of money, the damages will be awarded to the victims of that offender. I would like to take two illustrations to show what sort of problems will arise.

First, there is the situation of living victims. How will the damages be apportioned? I take the case of the serial rapist offender—a male who has raped, say, five women. How will the damages be awarded to each victim? Will they be awarded equally? Will the victim who suffered the most horrendous event receive more money? Will the victim for whom the scarring of the particular event was the most traumatic receive more money? That, as the Minister has said, is all to be decided by a new tribunal, on the papers. How will those judgments be made? The regime is ludicrous. That is the case when there are living victims.

What about the second case, when the victims are unknown or comprise a very large class? How will the damages be apportioned? I take the case of the drug dealer who sold drugs through a middleman to scores of people. How will that class of victim be established? If the class of victim cannot be established, is it appropriate that the offender retain the damages awarded? That is what this regime provides for.

I was interested to see that the Minister was prepared to credit the Green Party with the case that National has determinedly argued for: an independent prison inspector to comprehensively inspect and report on the state of our prisons. That was not a Green proposal. That is actually a National Party proposal. It is referred to in the commentary on the bill. A really good illustration of what can be done is Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons for England and Wales. That was established in 1981. It adopted a World Health Organization model of healthy prisons as a basis for inspections.

We can never completely rule out that claims for monetary compensation will not occur. But where they do occur, I would argue that those claims should be made on an ex gratia basis outside the legal system. In other words, they should be made in accordance with the international treaty obligations that we have taken up.

I also say that where prison abuse does occur, prisoners’ complaints should be dealt with by an effective complaints process, and disciplinary action against the jailers who violated the human rights of the prisoner. That may mean—as has happened in the past—that jailers are dismissed. It may mean that jailers face a disciplinary process that may have monetary consequences for them. What the Government has done is short-sighted, foolish, and driven by panic.

It is with satisfaction that I rise to support the third reading of this legislation. In doing that I would like to tell two stories. The first is an historic story, which begins with Labour’s inheritance when we came to Government in 1999. There are two particularly relevant parts of that inheritance. Firstly, we inherited human rights law that allowed for monetary compensation to be paid to people whose human rights had been breached. That law was tolerated by the previous National Government throughout the 1990s, including during the time when New Zealand First was in coalition with National. Secondly, Labour’s inheritance was a particularly weak law on victims’ rights. Victims had no statutory rights to have a say in the processes of the law. Labour did two key things. The first was to establish the Victims’ Rights Act, legislation that I seem to remember was actually opposed by National and ACT because they thought it went too far in giving victims statutory rights. That legislation gives victims a voice in the court and in the parole system, and we absolutely accepted at the time that that was the first stage in the development of a victims’ rights’ agenda, which will develop from there.

But a parallel development was the doubling of our prison population over the last 12 years, a process that has happened for a variety of reasons. The doubling of the prison population has led to massive pressures on the prison system. At the end of the day, prisoners are people who are in the care of the State. As we well know, the concept of human rights, at its heart, is about the relationship between Government and the governed. Prison inmates, people living in prison, are completely in the control of the State. They are in one sense the ultimately governed people in our nation, and they are in a situation that will always be open to abuse. That is why we have debates, and why we have institutions concerned with prisoners’ rights. No Western State denies prisoners’ human rights. No Western State fails to pay compensation to make amends for extreme breaches of the rights of prison inmates. In the last few years we have experienced situations where New Zealand’s legal system has found that prison inmates have had their human rights abused, and that those inmates were entitled to compensation. So, firstly, we have stronger victims’ rights law but, secondly, a situation whereby prisoners have had their human rights abused. It was the award of monetary payments for that that really began the key debate on this issue back in September last year.

I will quote from an editorial in the Sunday Star-Times of 5 September 2004, but first I will say that the words are from a lawyer who has done a lot to promote the issue of prisoners’ compensation, Tony Ellis. He said: “What one forgets is that these prisoners have been victims too, and two wrongs don’t make a right. The crimes that the men committed are contemptible and grave, and the men deserve to lose their liberty for them. But the abuses committed by the prison system are also serious. Those who say the men deserve nothing overlook this. What they are saying, in effect, is that in this case, wrongdoing should be winked at.” The Sunday Star-Times editorial then went on to state, and this is important: “If nobody guards the guards, we are headed down the path that leads to Abu Ghraib. Prisons are too often closed worlds where the power of the jailers goes unchecked. Abuses must be punished. If they are not, the state is reduced”—[Interruption] I tell Mr Mapp—“to the level of the criminal who goes scot-free.” The editorial concluded: “Politicians will always play to the gallery on these issues, and the outbursts by Ryall and Goff are drearily predictable. In fact, there may be a middle way here. Few would object if, once the criminals had received their compensation, they were then required to hand a fair chunk of it to their victims. That way, their complaint has been upheld, and the principle of deterrence has been served.”

That is exactly what this legislation actually does. That is the second story we have to tell: the reaction of the Government and Parliament to the reality of the compensation awards last year. The legislation was developed in that context, and it is very tricky legislation because it tries to deal both with the very real and powerful needs of victims, and also with the situation where the vast majority of the public was offended at the level of compensation awarded to prison inmates. As the Minister has described, a solution has been developed whereby victims will have an extra right inserted, in order to be able to claim back compensation through the system.

I chaired the Justice and Electoral Committee, which dealt with the legislation, and, oddly enough, I commend both Tony Ellis and the Sensible Sentencing Trust for managing to agree on an awful lot in the advice they gave to our committee. Both said that they did not want, ideally, a situation of compensation going to prison inmates, but also that they did not want there to be an abusive prison system. Unfortunately, the solution that has been constantly called for by the Opposition in Parliament in this debate over the last day is one that can be described as an abusive system. Those members are advocating a system where there is no incentive not to abuse prison inmates. The select committee went through an exhaustive process, which took longer, I think, than the Minister was entirely relaxed with, in trying to develop other options. We looked at the removal or restriction of monetary compensation, but that was clearly a significant breach of international law. We looked at the diversion of the money into a trust, but, again, that was a breach of international law. We looked at deducting legal aid costs, but that would not have actually dealt with the cases currently before the courts. We looked at monetary limits to damages, but, again, that would have been a breach of international law. We looked at a fines system, where someone who already had fines owing would have had to pay those fines off, as well. We were told again that that was a breach of international law. We looked at introducing a concept of victims’ orders as some kind of damages system separate to reparations. We went further with that one than with the others, and I think that it may well be an issue we will go back to when we look at the broader issue of victims’ rights.

At the end of it all, we concluded that the legislation had the right balance, but we used the very necessary power of a select committee to make two key recommendations. Firstly, we recommended the establishment of an independent prison inspectorate.

