Goff Phil: Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Continuation and Reform) Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGoff Phil: Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Continuation and Reform) Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 05 June 2013. Volume:690;Page:10769. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill): I regret to say that the last speaker Kate Wilkinson was wrong about this bill the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Continuation and Reform) Amendment Bill doing a whole lot more for victims. This bill had the opportunity to do a whole lot more for victims but it is an opportunity lost.Hon Kate Wilkinson: Why didn’t you do it then?Hon PHIL GOFF: Why did we not do it? I will tell the member why we did not do it. All of the major victim legislation was brought in by a Labour Government. I brought in this particular piece of legislation the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Act but I brought it in to deal with a narrow range of offenders who happened to get caught up in the behaviour management regime in prison—Hon Michael Woodhouse: Also under Labour.Hon PHIL GOFF: —and were treated unlawfully according to our own law. The behaviour management regime was a National Government invention unfortunately. It took us a couple of years to catch up with the fact that it was doing badly. The New Zealand Government was acting unlawfully which brought the inmates in line for compensation.I happen to know that the people who were in the behaviour management regime were not particularly nice people. I looked at the range of offences they had committed and they were horrendous offences. Damaged scarred individuals injured people hurt people—offenders who never showed remorse and never did anything to put things right. So when I looked at theTaunoa case which was going to be expanded under a class action effort by a lawyer who I thought was more interested in gold-digging than in seeing justice done I said that this was not good enough.Hon Christopher Finlayson: Mai Chen.Hon PHIL GOFF: What this legislation—no it was not. But she will be glad to know Mr Finlayson that you have accused her of that and when she reads theHansard she will now read your comments so it is good to have got you on the record.What the bill that I introduced did first of all was say that compensation should be paid only when there is no better way of righting the wrong than monetary compensation. It required a whole range of things that should be looked at to put things right for the inmates. Then it said that if it is good enough for the inmate to be compensated for wrongful action against him why is it not good enough for that money that the inmate gets to then be available to the victim—to the person whom that inmate wronged—so we could see some restorative justice done? And I stand by that. That was the sensible thing to do at the time.What I say about this legislation now however is that it deals with a very narrow group of inmates and this is where I want to come back to Kate Wilkinson’s comments. It deals with only a very narrow range of inmates—a handful of people probably. It has given probably $40000 to $50000 back to victims but that is peanuts in the wider scheme of things.I thought to myself at the time that I wanted to see how this legislation worked so I put a sunset clause in so that after a period of I think 4 years or 5 years this legislation would come to an end and the Government if it wanted to keep it would have to renew it or would have to look at reforming it. The idea of the review was that the Government would take seriously the prospect of people who are in prisons who have wronged their victims being required to give more back to the victims by way of reparations and not simply the narrow group of offenders who were wronged through the behaviour modification regime. Why should a person in that situation pay money back to the victims but not an inmate who won Lotto? Suddenly they have got a lot of money they are rich and the person whom they have harmed is still suffering from their actions. What about the crooks who write about their criminal experiences? They write books in prison and make money out of it. What about the person who inherits a whole lot of money? They did not have money at the time that they were convicted. They did not give a cent back to their victims. Nothing was done. What about people who come into money who are suddenly able if they choose—and too often they do not choose—to putthings right for their victim? What I thought this legislation might have done is have a proper review and have a look at the options.There is one group of offenders that particularly made me angry. We are seeing more of them at the moment than we have ever seen before and these are the white-collar offenders. They do not simply go and burgle somebody’s place—that is bad enough—they rip off money in hundreds of millions of dollars. They have resources. They have skills. They have assets. They never give back to the victims because they have enough skill to know that they can protect their assets in trusts. These crooks whom we lock up for 2 or 3 years because they have ripped off people—they have taken their life-savings—come out of prison go back to driving the flash car go back to living in the big house and go back to the international holidays and all the while the people whom they ripped off who have lost their life-savings end their lives in penury. I say that is wrong and there must a better way of dealing with that. This review would have had the chance to have a look at it.When the legislation ran out of time with the sunset clause the Minister Judith Collins promised the Opposition that she would involve the Opposition in discussions on a review of that legislation to see whether we could put something better in place for victims. She dishonoured that promise. She broke her word and she came back into the House with the same legislation having wasted 2 years without any review at all. I think it is time that a National member got to his or her feet and explained why the Government did not take up the opportunity to do the review and why it did not honour the promise that it made to the Opposition that such a review would take place.There is a myriad of ideas that you can explore when you are in Government. I believe very firmly in restorative justice. The best thing that can happen when a person commits a criminal offence against another person is for that person to put things right for the victim in so far as that is possible. The concept of restorative justice is the purest form of justice. So why did this Government not look at some of the restorative justice schemes that were operating overseas? I introduced schemes on restorative justice. I am proud of them. They could have been expanded.Why did the Government not look at how you get behind the trusts that protect the wealthy white-collar offenders and why did it never require them to pay money to the people whom they have wronged? That was an opportunity. Why did the Government not take it up? Why did the Government not look at the concept where when a person goes to prison they have got no income they have got no ability to repay to the victim but when they come out and they resume work again it is a clean slate? Why do they at that point owe nothing to the victim whom they have wronged? That is a concept Chris Finlayson that the Government could have examined could have looked at—Hon Christopher Finlayson: Useless Minister of Justice. You had 6 years.Hon PHIL GOFF: We had the best legislation that this House has ever seen in justice when I was Minister of Justice Mr Finlayson and you know that. That is the truth. You had real legislation. If the Government has time to pass rubbish justice bills that are about rhetoric and not about doing anything that makes a real difference it should have used its time on this bill to come up with some innovative ideas about how to look after victims and how to put in place a system of restorative justice.Hon Christopher Finlayson: Try to give something other than a vain—Hon PHIL GOFF: This Attorney-General who is meant to protect the rights of New Zealanders brings a bill into the House that takes away court-given rights for families looking after seriously disabled adults—steals their rights—and breaches the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act which he is sworn to protect and he comes in and tries to tell this side of the House what justice is about. That is the greatest injustice MrFinlayson that I have seen from any Government—robbing permanently disabled adult disabled people and you Mr Finlayson are responsible for that.What I want to say is that this legislation gets support from the Opposition only because it was better than nothing—only because it was better than nothing. It will still help in some cases where offenders come into money because they have been wronged by the actions of the State and that gives the victim claim on that money. But I want to repeat what I said in 2005 because they still believe it: “Most people believe that it is wrong that offenders should be compensated for wrongful treatment but in turn are not required to pay restitution to the victims they harmed.” I said that in 2005. I stand by that but what I want to repeat to Mr Finlayson because he is partly responsible for this is that this was a lost opportunity—an opportunity where the Government could stop mouthing meaningless rhetoric about helping victims and actually do something to turn that into a reality. That was the lost opportunity that was the broken promise and that is what this National Government stands condemned for.