Turei Metiria: Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTurei Metiria: Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 17 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8076. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): Continuing on with the theme in relation to the purpose of this bill and also the discussion in relation to rehabilitation I just want to notefor the information of those who are listening to and watching this debate that there were a number of options that the Government had. There were four in the main that had at various levels greater or lesser rehabilitative support. I just want to identify the decision making that the Government went through and some criticisms that I have of it.In the regulatory impact statement that comes with the bill there is a clear description of the objectives of this legislation which largely go to the purpose of protecting the public from reoffending and providing greater support for the reintegration of returning offenders. It talks in this official document about there being a strong link between those two objectives. Improving public safety is very strongly linked to providing rehabilitation for returning offenders so that they have optionsother than offending to live a good life.It talks about how vital it is to recognise that returning offenders are potentially vulnerable. They are a vulnerable cohort whether as a result of age their socio-economic background or their lack of social connections on returning to New Zealand. These all increase the risk of their reoffending if they are not supported. Core to reducing reoffending and therefore risk to public safety is making sure there is a great deal of support wrapped around those people who come to New Zealand from Australia under the deportation regime.There are four options that were considered by our Government. One was an enhanced support service—more like a refugee resettlement service if you like—a wraparound service around the returnees would look at all of their different needs over a period of time of 6 weeks to 2 months. It would be looking at where they were going to live how they were going to get work what kind of training they would need—all of those things to help them reintegrate. Option 2 was a register a bit like the child sex offender register that we have operating here. Options 3 and 4 were mandatory supervision and discretionary supervision. This bill is a mix of options 3 and 4.So the bill is a mix of options 3 and 4. But in this table which people can get access to if they want to have a look at the papers it is very clear that the enhanced support service has the best support for reintegration and therefore to help reduce the risk to public safety. It is the best option in terms of maintaining the human rights of returning offenders making sure that their dignity is upheld and therefore our dignity is upheld. The best option in terms of cost-effectiveness—certainly the cheapest of the options—was to have this wraparound support service. This official document gives it a low score for public safety which actually goes against what the whole paper is arguing—that the best support and wraparound services for these people improve public safety. I am not quite sure how they got there.Then it goes on to talk about the effectiveness of enhanced support services—which are very cost effective—and that there are existing programmes both the refugee resettlement programme and the corrections-funded Out of Gate programme that already exist as models to use. So they did not have to reinvent a new system; there is actually one already in place that could be remodelled to fit the needs of these particular offenders. The cost is about $2000 a person—compared with the existing system—as set out in the bill. We are talking around $4 million a year I think if I have got that right from the papers. Enhanced support services cost less than $2 million—about $1.5 million a year—so they are very cost effective. This is the kind of thing that we need to have alongside either a beefed-up or existing regime. In fact that is what the regulatory impact statement also says. It says that all the options except for this support system require legislation and that the enhanced support services could be easily run alongside any other regime we have.And this is one of the arguments that have been made. If the Minister had engaged with members of the Opposition and with experts outside of the ministries—those who are involved in the reintegration of prisoners or who have been involved in supporting ex-prisoners and reintegrating them back into the community—I think they would have got better advice about how to mould a better policy that properly addresses both the risk to public safety and the connection with the need to reintegrate.But they did not ask and so there is a gap in the policy framework that does not properly meld the best practice that we know. We know that the more support for reintegration and rehabilitation the less likely people are to reoffend. That has to be your first step in developing the policy for these returning offenders. Then from there you start to ramp up if you think that there is a need for more supervision like we might see with those with very serious convictions or very recent convictions. But the starting point is missing and so we are not going to get the levels of public protection that we could and should have because we do not have the enhanced support services that even the public officials know will work to reduce the risk to the public.It goes to the purpose of the bill which is too narrow and too constrained to really deal with the overall objective of the legislation. It goes to the failure of the Minister’s office to really work with others who are specialists in this area to get the best policy advice. As a result we have a bill hastily drafted that will probably fail in its effect.