Dr Wayne Mapp: We said we should establish an independent inspectorate.

TIM BARNETT: That was not the National Party’s idea, but one I think that emerged particularly from the Labour and Green members on the committee, and it is something that is absolutely essential in my view. The establishment of a standards-based, independent prison inspectorate was unanimously supported by the select committee. Secondly, we resolved to establish an inquiry to look at the next stage of the agenda in relation to victims’ rights, having heard searing stories particularly from people whose family members had been murdered. They talked about the impact of that on them, and about their support needs that were not being met. We were quite clear that there is another stage to go on the victims’ rights agenda, and we have agreed to establish an inquiry to look into that.

What was fascinating, when watching the Opposition during the debate, was to see that when Mr Worth was in the Chamber he advocated the establishment of the independent inspectorate, and that as soon as he was not around his colleagues started to screech that that would require yet more money to be spent. There is no consistency at all in the position the Opposition is taking. We heard Wayne Mapp talk about his sister having received compensation in New South Wales. If he wants to adopt that kind of system, then I can assure him another few million dollars will need to be spent on that. Only 10 minutes later, when we were talking about the need to develop better victims’ rights, Sandra Goudie was screeching that that would cost yet more money. There is no consistency in the Opposition’s position; it is absolutely playing to the gallery.

The mark of a great Government in the MMP environment is that it finds workable solutions to problems, and works generously and positively with other parties that have similar values. I thank the Greens for their cooperation on this legislation, which I commend to the House.

I was speaking only 45 minutes ago on the reason why this bill is before the House. I am pleased that the Hon Rick Barker, the Minister in charge of the bill, confirmed what I said about the reasons for the bill coming into the House.

Where New Zealand First disagrees with Labour is quite simple: we believe that all the money obtained by prisoners for breaches of their rights should go into a victims’ claims trust account, and that all of it should be paid to victims. None of it should go to criminals. We do not want to support criminals. Labour wants to support criminals. The Green Party wants to support criminals. Labour and the Greens want to support some of the most vicious criminals that exist in New Zealand today. If I take Mr Barnett’s last few words—that the mark of a great MMP party is that it finds parties of a like mind—and if the like mind is a party that supports Labour wanting to make payments to some of the most vicious criminals in society, which the Greens support, I ask what sort of like mind that is. Some might say it is a very twisted mind—but I am sure the public will decide.

This bill is all about prisoners abusing the prison system. It is all about increasing the abuse of the prison system by prisoners. It is very simple: in prison are the worst people in our society; in prison are the greatest thugs—the most brutal people—in our society. Those people do not have any regard for human rights—that is why they committed some of their crimes. Those poor, darling prisoners will work out for themselves that if they make life very hard for the prison guards, who, ultimately, will retaliate, they will get some compensation because their human rights have been breached. That knowledge will be just about handed to them by the bush lawyers in prison, who will say to them that while they are in there, the best way to make some money is not by being on prison detail, or whatever, but just by making life as difficult as possible for their guards—making the guards attack them, or leave the light on for too long, or leave them locked up for too long, or not hear them when they are crying out for help. They will make money that way.

I have been into just about all our prisons at one stage or another in my capacities as a lawyer and as a member of Parliament. These people are not nice. They will come up with these ideas, and these ideas will be in the prisoners’ handbook that is handed down from one prisoner to another. This Government is asking for trouble. This Government and the Greens want to make sure that more and more of the public purse is spent on, at the end of the day, prisoners, who will take the balance of whatever might be in the trust account.

The worst prisoners in our society will not make any payments to victims. I refer to drug dealers. Drug dealers, whose victims probably number hundreds of thousands by now, have faceless victims. Compensation resulting from any actions that drug dealers take in prison will not be shared with anybody. None of their money will ever go to a single victim, despite the fact that some of their victims have even died as a result of drug overdoses and suchlike. We could say that those people should not have taken drugs and should not have had drug overdoses, or whatever, and that is a point, but the drug dealers will keep all the compensation they get for their actions. The worst type of criminal will get all the money. New Zealand First says that is just not on.

The way in which we can cut down on the misbehaviour of guards and other staff in prisons is to commence court actions against them—to prosecute them. If necessary, if they are convicted, they might end up in prison. That would be their punishment. That would be the redress. We do not want to say to prisoners that they should be entitled to extra money as a result of their stay in prison.

Some of the arguments that have been put forward are on the windfall argument. The Minister may say that if a prisoner has a windfall, he or she has to pay it out, but we are talking about prisoners who have defrauded the Inland Revenue Department, and who are some of the most smart white collar criminals about. They have run the biggest drug businesses, which have been going for a long time, very successfully, in the criminal underworld. Yet the Minister is trying to tell the House that, somehow or other, if those people get a windfall, they will let everybody know and share that windfall with their victims. What a laugh! Those people will know that the first thing to do when they get a windfall is to put the money in a trust account in somebody else’s name, or, even more simple, just in an account in another person’s name. They will never ever say that they have written a great book and made millions of dollars, and will share the money with all their victims. They are just not those sorts of people. So the windfall argument does not hold up, at all.

United Future finally decided, thanks to Marc Alexander, that it would not support the bill, which is going through the House only because the Greens have come through and given their support. It is really ironic that of the members of United Future, a party that boasts so many Christians, it was an atheist—or a non-believer—who stood up to be counted. He said that he would not support the legislation, and that he would take the Christians with him. Where were the Christians in United Future? They should have been the ones opposing this bill. But, no, they were the ones supporting it. We have to congratulate the non-Christian in United Future, Marc Alexander, on standing up. It has not been a road to Damascus experience for him—he has always believed in this; he has always been strong on law and order. I sensed when I was on the Justice and Electoral Committee with him that he was very, very upset with this legislation and with United Future’s seeming support for it. So I say congratulations to Marc Alexander, and a black mark to those so-called Christians in United Future who were prepared to support this bill, and who were dragged, kicking and screaming, by Marc Alexander into opposing it—and a great job he has done.

But what credit has Marc Alexander got from United Future as a result of this?

Pita Paraone: Down on the list.

DAIL JONES: He is so far down on the list that, as things stand, he will not be back. But, of course, the Christians are looking after themselves, and they intend to be back even though they were prepared to see, at one stage, vicious criminals making money out of imprisonment.

As far as the Greens are concerned—well, they never do anything without something in return. The Greens say that they are supporting this bill because of this new authority that will be established. They say that there should be an independent prison inspector to examine the situation. Well, that was the unanimous view of the Justice and Electoral Committee from what I can read. Everyone in the select committee seemed to agree with that view, as stated on page 9 of the report. It was not a new idea. Everyone agreed on it. For the Greens to say suddenly “That was our idea.”, well—

Nandor Tanczos: We just delivered it!

