Turei Metiria: Sentencing (Offender Levy) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Turei Metiria: Sentencing (Offender Levy) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 I am not intending to spend a great deal of time on the Sentencing (Offender Levy) Amendment Bill. It has been an interesting day I have to say. 
Hon Member 
: Don’t be like that! 
METIRIA TUREI 
: Well it has—the member has to confess. It has been interesting. 
The Green Party fully supports any kind of system that will provide greater support for victims. My colleague Nandor Tanczos was lauded for his work in initiating the inquiry into victims’ rights that took place I think in the Justice and Electoral Committee over a long period of time and a great number of recommendations came out of that work. 
This bill is not a real response to those concerns. It is an election promise and it sounds good—a $50 levy on all offenders. It is a great thing to go out and campaign on if that is the sort of thing that tweaks one’s buttons. But in terms of policy and effectiveness in achieving the objectives and the outcomes particularly those that are set out in the bill itself it fails and on that basis the Green Party will not support it at this first reading. 
We are very pleased that there will be at least a select committee process and we look forward to hearing what submitters say at that time in addressing a number of issues and I will discuss some of those issues in a moment. We may well decide that the bill will be effective in dealing with some of these concerns and change our view on it but at this stage there is really not enough in it to justify supporting it at this point. That is particularly true when we look at the background in the explanatory note where it talks about the bill being “an initial response to the Government’s concerns about how our society should respond to the financial and emotional costs that fall on victims of crime particularly victims of serious crimes such as murder sexual violation and grievous assault. Underpinning the Government’s concern is that failing to recognise and acknowledge the interests of victims in the justice process or failing to address the negative impact of crime on victims risks eroding victims’ confidence in the justice sector’s ability to deal effectively with crime.” That is an entirely laudable position to take; this bill fails to meet those concerns. 
I agree with many of the issues that have been raised by the Labour members and I appreciate Jacinda Ardern’s very clear elucidation of those. How will imposing a $50 levy on every offender meet these objectives? The cost recovery alone will eat up the levy. In fact the Government itself confesses that the administration of the levy will eat up those funds for a very long period of time before they become available to victims. So it is just a self-perpetuating tax of no advantage to victims except at some long time in the future that has failed to be determined yet. Victims will not be getting access to this money any time soon and the cost recovery will be enormously expensive. 
The $50 will go to the Government as was just described so there is a real issue there. It will not go to the victims anyway. It will go into Government coffers and the Government will fund programmes to support victims who need to have access to court or it will give support in other ways. Hopefully at the select committee we will see how that will happen and what kinds of costs for victims will be funded through this levy. 
I acknowledge that Kim Workman from the Rethinking Crime and Punishment project has expressed a great deal of support for this levy. He has talked about it as a way of finding the funds to meet the costs of restorative justice conferences—not the conferences themselves but victims’ access to those conferences—and to help victims access and visit the offenders who committed the crimes against them so that they can engage in some of these more constructive processes. That money is not really available to victims at this stage. Money being made available would be very useful. Unfortunately because the administration of the levy will cost so much this money will not be made available to those victims for a very long period of time. The concept works; the practicalities do not. 
Indeed it is very much the Green Party policy that supporting restorative justice has to be the No. 1 priority for dealing with the issues of victims and the issues of offenders in trying to reduce reoffending rates. There are many different kinds of restorative justice processes. There is not just the restorative justice conference where an offender is brought together with his or her victim to try to resolve some issues. There is a confrontation. It is one form—a very intense form—of restorative justice but it is not the only way we can have restorative justice programmes. There are things like the Sycamore Project where a group of offenders and a different group of victims are brought together. That is extremely helpful because it enables those offenders and victims to talk about their experiences without having any personal relationship between them. 
There have been lots of really good examples of offenders actually—who are the ones who need to change their behaviour and their attitude—saying that if they had had to confront their own victim they would not have been able to make the progress they did because they would have been so defensive and angry that they would have just closed themselves off. Being able to talk with other victims who have allowed their stories to be part of those programmes enables offenders to address those issues in a safer environment for them and there is also opportunity for the victims to do exactly that—to confront issues of offending in a safer environment for them. There are other ways of dealing with offender issues too where victims can be part of those processes. Sometimes they involve Maori units in prisons or faith-based units in prisons where there is a connection between the community and the offender. 
These are very good programmes and all of them need support. The victims who are part of those programmes need practical support to get access to those programmes to get information about them to get transport and all of those sorts of things. This levy will not provide those things because it will not be made available to them. It will be eaten up by administration until some distant time in the future. 
At the select committee we will look for information about who actually will pay this levy. There are real issues around structural racism in the legal system. We do know that Maori are more likely to be stopped by the police—I have described that before in the House—more likely to be arrested by the police and more likely to be convicted than other population groups. That is a form of structural racism against the Maori population and particularly against Maori men. If a levy like this is imposed on them it will have a particular impact on that population group because of the structural racism inherent in the system. 
So who will pay this levy the most? We need to find out that information as well. What is the cost-benefit analysis of this levy in terms of cost recovery? How will it be recovered? Will it really come out before fines? What will be the difference? Will it not just be considered by an offender to be another part of the fine? To what extent will an offender be learning from having to pay this levy? Will it really make a difference to the offender’s attitude as opposed to paying reparation which often does? How will resources for restorative justice programmes and support for victims involved in those processes be funded out of this levy? Again looking at the victims inquiry and the recommendations that came out of that very big body of work we need to see whether this bill meets those objectives and whether it will take them any further. 
The Greens will remain open-minded during the select committee process on this legislation. We want to see real victim-centred policy that will provide systems for victims to have their issues redressed as far as possible economically socially and personally. That is why we support restorative justice as we do. We know that those programmes also reduce reoffending and make the community safer. So we will be very open-minded about what happens in the select committee but until we see evidence that something that is really just an election campaign promise can actually produce the results intended by the bill we are very reluctant to support this legislation. Thank you.