Genter Julie Anne: Bail Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Genter Julie Anne: Bail Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 10 May 2012. Volume:679;Page:2196. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green) 
: 
Tena koe Mr Speaker. In rising to speak on the first reading of the Bail Amendment Bill I must first say that it is really quite unacceptable to have so little notice of a bill before its first reading. This bill was introduced this very week and we are already voting on its first reading. Occasionally there may be a need to introduce legislation urgently but it is difficult to see what reasoning is behind the rush in this particular instance. Even when an emergency calls for urgent legislation it is never really good practice. It does not lead to robust lawmaking when members of Parliament do not have sufficient time to consider a bill. I acknowledge that it will be going to the Law and Order Committee where it will be scrutinised and we are very very happy that that process is not going to be shortened by urgency as so often happened in the first term of this Government. But in principle the Green Party cannot support a bill going to select committee when we have had only a few days to consider the bill particularly when it has such a serious proposal as the reversal of burden of proof.  
The Green Party strongly believes in reducing potential risks to public safety. We absolutely want a safe Aotearoa for all New Zealanders where all New Zealanders can benefit from the ability to feel safe in their community. And there is we acknowledge a serious problem with violent or serious offences being committed by offenders while on bail. We do not deny this. The number of offenders committing offences while on bail has slightly increased in previous years and that is cause for some concern—there is no question—but it is still a minority. The vast majority of accused people released on bail do not offend while on bail.  
The Government has stated that it believes that this bill strikes a balance—we hear that a lot “balance”—between public safety on the one hand and protecting the rights of all persons to be presumed innocent and not be arbitrarily detained. But it is extremely concerning that the Government even thinks it is possible to strike a balance while reversing the burden of proof. Reversing the burden of proof is in fact trading off a fundamental human right of persons to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. The Green Party has opposed and will continue to oppose moves to expand the reversal of the burden of proof because it is a denial of this fundamental right which is the cornerstone of our democracy. It protects citizens against the power of the State and the abuse of the power of the State.  
I must question what Mr Mitchell said just a moment ago. We absolutely acknowledge that there was a horrific crime committed and we do not want to see that repeated. But I fail to see how reversing the burden of proof in relation to bail would prevent or preclude further such crimes from happening. There are serious underlying issues here some of which are about how women and children are treated in the family in this country. These are really serious issues and I just do not think that reversing the burden of proof in relation to bail is either necessary or sufficient to stop such a crime from happening. What we are very interested in is finding ways to prevent dangerous reoffending that will actually work and that will not trade off fundamental human rights and continue the erosion of our democracy. And there are alternatives. We believe that there are alternatives and that there can be a better system to ensure that the judiciary has the information and powers it needs to make the right decisions.  
The Green Party believes that a review of serious crimes occurring while people are on bail needs to take place. We believe there needs to be a tightening of the parameters on the granting of bail by the judiciary based on a mechanism to continuously review bail decisions and risk indicators so we can learn from our mistakes and we can prevent those mistakes. It is by learning from those mistakes that we can prevent them in the future. We believe in empowering the judiciary with the right information to make the right decisions.  
We have some other concerns about this bill not the least of which is that in the regulatory impact statement I note that the decision about which crime types will be subject to this reversal of the burden of proof has been made based not on considerations of public safety but on a comparison of the monetary cost of crimes and the fiscal cost to corrections. We believe that the safety of the community and of individual victims and their families should be paramount not fiscal considerations. For these reasons we do not support the bill at this time but we do look forward to the scrutiny of this bill at the select committee and we look forward to identifying mechanisms that will actually make New Zealanders safer. Thank you.