DAIL JONES: The Greens have not delivered anything, because it is supposed to be done next year. Will the Greens be here even to know about it, if it ever happens? So what a stupid argument from the Greens!

One must make the point that it was the National Party that was more specific in its minority view, on page 10 of the report. It stated that there was a clear case for an independent prison inspector. When one looks at the Greens’ minority view one sees there is barely a mention of it. The Green member’s view states: “While he supports the committee’s recommendations for an independent prison inspectorate serious concerns remain about the current ability of the Department of Corrections to impartially and adequately investigate claims of abuse by staff.” Well, he was not really terribly enthusiastic about it at the time.

What is the real reason the Greens are supporting this? I believe they have done a secret deal with Labour; that Labour has done a deal with the Greens spokesman—and we know who that is; it is Nandor Tanczos, and we know what Nandor Tanczos stands for, and that is legalised marijuana—that if the Greens come back in the next term as members of a minority Labour Government, marijuana will be legalised. That is what I see as being the situation. That is what one would get with a Green Party and Labour Party Government. [Interruption] It is no use Mr Mallard shouting his head off; we know that that would be the deal. Because what other deal would Nandor Tanczos want? After all, everyone has agreed with the need for an independent prison authority. That is nothing new. We all agree on it. The extra icing on the cake—the extra little bit of marijuana in Nandor Tanczos’ birthday cake—is a deal with Labour to legalise marijuana.

The interesting thing about sitting through the submissions from the victims was how few of them—in fact, I do not think any of them did—spoke in terms as strongly as has been expressed in Parliament today about prisoners; those who had hurt them. In fact, nearly all of them said they wanted prisoners to be protected from abuse or harm in prison. They wanted prisoners to have a means of remedy when they, in turn, were hurt. They did not want to see prisoners suffering abuse. But at the same time, the victims made it absolutely clear—not that they had needs that ought to be met, or as Mr Barnett has just implied, would be met, by more Government money—they simply wanted to see that justice was not undermined.

In that sense, the fury that we are hearing from the Opposition members today who are opposed to this bill, is entirely justified. It is not overstated. Because what the victims were saying to us was: “Step back from the technicalities, step back from the lawyers’ opinions, step back from the 136-page judgment of Justice Young, and just look at it as we see it. Who is ending up with society’s help out of this? We are left to deal with the injury inflicted by these beasts on us to cope as best we can—paying our own parking fines to get to court, and having to buy the suits to bury our dead. Meanwhile the State is taking this tender care of prisoners.”

That is what they were concerned about. They were simply saying: “Look at how it looks to us, with what we already think to be derisory, inadequate penalties.” The parole system tells prisoners that the punishment—the price—means nothing as long as they can pretend not to be a danger to the community when they are one-third of the way through the sentence. Then on top of that, when those people have the lights left on too long, or are not given a clean laundry bag, or they have a window left open in winter, when it should have been closed—

Jill Pettis: Oh, don’t be ridiculous.

STEPHEN FRANKS: Mrs Pettis says “ridiculous”. Has she read Justice Young’s judgment? Has she seen the list of complaints that resulted in each of those complainants getting $500 a week—$2,500 a month for the time they were on their behaviour modification regime? Many of them would not have been able to earn that in honest toil. That would have been the best money, tax-free, they had ever made—for being in prison! What was upsetting the victims was that they were facing a select committee that knew that what was being proposed was wrong. They could tell from our body language—and I say “our” because it included the Labour members, who did a good job on this—that we, too, agreed that there was something deeply wrong with this. They expected the outcome to be respect for their position. That is why the Sensible Sentencing Trust came back when it saw what the select committee had done, or what the Government—the Minister—had forced on the select committee, and what Mr Goff’s officials had bulldozed through with the help of the Greens and Labour. That is why they said: “victim bashing; political arrogance; Government hypocrisy”. This was a bill that Mr Goff said was there to help victims, and that is how the most active representatives of victims judged it.

Garth McVicar said that the select committee process was an utter sham, and the most blatant example of our democratic system being trashed that he had ever witnessed. That is because those representatives took it seriously. They thought there was a chance of getting this bill to reflect what victims really want: a system that does not insult them. They were not there to be vindictive; they simply did not want to see the cruel irony of prisoners being paid for trivial abuse while the law in New Zealand states that real crime victims can get nothing. That is the problem. The accident compensation scheme states that generally, even if the other party had the money, one cannot sue for the kinds of injuries inflicted by crime. Yet this Government now claims, absolutely falsely, that we are obliged by the United Nations Human Rights Committee, the members of which are appointed by some of the most disgusting, vile, and cruel dictators on this earth. Mr Mugabe has a nominee on the United Nations Human Rights Committee, as does the Sudan—a country that is arresting people who are reporting mass rape—and this Government says we kowtow, in this country, to the United Nations Human Rights Committee!

Is it any wonder that Garth McVicar of the Sensible Sentencing Trust thinks that this Government is an utter disgrace? Representatives came here, in good faith, and tried earnestly with Tony Ellis—who, of course, they were suspicious of; he is the representative who is claiming over $3.5 million from the Government in compensation for 200 criminals—they sat down to try to sort out something that would suit the interests of all New Zealanders, having prisons that kept prisoners safe, and something whereby victims would be protected from the further outrage that this legislation now countenances. In the end, the shutters came down. After all the work that one can see in the select committee’s report, no substantial changes were made.

What are we talking about? The Government has grudgingly released, under question, that in 2000 the then Attorney-General authorised the payment of around $325,000 to four Mongrel Mob members. Other payments that have never been identified bring the total up to $566,000 over 6 years. Then we got to 2004. Justice Young told the Government in April 2004 that he had decided to uphold the claims of Taunoa and his mates. In August 2004 the Human Rights Review Tribunal awarded to MacMillan $1,200 for injury to his feelings, loss of dignity, and humiliation, because the father of one of his victims had seen a letter that he had not seen. Do members recall the Christchurch case? MacMillan, scumbag of the worst sort, committed some of the most disgusting crimes that could be committed. The father of a teenage girl had written a letter describing what he believed MacMillan had done to his daughter, and this scum was awarded damages by the Human Rights Review Tribunal for injury to his feelings!

Victims do not get awarded any damages for injury to their feelings. It is just not there. So we are told by the United Nations Human Rights Committee that we have to continue paying $1,200 for injury to feelings, loss of dignity, and humiliation, to some of the worst criminals in this country, and the Government will not stand up to it. It simply will not do anything. It has come to the House with a bill that Mr Goff trumpeted three times: first, over the outrage with the MacMillan award; secondly, when the Young decision came in September; and, thirdly, in October when he still did not have his bill ready. Finally, when his bill was released it was a damp squib.

