Mapp Wayne: Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Bill — Second Reading 
Mapp Wayne: Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:614;Page:10350] 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 The essence of this bill is actually summarised by clause 11 which has already been read out. But it is such an important clause I will read it out again. Subclause (2) of that clause states: “An eligible individual may answer a question asked of him or her about his or her criminal record by stating that he or she has no criminal record.” How many criminals because that is whom we are talking about will thoroughly research this law find precisely the circumstances in which they are permitted to give a State-sanctioned lie— 
Stephen Franks 
: The most wicked ones will! 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: The most wicked ones will do the research. But other people will just say that they know Parliament has passed a law that enables them to lie and when asked the question they will just say that they have no criminal record. Will the employer be able to easily do anything about that? The answer is no. 
Far from the 500000 or 600000 people who will potentially be affected by this bill in reality one will see a much larger group of people all saying they do not have criminal convictions. We will now see a whole group of people with serious criminal convictions saying they do not have them. That is what will happen and employers—because those are the people who will be mostly asking that question—will find they are employing serious criminals who have lied. They will have lied in breach of the legislation that enables them to lie which is an absurdity in its own right. 
Stephen Franks 
: Labour thinks it is funny. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: Yes Labour members think it is funny that once one gets on to the slippery slope one starts to encourage all kinds of lies. And is that good? 
I want to turn to a point raised by my colleague Mr Richard Worth because it really shows how shallow this bill is. Mr Worth has pointed out that records can in fact be kept: private records based on newspapers and so forth. What could well happen is that particularly lawyers and other employers who are seriously concerned about the honesty of their employees—which actually is common—will go and ask private organisations to tell them the real story as to whether a person has convictions. Those records will be legally kept. The bill permits that and the people who ask private organisations will get the honest truth—not a State-sanctioned lie but the honest truth as to whether a person was a criminal. 
As has been pointed out by other speakers it is not as though we are just talking about youthful indiscretions. We are talking about a much bigger class of offences than that. As everyone knows people have to commit numerous burglaries or assaults before they go to jail. How many pub fights result in jail sentences? The reality is that almost no pub fights result in jail sentences. There are people who habitually get into fisticuffs down at the local pub on a regular kind of basis and they will not have had a custodial sentence. They may be serving periodic detention but periodic detention is not considered to be a custodial sentence for the purposes of this bill. Quite serious offences and successions of them will be covered by this bill. 
I am on record—and I will admit this—as having supported the principle of a clean slate. When I heard Mr Nandor Tanczos speak on this issue when he introduced his member’s bill he talked about a youthful indiscretion: the one-off offence that is committed at 18 or something like that. He talked about minor things: the person who smokes perhaps one cannabis cigarette and gets a $50 fine. But this bill goes much further than that. If the Government was serious and was concerned about people’s youthful indiscretions it could have drafted a bill to cover that kind of thing. Again Mr Worth has pointed out that there is a substantial case to be made to cover something that is genuinely a youthful indiscretion—the one-off offence that is of no real consequence many years later down the track. However the Government did not take that option. Even Mr Nandor Tanczos—although admittedly his bill went much further than that but nevertheless his speech in the House did not—confined his remarks to the youthful indiscretion and said that we ought to have legislation to cover that. 
National is on record as stating and it noted this again in the minority report of the Justice and Electoral Committee that there is a case for legislation to contain provision for true clean slate applications to be made to the court with regard to individual cases. A narrow approach could have been adopted—one that might have actually got some sort of broad consent across the Parliament. However we now have a habit by this minority socialist Government of insisting on passing everything it can by the narrowest of majorities. That practice has become so severe that on major constitutional issues like the Supreme Court the Government is quite happy to pass legislation with a margin of 63 votes to 57. That kind of approach is the sort of thing that brings the parliamentary process into disrepute. The public did not vote for MMP in order to have minority socialist Governments ramming through legislation without any reasonable attempt to try to acquire a wider level of support for it. For instance the Government could have done so on the Supreme Court legislation with regard to issues about overseas judges and the appointment of judges. Those issues could all have been dealt with and at least a reasonable attempt made to reach across to the Opposition side of the House and draft legislation that would have a degree of consensus. 
Has the Government tried to do that on this bill? No it has not. Once again the Government is to pass that kind of bill with the narrowest of majorities. That then forces members on the Opposition side of the House to consider the option that when we are in office we should review this legislation and reduce it back to the narrow scope that people are actually concerned about which is youthful indiscretions. That is the sort of thing that the public wanted to see when MMP was being voted for and they are not getting it. They are getting a habitual pattern by the Government of ramming through controversial legislation on the narrowest of majorities. Enduring legislation is not built on that basis. Surely it is one of the responsibilities of this Parliament and is incumbent upon Governments with regard to this kind of legislation to do precisely that. 
I conclude on this point. We in this House are all aware that some legislation tends to go to and fro depending on who is in Government. Clearly employment legislation is in that category. However a lot of criminal law has to endure over time. One cannot fool around with that every few years. Therefore it is incumbent on Governments to take a wider view. However this minority Government consistently fails to do that. We then get legislation like this being served up which is highly controversial goes way beyond the original intent of the framers and brings the whole proposition into discredit. That is one of the reasons why we will be voting against this legislation. We object to the whole way that this Government operates.