Why did it not simply end judges’ powers to make these awards? What is left of New Zealand sovereignty with these so-called human-rights abuses? Financial compensation for them was never voted on by this Parliament. It was expressly excluded from the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, and it was invented by the judges in 1994. There was absolutely no constitutional reason why this Parliament could not simply have said either that the Baigent decision was overreaching and should not stand, or at least in respect of prisoners it should not stand. Instead, what did we get from a Government that promised that victims and their families would get compensation, that they would have Government assistance to claw back windfalls, or inheritances, or even Lotto or the proceeds of a book sale? We got what the prisoners and the lawyers described as illusion.

Members of the public can be excused for being confused about the content of the bill, because it is clear that a number of members of this House are themselves confused, judging by their contributions to the debate. The interesting thing is that many of the things that members who are opposing the bill are calling for are the very things that the Green Party has secured through our support for the bill.

Wayne Mapp, for example, talked about the need for an independent prison inspectorate. That is something that the Green Party has supported—in fact, the whole Justice and Electoral Committee supported it. The Greens have been supporting it for quite a deal longer. We tried to get it during the passing of the Corrections Bill, and failed. I have raised the matter with the Prime Minister during question time in this House, but perhaps members like Dail Jones were asleep when that was going on. Clearly, the National Party did not come up with the idea. That party may support it, but it has done nothing about it. It is exactly what the Greens have secured—a written commitment to establish an independent prison complaints authority by the end of 2006.

Mr Mapp talked about the victim compensation scheme in Australia. Actually, last week the Justice and Electoral Committee was in Australia and visited victim support services. The Greens are very supportive of the victim compensation scheme available in Australia. The idea that some victims can get accident compensation on the same basis as people who had an accident at work is offensive to the victims of crime. That is why we think there needs to be a review, and, specifically, we have a written commitment to look at support available for victims and the role of victims in the criminal justice system. I agree with Mr Franks that the rights of victims are not being met under the current system, and the Greens are pleased that we have been able to negotiate something that will advance the rights of victims.

Peter Brown suggested that the bill would lead to a situation where two inmates who fight in prison would both sue the Department of Corrections under accident compensation. Firstly, the member seems to have forgotten that accident compensation is specifically designed to stop people suing, and, in fact, it is not a regime that relies on suit; and, secondly, the member is so far away from the reality of what the bill actually does that one has to wonder who he gets his advice from.

But then, of course, one remembers that it is Mr Dail Jones. That member had so little to say about the bill, he knew so little about the bill, that he had to spend most of his speech talking about cannabis, because that is all he could think about. Also, the select committee staff, as far as I understand, no longer take that member’s nameplate to the Justice and Electoral Committee because he does not bother to turn up any more.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): It is out of order to refer to the absence of a member, whether it is in the House or at a select committee. Members have other duties, as well.

NANDOR TANCZOS: My apologies.

Dail Jones: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. As members of the Law and Order Committee will know, I am trying to attend that committee on the Criminal Procedure Bill, which has a lot of legal information in it, rather than going to the Justice and Electoral Committee.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you, Mr Jones. That was not a point of order, and I had already referred to that matter.

NANDOR TANCZOS: What the bill does in essence is three simple things. Firstly, it provides guidelines for judges when determining whether to provide financial compensation for people who have been abused while in the State’s custody, and it makes it harder to get. Secondly, if compensation is made, it freezes the compensation while the victims of that person are informed, and provision is made for them to sue for that money. Thirdly, it suspends and extends the statute of limitations relating to victims of crime. It is very, very simple.

The Greens did not originally support the bill, because we were not convinced either that it was the best way to deal with the situation or that it did not have the potential to breach international conventions. In fact, we were given very strong evidence in the Justice and Electoral Committee that the bill did potentially breach international conventions, although officials also gave us advice that in their view it did not, and clearly it is a borderline case. However, the Green Party was persuaded to support the bill for four very good reasons.

Firstly, if the Government had to rely on United Future for support, the amendment that United Future required would have removed all rights of redress for breaches of people’s human rights while in the State’s custody. That is a clear, flagrant, unashamed breach of international conventions, and, as I have said before, the Green Party is a party that believes that New Zealand does need to adhere to its international conventions and agreements, and to the word we have given the international community. Such an amendment would have left the door wide open to continued abuse in the prison system. I note that Mr Marc Alexander is confused on this issue, because sometimes he says that abuse should not happen in the prison system and sometimes he says that prisoners deserve whatever they get. Clearly, his commitment to stopping abuse in the prisons is not as solid as his position on other things.

Secondly, the Greens are supporting the bill because we negotiated a sunset clause to limit the bill to claims made before mid-2007, and that applies to all parts of the bill except the bit relating to the statute of limitations provisions, which we do support, as I indicated in my first reading speech.

Thirdly, we got a written commitment to an inquiry into support for victims and the role of victims in the criminal justice system, as I have already mentioned. We heard clearly in the Justice and Electoral Committee that victims’ rights are not met by this bill, and the Greens hope to see a victim compensation scheme, similar to the one in Australia, introduced in the House. I have already talked about that. We believe that the rights of victims do need to be advanced in this country. I make the point also that we have spoken about this consistently and continuously since we came into Parliament as an independent Green Party, and have consistently made the point that the rights of victims will never be properly met while we rely on a primarily adversarial court system.

Fourthly, we got a written commitment to establish an independent prison complaints authority by the end of next year, and its function will be both to investigate complaints and to do institutional inspections. We believe that it needs to have both those functions to work properly. We believe that the best protection from compensation claims and the political difficulties that arise out of them is prompt and effective investigation of complaints within the prison system, so those complaints do not then go on to become significant problems that need significant redress.

The last thing I would like to touch on is the issue of retrospectivity, which has been an issue of some interest in the media this morning, and has been the subject of comment by Mr Tony Ellis—a lawyer who, like Mr Franks, I deeply respect for his very strong, clear, and consistent commitment to defending some of the most marginalised people and advancing the causes of human rights in this country. The bill, as I understand it, applies to claims where the final determination has been made after the enactment of the bill. Clearly, that is why the Government is seeking to pass the bill this week—because of the cases before the Court of Appeal. Appeals that require leave are not included in the definition of a final determination, so it does not include appeals to the Supreme Court. So my understanding is that the bill is not retrospective, in the sense that it does not go backwards in time. What it does is provide a broad enough net that it captures cases still current. In that sense it will actually affect the cases before the Court of Appeal this week. I think it is useful to make that point clear.

So the Greens do remain concerned about the bill. We remain concerned that it is a bill passed in haste to address a specific court case. But we believe that in the current circumstances we have negotiated the best possible outcome—one that balances the rights of victims with the need to protect against abuse within the correctional system, and maintains our commitment to international conventions.

We ended 2002 by passing the Victims Rights Bill, and that heralded so much promise. There have been a few baby steps along the way since that time. Sadly, this bill goes backwards. This bill turns round to victims, having given them some hope in the previous legislation, and states that Parliament is going to put offenders first and revisit their victimisation all over again through this bill. The sad thing is that everybody, from all parties, on the Justice and Electoral Committee really tried hard to do something that would benefit victims ahead of the interests of offenders. In the end, that seemed to be put in the too-hard basket. The Labour Government was caught between its supposed obligations to international accords and its desire to do something to prevent inmates from collecting compensation.

What the Government has ended up with is perhaps the worst of all possible worlds, because, cynically, what the bill proposes to do, at least in principle, is to allow prisoners to get compensation and then try to make it difficult for them to keep it by forcing victims to engage with them legally in order to strip them of the money they get. The problem is that in order to support the supposed international accords on human rights, the bill actually breaches the human rights of victims in the process. In other words, on balance, when we look at the rights of offenders as against the rights of victims, we see that the bill errs on the side of offenders. That is a tragedy; it is the step backwards that I mentioned.

A number of members have spoken about the fact that we need to fix up the prison system, and I think everybody agrees with that. But, interestingly, the best prison in the country, the one with the least infractions, the one that did not have the behaviour management regime programme, and the one that did not have the “goon squad”, was the Auckland Central Remand Prison. Not only was it the best prison in the country, and the only one that has been internationally recognised for its standards, but it was also privately managed. If we get the Government anywhere near corrections, we end up in trouble. The privately managed prison, apart from being by far and away the best prison in the country, also, paradoxically, saved taxpayers $27,000 per year per inmate. So it actually saved money for everybody, including the pockets of victims, who now have to stump up to have the prison revert to State control and who, of course, will see more infractions because the State cannot be trusted to run its prison system as well as a tendered-out operation.

Penalties should be extracted from corrections staff who violate the law. Most corrections staff are hard-working, good people who want to ensure that the job is done properly, but, unfortunately, a few rotten apples ruin it for everybody else. The staff who do violate the law ought to be punished, but the penalty must be seen as a punishment against them and the corrections system they work for, and not as a reward for the criminal. There is the dilemma for the Government. It cannot see beyond its own nose and realise that there is a difference between the two, but it should have created legislation along exactly those lines. If the Government really wants to stop prison infringements and abuses, then it should punish those responsible. It should charge them, and not just reward the crims. As far as human rights are concerned, inmates’ human rights must be balanced against victims’ rights and the human rights of other inmates and guards. Clearly, some of the so-called infringements that were brought to the public’s attention, and that are the reason why we are here in the House, have come about because we have not got that balance right.

Much has been made of our international obligations. That seems to be a problem of having a Minister who wears two hats. On the one hand Phil Goff is trying to advance the cause of justice in this country, and on the other hand he is held firm by the international obligations he thinks he is supposed to uphold. The real question, though, is: what is the sovereign body of this country? It has to be Parliament. It cannot be up to the people who sit at the United Nations to determine how we choose to live our lives and how we choose to dispense our sense of justice. The people who sit at the United Nations are not the ones who help to heal the victims of this country. They are not here. They are not here to see people like Taunoa, who continually victimised guards, other inmates, and his victims themselves—which is why he ended up in prison in the first place. The people at the United Nations are not here, yet we have to abide by the UN accords. That is a travesty. It puts our faith and our sense of justice into the hands of the people who have the least to do with it, and that is fundamentally flawed and wrong.

What we really have to look at here is who really gets compensated by this legislation. The damage done to victims by being forced to go after the compensation, if only to deny it to the offender, will be considerable. They will be damaged. The people who have to go to the parole board time and time again, to try to keep offenders in prison for longer because we have a weak approach to parole, have their lives ruined in the process. What we say, we do not do. We give a person 15 years, but the person does 5. That is pathetic. It is against the interests of victims. This legislation is another part of that process.

The Sensible Sentencing Trust has come out with a statement that I think is worthy of being recited. I want to take a minute to say that Stephen Franks from the ACT party has already talked about the huge contribution of Garth McVicar and his wife and the team at the Sensible Sentencing Trust in raising awareness—in raising the issues that matter to this country. I—and I think I speak for most members in this House—commend them for doing so. I hope that they continue to do so, because unless they do this Government and future Governments will not listen. A comment from the Sensible Sentencing Trust reads: “In the worst example of victims’ rights abuse in modern-day history, the Government and the Greens have chosen to ignore victims’ pleas and ridiculed democracy with the introduction of the most draconian piece of legislation this country has seen for a long time. The Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Bill was the Government’s pathetic attempt to pacify the public outrage at compensation being awarded to prisoners for some factious abuse of their human rights. What this legislation means is that prisoners will continue clogging up our courts and continue being paid thousands of dollars of taxpayers’ money. Watch the legal and gravy-train lawyers milk every dollar possible out of this legislation.” Then it asks a very pertinent question. “Once again, criminal rights take precedence over victims’ rights. Whose side is the Government really on: victims, or criminals? This legislation proves that it is on the side of the criminal.”

I will end on this one note. This battle for victims may be lost, but the voice of victims will not be silenced. Their blood can never be spilt in vain on the footsteps of our criminal justice system, because they are the heart of it. At some point in the future the biggest voting bloc in this country will be victims, and then we will see some change. It is a pity that we have to have so many victims in order to effect it. Ninety-two percent of people in 1999, with Norm Withers’ referendum, made a loud and clear voice for people who love justice everywhere in this country. This Government has failed them, and it will continue to fail them until it addresses the real core issues. This legislation is a crock. It turns its tail on victims’ rights, and destroys the promise that started so wonderfully with the victims’ rights legislation of 2002. This is the saddest day of my time in Parliament.

At a time when New Zealand has the leading figures for unemployment throughout the world, and a crime rate that is going down to a level that has not been seen for over 20 years, it is extraordinary to listen to a speech such as that. The reality is that there is not one single answer to crime in this country. But I tell members that we as a Government have built, or are about to build, an extra set of prisons that I do not think this country should have to spend its money on. We have also made sure that a significant number of New Zealanders now have a reason to get out of bed in the morning—they have a job. For Mr Alexander not to understand that means that he lives in a completely different world from me.

I live in south Auckland. I was born there, I grew up there, and I still live there. People sometimes point to that community and ask who would want to come from that place and who would want to live there. I am proud to say that I come from that place. I was proud to read in the local newspaper recently of a dairy owner in Māngere who said that, in the past, he had to keep his eye on young guys who came into his shop in the morning; that they would usually nick something when they came in, because they had nothing else to do. Now they are coming in to buy their lunch, because they are off to work. That is the real answer—not this crap about victims, about every New Zealander being a victim. What a bizarre thought—that all New Zealanders are victims! That is absolute nonsense.

Brian Connell: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. In the past you have ruled that type of language out of order. I am wondering why you have not on this occasion.

Hon MARK GOSCHE: I withdraw and apologise.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): It has been tested now. The member has withdrawn and apologised.

Hon MARK GOSCHE: For Mr Alexander to claim that every New Zealander is a victim is extraordinary. It is just not true. This bill seeks to deal with a situation where a person has been imprisoned, and the system has not treated that person as it should—in the normal, humane way that any decent human being would expect to be treated, or would expect a member of his or her family to be treated, if he or she were in prison anywhere in the world. If we fall foul of those standards, those people should have some legal redress. This bill seeks to ensure that the victims whom that person in prison offended against now have the opportunity to say: “I’m not prepared to let that person get the money while I stand here and get nothing.”, and we have made it very simple for them to do so.

Most New Zealanders would understand this bill to be sensible legislation. But that lot down there who spend their lives obsessing about the problems, rather than the solutions, are ignoring the fundamental fact that we in this country do not want to go down to the lowest common denominator and ignore human rights, no matter who sets them—and we set our own human rights legislation in this land. I want to be part of a Parliament that says we have standards that apply even to people we imprison, people whose rights and liberty we take away, and we should live by them. That is what we as a Government want to do, and that is what we are doing with this bill.

I am happy to support the bill. But I remind people out there that the real answer is not to pass law after law that deals with the punishment side of things. This Government has a very strong record on that, by the way. We have had to build prisons, and increase the numbers of police staff, prison officers, probation service staff, and social workers, because we are cleaning up after 15 years of neglect, 15 years of new-right politics in this country that ignored the human values that this Government stands for. That is why we need this legislation.

What an extraordinary speech that was! It was absolutely contemptuous of victims of crime in New Zealand.

Darren Hughes: The member wasn’t listening.

Dr WAYNE MAPP: I was listening. We witnessed the new love affair between Labour and the Green Party—the party that loves the dope. I guess United Future has been spurned by Labour. After one little rebellion by United Future, it has been spurned in a most contemptuous way. It has been absolutely amazing.

Today the Government is codifying into the law, into statute, the right of prisoners to sue for compensation. The reality is that it is putting that into statute law. Previously, that right, to the extent that it existed at all, rested on a High Court decision only. What has the Government done? It has taken that decision of the High Court and put it into the supreme law of this land—the laws of this Parliament. The Minister for Courts, the Associate Minister of Justice, has completely misinterpreted Baigent’s case. That case concerned an entirely innocent citizen whose home was invaded by the police. The police recognised their error at the time they did that. They said: “Oh, we’re here now, so we might as well execute the search warrant even though it’s not for you.” It was on that basis that that innocent family sued, and it got compensation. Who on earth could be surprised by that? Was it extraordinary that National did not repeal that decision, in those circumstances? Obviously, we would not do that. Who would possibly think an innocent citizen should not have some remedy? Instead, what this Government has done is accept a High Court decision, enshrine it into the law of this Parliament under urgency, and ride roughshod over the rights of victims. It is lamentable.

The Deputy Prime Minister was in the House earlier. He was part of a Government that in 1989 put a specific reservation into the relevant international convention that stated that prisoners would not be able to sue for compensation. Apparently, that means nothing. Talk about respect for international law! Clearly, the Government does not even understand its own previous practices.

There was another way. I spoke of my sister who received compensation for a violent assault in New South Wales. She received it from a proper victims’ fund. I am pleased to hear that members across this Parliament recognise that that is a good system. The Government has had a whole year, since the decision of the High Court, to do something about it. This bill took months to be introduced—in December last year. We are now in June, and it is being reported back after submissions. The Government could have established a victims’ code. What we should be dealing with today in this House, if we have to pass legislation under urgency, is legislation entitled the “Victims’ Compensation Bill”, not a bill that gives statutory, codified rules for prisoners’ compensation. Those were the real options. Now the Government says: “Ah, well, we could do that. We could hold an inquiry.” It is, after all, something it thinks it might be able to do. Well, it has had a whole year to do it.

I want to make this point in relation to the cost of victims’ compensation. Clearly, some money is involved. Australia is able to do it. It is really an issue of choice. We could spend $250 million on a wānanga, for instance, and get whatever value we think we might get out of that $250 million—a quarter of a billion dollars—or we could spend some money on victims. Those are the kinds of real choices that confront Governments. This Government has had a whole year to wrestle with this issue. Has it done anything about it? What work has Mr Alexander been undertaking with the Government to achieve that particular outcome? That was one of the choices before it.

I am disappointed that, in a sense, we are debating the wrong bill. We should be debating the “Victims’ Compensation Bill”. If we had been doing so, National would be happy to support such a bill. Instead, we are debating a statutory code of compensation for prisoners. The Government says: “Oh well, of course, if a prisoner sues and gets some compensation, the victim can then get some money.” But that is completely round the wrong way. It puts the victims in the incredibly difficult position of hoping that the rights of a prisoner are infringed, so that the prisoner will then sue the Crown and the victim will get some money. Frankly, that is just absurd.

The Government has had a whole year to deal with this problem—and I recognise that it did have a problem. Why do we not have a “Victims’ Compensation Bill” coupled with—and I think this matter has the consent of every party in the House—a bill that establishes an independent inspectorate of prisons? We could have been doing that today, but we are not. Every party in this Parliament has spoken in support of an independent inspectorate of prisons. It was put in the select committee report by members months and months ago. What has happened? Nothing. All that has happened is some sort of inquiry. Well, Governments are elected to do things, and that is one of the things this Government could have done. This is a sad day, because it is a day of lost opportunities—lost opportunities for victims, who could have been getting a new code of compensation today. Mr Garth McVicar would have issued a press release in support of the Government if that kind of bill was being debated today. A bill giving victims a statutory code of compensation—and it exists in Australia—would have been supported today.

Hon Mark Gosche: That’s another one he’s going to pay for out of tax cuts.

Dr WAYNE MAPP: That is exactly the point Mr Gosche completely misses. He would rather see $250 million of funding go to a wānanga and be absolutely wasted. We, in contrast, would sooner be supporting victims. It is all about choices. The Government makes the wrong choices. That is the real problem here. Fundamentally, the Labour Government has its headspace in the wrong place.

Hon Georgina te Heuheu: The public knows that.

Dr WAYNE MAPP: As my colleague says, the public knows that. So National is opposing this bill today, because it is the wrong choice. It is not a requirement of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act that we pass this legislation. It is not a requirement of international law that we pass this legislation. This bill is an insult to victims, who deserve a proper code of compensation. It is fundamentally based on a wrong premise, and for that reason we are voting against it. We are proud of that, because we will do justice for victims when we are in Government.

National is voting against this bill today because an election is looming. Members should be under no misapprehension as to whether it is about the poor victim or whether it is about what National wants to do to appease the public. National’s motive for voting against this bill is purely and simply that by 24 September we must have an election. National is typically tough while in Opposition, but a lamb while in Government. We on the Government side of the House, and the Greens, who are supporting this bill today, know that we will never out-hang National. We will never be a “public floggings, public hangings, roll up to the revolution and bring along your knitting needles, ladies” type of Government. That is not part of our personal philosophy. But quietly, surely, and positively, this Government has done a huge amount to assist the victims of all manner of crimes. We are proud of the legislative changes we have been able to make to give victims’ rights a high priority.

Those of us who are realists and who talk to real people of all socio-economic classes know that there is no way any Western, developed country can ever say that there will never ever be crime again. We abhor crime. Thinking people abhor crime. Thinking people also find it abhorrent when prisoners are awarded compensation payments for wrongs that they may have suffered in prison, but we also believe in the old adage that prevention is better than cure. It is much better to have systems in place to prevent abuse from occurring in those institutions in the first place. That is a priority. It does not scream out at people from the front pages of the papers, but it works. It works to have systems and measures in place, and to have appropriate staffing levels and well-trained staff. That is far more effective than salivating and drooling at the mouth about punishment and about how we will “fix those people”.

National has been all over the show on this bill, and that has been particularly evident in its actions in the House today. Those of us on the Government side of the House who are here at the moment have been in the House for most of the day, and we have observed the body language and the behaviour of the Opposition members. Those members have been about as organised as—we will not draw an analogy. They were highly disorganised. A lot of that stems from the fact that the National Party has no leadership at all on this issue. That goes right back to September last year. On 14 September Don Brash said that National wanted to “prevent convicted criminals from collecting significant taxpayer compensation”, but on the next day he said that National wanted legislation “removing the entitlement of prisoners to compensation” altogether. That conflicting attitude—one view one day, another view the next—is very prevalent in the way the National Party has handled the debate at all stages of this bill. There is no leadership on this issue, and those kinds of attitudes do not bode well for the social future of this country.

In conclusion, I just want to say that if a prisoner is awarded compensation despite the new guidelines that strictly limit payouts, victims will not have to front up to the perpetrator of the crime that was committed against them. Victims will be contacted, and they will be assisted in making a civil claim for damages against the sum that has been awarded to the prisoner. Victims will not even have to fill out the forms themselves. They can have an advocate, a counsellor, or a support person do that for them. This bill is about supporting victims and reducing or eliminating any trauma that they may be suffering, because goodness knows they have suffered enough already. This legislation strikes a far better balance in favour of victims than the law that National left in place. I will not mention Mr Alexander’s behaviour, because I do not think that behaviour is true of other United Future members. His behaviour today has just been odd—that is the most generous word I can use. But as I observed what has gone on from the salivating few members on the National benches, I saw a sign of guilt because National had had 9 long years to do something about this issue and did nothing. Actions speak louder than words, and this Government, with the support of the Greens, has taken positive action to support victims.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I apologise for disturbing the flow of the debate, but during my speech I suggested that Peter Brown had misunderstood the bill because he had been poorly advised by Mr Jones. Mr Jones has informed me that Peter Brown specifically said that he had not been advised by Mr Jones. I have not checked Hansard, but I take the member’s word for it. I simply want to apologise.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I thank the member.

I have to say that this PC nonsense that has come out of the Government speakers today demonstrates that this Government has completely and utterly lost the plot. I will take great delight in getting on a platform and debating this bill with Government members anywhere, any time, right around the country. It is an absolute no-brainer. The country simply does not want this legislation. The people of New Zealand want to see justice done, and they simply do not want it dealt with in this guise. They do not want lowlifes getting compensation because their feelings were hurt when they were languishing somewhere in prison.

Let us be absolutely clear: some of those prisoners are amongst some of the worst in the prison regime right at the moment. The people of New Zealand do not want this sort of society. They actually want common sense to apply. Sam Te Hei murdered a young woman in the most brutal manner imaginable, yet he got compensation. What could I tell the mother of the victim—

Edwin Perry: Mrs Hawkins.

BRIAN CONNELL: I thank the member for the name. What could I tell Mrs Hawkins when she asked me what her daughter’s rights were? “What about the human rights of my little girl?”, she beseeched me. So that members are clear, I tell them that this animal beat this girl so badly that her own mother could not recognise her. Yet this Government wants criminals such as Te Hei to get compensation because the lights were left on once too often in their prison cell.

What do I tell the son of the Sanson hotel owner who had his throat slit from ear to ear by a vicious thug? “What about his human rights?”, he asked me. It is a difficult thing when one comes to the reality of it all—when one has to sit across the table from the victims of crime, and they ask those sorts of questions. The same thug blamed the son for the murder, and the son incurred $5,000 in legal fees just to clear his name. The police did not think he was guilty, but he simply had to clear his name, as anyone else would have done. Did he get compensation? I will let that question hang there.

I can now tell Mrs Hawkins and the son of the Sanson hotel owner that the Government now says that they can sue those vicious criminals for compensation. That is right. To get any justice now by way of compensation, the victims must now incur a financial cost, by way of legal expenses, to engage with the very criminals who caused them so much harm in the past. They are now expected to sit across the table from these vicious thugs and engage with them, once again. Their pain and hurt go on and on.

That is why I will enjoy getting on a public platform and saying that this is a Government that prefers that type of justice, rather than ensuring that these criminals get nothing. The victims’ nightmare will continue on and on. Instead of saying that vicious criminals and rapists will not get compensation—which would have been the right thing to do—the Government has now legislated a convoluted process whereby criminals can profit and victims can go fly a kite.

By way of mitigation, the Associate Minister of Justice told the House that the legislation extends the period of limitations for victims, so that if, for example, one of these vicious thugs decided to write a book, it is successful, and he or she gets a windfall, the victims could sue. That really beggars belief. Can members imagine the high interest in a book entitled Ten Brutal Ways to Kill and Rape Innocent Women? That would be a real winner, would it not? Victims of crime will be lining up to sue those types of individuals! Not only can the criminals probably not read and write, but even if they were smart enough to write a book, does the Minister think they would not create some form of trust or company structure to defeat their victims who might want to bring a claim against them?

This bill presupposes that criminals will have a regard for the law, in the first place. Money from vicious criminals? As the Tui advertisement says: Yeah, right!. We are not unreasonable people. All members of the Opposition have argued that prisoners should not be mistreated in prison, but we say that we should fix the problem and not just treat the symptom. If prison officials are acting unlawfully, they should be dealt to. But let us be clear: most of the infractions that these prison officers have supposedly committed have been minor. For example, a window was left open for an extra half-hour in winter, lights were left on for just a little bit too long, or someone did not get to read a letter that had nothing to do with that person in the first place—it was private correspondence, anyway. That is the sort of thing we are talking about.

In terms of our prison models, we had a perfectly good working model in the private prison in Auckland. No prisoner complaints came out of that prison, but the ideology of the Labour Government put the prison back into State management. More precisely, the Government put it back into the Public Service Association’s management. That is right. In order to keep jobs for its union mates, it closed down a perfectly good, working model. Prisoner abuse was not happening under that private prison model; it was happening—

Marc Alexander: The Greens supported that.

BRIAN CONNELL: Oh no, the Greens would not support that, because they came to the House last night and said this bill was bad law. They said this bill was bad, so surely they would not have voted for that closure. No, they would not do that; I am sure the member has got that wrong.

Prisoner abuse was not happening under the private prison system; it was happening under the State system. Now we have a Clayton’s bill that supposedly enables victims to get justice from vicious criminals. In the final analysis—[Interruption] Jill Pettis is screeching like a hyena, as is her wont—the sophisticated member from Whanganui. She might think that this is a light moment, but I do not. This is a very serious issue, and she would do very well to keep her smart alec mouth closed, and listen and learn. In the final analysis, victims do not want compensation from these thugs. They actually do not want anything to do with them, at all. They have already lived the nightmare once; they do not want to live it again. Is it unreasonable that victims do not want anything to do with those criminals? Would reasonable people want that contact? So why does this Government not want to help victims? It is simply a disgrace.

The Associate Minister claims that we are bound by a UN convention. Other members have responded to his claim, so I will not go into it again, other than to say I think it is a load of bollocks. I simply ask him and the members of the Labour Government: what about the conventions that one does not murder and one does not rape. Why cannot those conventions be more important to Labour members? I conclude by saying that if the Associate Minister cared more for fellow Kiwis and less for UN conventions, then New Zealand would be a better place for it.

There is nothing like law and order legislation for bringing out the worst in some Opposition members of Parliament. Over the last day and a half we have seen it, in a mixture of total exaggeration, melodramatic theatrics, and complete misrepresentation of what the Government is trying to propose here. I am not shocked by that, because it happens every single time, and—surprise, surprise—it is the same members of Parliament from the same Opposition parties who seem to do it all the time. I see Mr Franks volunteering. I was not going to mention him, because anyone who has ever followed anything he has had to say will know that the member from the “Freedom Party”, as he likes it to be known, wants to make sure that things are tough for absolutely everybody.

Let us be very clear what this bill does. We had a law on the books under the previous National Government—I do not want to be political about it, but the National Party in office brought in the legislation—that resulted in the Baigent case, where the prisoner got to keep 100 percent of all the cash that was paid out. That is fine; that is the state of play as it was. That law was effective for most of the 1990s, when National was in office. I see Dr Wayne Mapp over there, who was a member of that Government. He went into that National Government and said nothing to reflect the absolutely huge moral outrage we have heard about for the last day and a half. But that is Wayne Mapp, the member for North Shore; he says one thing when in Opposition and does absolutely nothing about it when in Government.

So Labour inherited that situation, but we asked what would happen in a case of someone who has offended against a victim, but who has been rightly punished by society. The person has been to a court and received a punishment, but the judge has not been able to order the person to pay any reparation, because the person has no money. Of course, if offenders do have money, as part of the sentence they are ordered to pay some money to victims. Often, as we know, people who commit violent crimes do not have much money, so the judge cannot make them hand any over.

We come to the offender who has done a wrong and terrible thing against a victim. Nobody in any political party supports that, but members can read out every crime they have ever heard of and make it sound as if only their party is upset about them. We are all upset about violent crime. Let us get the nonsense out of this debate in that regard. Labour was upset about it to the extent that we have improved the sentencing laws, and we are putting people away for longer.

But once offenders are in prison, if the State then turns around and mistreats people in the very ways we have said that offenders did wrong, which put them in jail in the first place—that is, we say as a society: “Please don’t commit violent crime. If you do, we will lock you up.”, and then the State says: “Once we’ve got you incarcerated, we’ll treat you violently and badly, and that will somehow make sure you don’t reoffend. We all disapprove of the reoffending rate.”—then the State, of course, has to be held accountable for the way officers of the State are treating people.

Now, that is not to say that all of a sudden we are not on the side of the victim. But we are saying that we should be spending all our resources in trying to stop the people who have been put away from reoffending once they get out. Members have got up for the last day and a half in this House and said we should treat those people terribly, because here are terrible cases they have heard about and we should make people even worse, once they leave prison. That is what they are saying: lock them up, throw away the key, treat people badly. That does not work. Two-thirds of people are reoffending—we have to do better than that.

If a case comes to court and it is proven that the State mistreated people in prison, and if those people are awarded money, the Government is saying that the money should not stay with the offender. The first people who should have the call on that ought to be the victims—the people who at sentencing missed out because the prisoners we are talking about had no cash at the time. Where prisoners have had a windfall gain, this legislation actually gives victims the opportunity to benefit from it. This is pro-victim legislation.

Stephen Franks: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave for the member to have an extension of time. He plainly has too much to get through.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): That is not a point of order. The member has no right to ask for an extension for someone else. The person seeks it on his or her own accord.

DARREN HUGHES: That reinforces the very point about the way Opposition members behave on law and order issues. In that regard, it brings out the juvenile in even the most ageing middle-aged men on that side of the House.

The Opposition was worried that victims would have to “relive their crime” in order to get the money. Not having read the bill, they did not realise that a District Court judge, sitting as a victims’ special claims tribunal, will be able to decide the case using papers. The victim does not have to prove again that the crime occurred. As the member for Whanganui said, the victims can use an advocate in order to make sure that he or she gets access to the money.

Once again we have gone through a process in the House whereby we have totally distorted the issue, because we all like to pretend that we are the toughest, roughest, meanest, and baddest on dealing with law and order issues, rather than looked at what this bill does. It is a process bill that tries to make sure that people who have done wrong do not get to benefit from doing that wrong, and that people who have been victims, having missed out in the first place, then get the chance to get some of that money if it is paid out in that way.

I support the bill for that reason, not for the ridiculously exaggerated reasons that Dr Mapp, Brian Connell, Stephen Franks, Dail Jones, and Ron Mark—all the usual cast of characters—have gone through. It is a process bill—but then, National would oppose that, having talked its way out of process and missed a question time. What a hopeless, lazy, useless Opposition!